Meet the Participants
You can find more pictures like this here here:
http://mahdia2004wk1.buzznet.com/
The portal for this blog, including my family trip around Tunisia after the workshops, is here:
http://mahdi2004.buzznet.com/
And you can find links to all the pages we created during these workshops here:
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/tunisia2004/mahdia.htm
I'm often asked how I got my training, and the answer is, like most other colleagues I know, I trained myself through using the tools available. The 'tools' are changing all the time, so using the tools to work online with others who are using the same tools is THE WAY you keep up with what the tools are, and practice using them.
I hope I got across to participants in my workshops that there are NO STEPS really (that you can count on being able to follow, say, a year from now). There is only exposure to the tools and then getting started on the road to becoming familiar with the ones that seem most useful to you. This is how you get your training.
I also feel from working with these groups of educators that they are highly trained and dedicated professionals who are familiar with the latest constructivist approaches to learning (these are the approaches I feel work best with technology).
My message to all in a similar circumstance is, you know how to teach, tutor, and assess your students. What you need to know now is how to do that efficiently using the tools that are available. I felt that what I could do is introduce, explain, demonstrate, and encourage these participants to create modest projects using some of the most useful of the freely available tools. I believe that good craftspersons, professionals who know their craft and how to perform it, will know what to do with a tool once they have learned what the tool is for and how to use it.
That's the connection that teachers need to make right now (and one purpose of the group community forums we left in place, or webheads, or the one on blogging, is to discuss among colleagues what the tools are, how to use them, and how to make those connections).
URLs for these two communities:
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/esl_efl_blogs/
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evonline2002_webheads/
http://mahdia2004wk1.buzznet.com/
The portal for this blog, including my family trip around Tunisia after the workshops, is here:
http://mahdi2004.buzznet.com/
And you can find links to all the pages we created during these workshops here:
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/tunisia2004/mahdia.htm
I'm often asked how I got my training, and the answer is, like most other colleagues I know, I trained myself through using the tools available. The 'tools' are changing all the time, so using the tools to work online with others who are using the same tools is THE WAY you keep up with what the tools are, and practice using them.
I hope I got across to participants in my workshops that there are NO STEPS really (that you can count on being able to follow, say, a year from now). There is only exposure to the tools and then getting started on the road to becoming familiar with the ones that seem most useful to you. This is how you get your training.
I also feel from working with these groups of educators that they are highly trained and dedicated professionals who are familiar with the latest constructivist approaches to learning (these are the approaches I feel work best with technology).
My message to all in a similar circumstance is, you know how to teach, tutor, and assess your students. What you need to know now is how to do that efficiently using the tools that are available. I felt that what I could do is introduce, explain, demonstrate, and encourage these participants to create modest projects using some of the most useful of the freely available tools. I believe that good craftspersons, professionals who know their craft and how to perform it, will know what to do with a tool once they have learned what the tool is for and how to use it.
That's the connection that teachers need to make right now (and one purpose of the group community forums we left in place, or webheads, or the one on blogging, is to discuss among colleagues what the tools are, how to use them, and how to make those connections).
URLs for these two communities:
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/esl_efl_blogs/
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evonline2002_webheads/
