K through 12 | doug woods

Posts Tagged ‘K through 12’

Iris_Connect at Balby Carr

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Balby11 300x168 Iris Connect at Balby Carr

The other day, I was invited up to Balby Car School for part of their Professional Learning Day. My interest was principally upon seeing how the school was using Iris_Connect, an innovative system for self-reflection, observation and professional development that the school had recently implemented.

Iris_Connect, for those of you not familiar with the system, is a service which supports teachers to implement reflective practice for the purpose of reviewing and improving their teaching. Using Iris, teachers can observe their own lessons or invite a colleague to observe a lesson and also add comments based upon the observation. This can be done in real time or by use of recordings. By being able to view recorded sessions, the system fress up schools from needing to arrange for observer(s) to be free at the same time as the teacher delivers the session. The flexibility of the Iris_Connect system is one of its benefits in schools along with potential cost savings.

At Balby Carr, the initiative was being led by Matthew and Lisa, two very enthusiatic teachers. They had been using the system for a while themselves and had clearly been seeing the benefits of it, they had also got a number of other staff to use the system, they too had very positive experiences of it. The Professional Learning Day was the opportunity for Matthew and Lisa to introduce the system to the wider staff and to allow them to have some experience of it. For the day, a few staff had pre-recorded lessons so that other staff could see how easy it was to observe and add comments about the lessons. The system itself is easy to use and staff were impressed that comments they made were timne-linked and so could be clearly asociated with specific points or incidencies within the lesson.

After some workgroup sessions, the staff were invited to submit their comments about Iris_Connect and how it might be used in the school. These comments were divided into ‘hot’ and ‘not’. It was very refreshing to see that the overwhelming majority of comments were in the ‘hot’ category and nearly all the ‘not’ were not really negative points but were people expressing worries or anxieties, almost all of which could be easily addressed. So overall it was a very positive ‘thumbs up’ for the Iris_Connect system.

I stated earlier on that Iris_Connect can be used for self relection or observation by others. Matthew and Lisa, very rightly in my opinion, emphasised to staff that it is probably best to start with self-observation. This is important to my mind because Iris_Connect is primarily about reflective practice; the ability of teachers to observe their own lessons or their own practice, to observe and acknowledge what went right as well as anything that may have gone wrong, with a view to strengthening their skills and improving their teaching.

I think it is also important to start with self-observation because Iris_Connect is seen primarily as a tool for teachers to use. It is important, therefore, that teachers feel comfortable in using it, feel that they own whatever product or benefit that comes from using it and feel at liberty to use the system in support of their own professional development. It is also often true that when a person first starts to use a system such as Iris_Connect to observe their own practice, they are likely to be critical of their performance; this is human nature and it is usually things we may not like that we observe first, it is only when we become used to such a system that we can start to effectively use it to observe our positive practices.

In all, I had a great and positive day at Balby Carr and I am grateful to the staff at the school for allowing me to share in their professionalism.

Reflecting on Reflection (whiteboardblog.co.uk)
Iris Connect – lesson observation with video (whiteboardblog.co.uk)
Reflective Practice and Teacher Development

If you would like to know more about Iris Connect, their website is www.irisconnect.co.uk

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Tags: Balby Carr, Balby Carr Community Sports College, Education, Iris Connect, K through 12, Observation, Professional development, Reflective practice, Teacher
Posted in Training INSET and CPD | No Comments »

Education Technology; Teaching Tool or Learning Tool?

Monday, April 2nd, 2012

: Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, I read this great short blog post from @kylepace entitled Good Vs Great Teachers. In the article, Kyle criticises another author who appeared to believe that educational technology was a waste of time because it would never replace good teachers. All in all I would agree very much with Kyle’s response, which is basically that good teachers embrace the technology and what it offers, to become Great teachers.

I posted a tweet on Twitter, inviting my followers to take a look at the article but I also posed the question, does the article still look upon education technology as a teaching tool rather than a learning tool? The purpose of this post on my blog is to attempt to explain what I meant by that.

We’ve had computers in schools for around 30 years now. I’m still surprised when I encounter a colleague who still questions whether we should have computers in schools. I remind them just how long they have been around in education and, if I’m feeling particularly narked, I ask what my colleague has been doing all this time? (I wonder why I have no friends!)

As I say, we’ve had computers for around 30 years and, in that time, the nature of the technology and its uses have changed considerably. No longer is a computer a device which only one, or possibly two, people could use at a time when sat at a monitor screen. Nowadays, we can project computer images to large groups and classes via interactive whiteboards. The computer in the classroom is no longer the sole preserve of the teacher, who says who can use it and when. Now each pupil can have their own computer, on a desk, on their lap or in their pocket.

