Digital Skills for Early Teacher Courses

www.celt.edu.gr info@celt.edu.gr

New Tech
Good morning – afternoon – evening!
Type some new technologies in the text chat please!!!

Every old tech was new tech
Remember these? Too young to remember all? 

Reading 1
How many of these do your early course trainees know already?

•Text processing
•Searching
•Using images
•Presentations
•Handouts – text
editing
•Interactive
whiteboard
•Data projector
•Searching the
web
•Searching a
resource website
•Books – scanning
- adapting
•Presentations
•Handouts – text
editing
•Interactive
whiteboard
•Data projector
•Audio - video
input preparation
assignmentsteaching
Tech on an early teacher course

For teaching

From the World Economic Forum

Why should early course trainees bother with tech?
•Creativity
•Critical thinking
•Reflection
•Teacher Talk
•Student talk and participation
•Model good digital
behaviours
•Continuous Professional
Development
• To design new or adapt existing materials
• to avoid replicating PPP or other tenets without
thinking
• To look back (on lessons taught) and forward (on
future lessons)
• To reduce unnecessary teacher talk
• To maximise student talk and participation
• Model good digital behaviours
• To show things that the trainees can make use of
in their own classes
• to connect and learn with and from other
teachers

And in the long run, to…

Create your own PLN
Image Source http://olecommunity.com/the-social-media-guide-to-growing-your-personal-learning-network/

Reading 1
The trainers – in 2011

What do trainers want?

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Understanding your learners
Digital Pro
Digitally
Evolved
Digital
Adopter
Pre-
Digital

https://www.mixcloud.com/MarisaConstantinides/iatefl-brighton-2010-interview-with-marisa-constantinides/

Trainers now - What do trainers want?

Most prefer this way
TP peer evaluation comments

TP peer evaluation comments
But some are beginning to see the value of sth like this

A pledge for leaders of tomorrow-trainers included
• Fostering and Leading a Culture of Digital Learning Within Our
Schools.
• Helping Students and Families Transition to High-speed
Connectivity, blended learning & eventually, digital content.
• Empowering Educators through Professional Learning
Opportunities.
• Universal Access for All Students to Quality Content.
• Providing Access to Quality Digital Content.
• Offering Digital Tools to Help Students and Families.
• Mentoring colleagues and teachers and helping them
transition to Digital Learning.
Courageous
Leadership
Empowered
Teachers
Inspiring
spaces
Community
Infrastructure
Hardware-
software
Student
autonomy
The future in education depends on courageous leadership

What kind of trainees are we talking about?
•Higher education graduates …
•of recent years
•of long ago
•Candidates with …
•little experience of basic tools
•no experience at all beyond emails and occasional text
documents
•confidence and tech savvy
•fear in their hearts which sinks at the challenge of yet
another tech tool
Since this is the mix, it may be possible for some to
mentor others – but when is the question

Understanding your learners
Digital Pro
Digitally
Evolved
Digital
Adopter
Pre-
Digital
Mixed level of ability regarding tech…

Reading 1
New Tech
Help needed to create their basic toolkit

A little and often
http://marisaconstantinides.edublogs.org/2011
/11/21/a-little-often-integrating-technology-on-
teacher-development-courses
(my blog post written in 2011)
This is what I wrote in 2011 – AND believed that it was the best solution
for all trainees

But not every training context or trainer are exactly the same

With the ”No Input” Option, this is what one group learnt

Tech tools and apps a different group of trainees learnt to use

•Fast internet – available everywhere?
•A laptop or tablet for every trainee?
•Mobile skills of trainers and trainees?
•Mindsets of trainers and trainees that motivate to use
educational technology tools?
•Leadership which supports digital skills in trainers and
trainees
Different solutions may apply to different
contexts
Depending on whether they have…

Reading 1
Is it our job to teach them some
of these tools?
e.g.
Some trainers ask…
And it is not, even trainees know this

Interactive
Whiteboards
Search Skills
Voice tools
Community
Social Media
Text
Creation &
Editing
Hardware-
software
Wiki or
similar
But they need to be able to use some basic tools

A very messy diagram which is a work in progress – the basics analysed

Then I asked them to vote on these options - which one do they think
would have helped them most?
Different needs and wants
Input sessions on ed tech tools
On day one or two of their course
In week two or three
No input session at all
Introduction before the course
I asked some of our current CELTA trainees to share their thoughts
And a whopping 100% when I suggested combining 4 and 1 – this is what
we plan to do now

Before a course begins
• Find out their level of comfort with different tools with a questionnaire
• Use wiki or other LMS to give access their preparation materials and self-access
tasks
• Use a social media platform to get them to meet and greet each other before
the course
• Give them access to You Tube tutorials on how to use some standard digital tools
useful to teachers
• Make some screencasts for them on some of the early use areas, e.g. how to use
their wiki
• Give them links to good online tutorials for Word and Powerpoint
• Test them by asking them to make a small presentation about themselves using
one of these tools
Some ideas

Before a course begins
•Show a checklist of some of the digital skills we need to have even
on week one
•Make the checklist graded
• - from top priority down or
• - from basic to advanced
•Include some simple tutorials or screencasts
•Link to where people can find training prior to the course
• - You tube
• - a short course
• - an EVO?

Make the checklist graded some examplesElementary or Basic Skillset list e.g.
E.g. using Microsoft Office
- Creating a table / fixing column width
- Inserting images – fixing size – editing image
- Text-chatting on a chat forum or facebook group
Searching for materials in resource website
Searching for materials online
Intermediate skillset e.g.
- Editing images
- Adding text or captions to images
Advanced Digital skills e.g.
- Animating a dialogue with some animation tool e.g. Plotagon or
Nawmal
- Creating your own Personal Learning Network on Facebook,
LinkedIn or Twitter
- Taking part in an online debate using tricider
- Taking part in a Twitter Chat such as #ELTchat

Join or create a
circle of trust
through one or
more online
communities of
educators

Thank you! Email
marisa_c@celt.edu.gr
Twitter http://twitter.com/Marisa_C
CELT Athens
www.celt.edu.gr
Blogs
http://marisaconstantinides.edublogs.org/
http://cambridgedelta.org/
http://cambridgecelta.org/
http://eltchat.org/wordpress/
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Marisa.Constantinides
Thank you for watching

Digital Skills for Early Teacher Courses

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