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Continuous Professional Development in the Use of ..
Continuous Professional Development in the Use of ICT Tools in Collaborative,Project-Based Teaching and Learning
Start date: Jun 30, 2016,
End date: Jun 29, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
This project developed from an identified need at Skanör-Falsterbo Montessori School for increased ICT competence amongst the teaching staff. In June 2015, a needs assessment done by the school's leadership indicated that the vast majority of teachers at our school did not possess adequate knowledge or skills in ICT, yet we prided ourselves in being a modern, progressive school. Many of the teachers received their education training "before the Internet" and consequently, had not developed their ICT skills at the same rate as our current students. As a result of the needs assessment, an ICT focus group was created made up of interested, innovative and enthusiastic teachers who had a profound desire to obtain digital literacy, incorporate this into their classrooms and thereby, pass it on to their students. The hope in creating this focus group was that the teachers would challenge themselves to learn about ICT, then teach each other and ultimately, pass on their newly acquired skills and knowledge to everyone in the school. Unfortunately, in practice, the ICT focus group found that the process was too slow and inefficient. Biweekly meetings did not produce the overall results that were desired by both the group and the school. It was determined that an intense, professionally-run course would have enormous value to our objectives and serve to instill the group with useful and comprehensive tools that they would learn simultaneously and be able to disseminate together.The participants in the project are all teachers and members the ICT focus group. They have worked very hard all year to identify the most useful ICT tools for our school and to teach themselves and their colleagues how to use these tools. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of time needed to learn in this way has hindered the group's progress. In many ways it has been frustrating because we know that there are people out there who know these tools inside out and could easily teach all of us at once. When we saw the course profile, we recognised that we would be able to learn more in one week than we have in all of the years we have been interested in ICT. Hence, we have actively pursued this application.The methodology to be used in this project will an intense training workshop held by experts in the field. Participants will learn and have hands-on practice with podcasting, digital video editing, digital story telling, eTwinning, creating interactive and digital quizzes, as well as creating real resources for use in the classroom using the newly acquired skills.The anticipated results from this project are that the teachers in the ICT focus group will be able to confidently and competently pass on their acquired skills and knowledge to their colleagues and students upon completion of the course, We anticipate that this will have a profound effect on our school, both in terms of overall ICT literacy and with our existing and future collaborative, international projects. The long term benefits are enormous: we intend on changing the culture at our school. All teachers and students will become receptive and supportive of new ICT because they will see how it can enhance the learning experience and burst open our horizons.