Originally, pupils could engage in the learning software that their teacher presented to them. Nowadays, pupils can locate their own resources and share them with peers. They can use computers to collaborate on projects and other learning work. They can create their own materials and display or broadcast them to an audience. Their audience, or their peer group, is no longer confined to the members of their own school, year or class group, that audience is now to be found beyond school or even national boundaries.

What is echoing in my mind, are the words I first heard from John Davitt, “we need to move learners from being passive consumers of technology into becoming creative users of that technology” . I feel that this shift has been happening over the years and needs to continue to progress. The technology is no longer just a tool for the teacher, it is no a tool for the learner.

I sometimes find myself saying to teachers, particularly those who have some reticence or lack confidence in using ICT, that it does not matter so much how you use technology, what matters most is how you allow and enable your learners to use technology.

So, for me, educational technology is a tool more for the learner than the teacher. That is not to deny the role that technology has in supporting the teacher in their work and in their approaches to learning but that it is the use of technology by the learner that is key to the future of education.

For me, a good teacher is one who uses technology in their work ( see my article elsewhere on good teachers and technology), a great teacher is one who extends that to encourage, support and develop their learners’ use of technology in their learning.

Technology Everywhere (slideshare.net)
Action plan for integration of technology (slideshare.net)
Students as Creators of Multimedia Instruction (boisebarbara.org)
SWGFL ICT Conferences – Torquay & Bristol (dougdickinson.co.uk)
Does ICT Improve Learning? (ictineducation.org)
New Technology and Outdoor Learning: Introduction (olliebray.typepad.com)
Outfitting 21st Century Classrooms with 21st Century Teachers (isteconnects.org)

Education Technology; Teaching Tool or Learning Tool?

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Tags: Author, Education, Information and communication technologies in education, Interactive whiteboard, K through 12, Learning, Technology, Twitter
Posted in Classroom Technology, Transforming Learning | 2 Comments »

6 Ways ICT Can Improve Education

Monday, February 13th, 2012

: Image by Getty Images via Daylife

It seems to me that there are 6 ways in which we can use ICT to improve education. I make no claims for the originality of these ways, indeed the first 3 have come from a forum discussion with Peter Twining on the Vital website (you may need a login to see the Vital page).

These 6 areas are;

Support – Using ICT to allow us to do things more effectively or efficiently but without changing the fundamental curriculum or pedagogic approach
Extend – Using ICT to present things in new ways or using ICT to access resources which would otherwise be difficult to access
Transform – allowing us to do new or different things that would not be possible without the technology and thereby changing the curriculum or pedagogy
Engagement – involving learners in activities through the motivational influence of technology or the functional use of technology (e.g. access from home as well as school) or social engagement (e.g. with fellow learners or between families and school)
Inclusion – using ICT to overcome learner disabilities or disadvantages
Improvement – saving time, being able to enrich a learning experience or using ICT to make a learning outcome possible which might not otherwise have been possible.

I claim no great originality in any of these but it does suggest to me that we might have the basis of a framework or matrix by which staff or institutions can record their use of ICT and the impact it has.

Engagement does NOT equal Learning… (greenbananablog.org)
ICT and Citizenship (ictineducation.org)
The New Primary Curriculum – England (dougdickinson.co.uk)
Learning Confluence: Where Philosophy Meets Practice in the 21st Century (123elearning.blogspot.com)
I’ve been thinking again … (dougdickinson.co.uk)
8 ways to get teachers talking about learning (deangroom.wordpress.com)
‘We are the people we’ve been waiting for’ – 2 (dougdickinson.co.uk)
Teaching Skills: What 21st Century Educators Need To Learn To Survive (masternewmedia.org)
Computers in Classrooms Post-BETT Special (ictineducation.org)
ICT CPD 4 Free from NAACE (warringtonict.wordpress.com)
Vital CPD from the Open University – I’m first in the hot seat… (olliebray.typepad.com)
A Busy time for curriculum thinkers and planners (elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk)
Giving Children the Tools is Not Enough (edte.ch)

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Tags: Curriculum, Education, Educational technology, ICT, ICT in Education, Information and communication technologies in education, K through 12, Peter Twining, school, Technology, Website
Posted in Classroom Technology, Transforming Learning | No Comments »

Five and a Half Reasons to Introduce ELearning into High Schools

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Five and a half reasons to introduce elearning into high schools.

Up to now, elearning has been the preserve of tertiary education (colleges, universities) and industry. I want to explore reasons why it could be useful in secondary education as well. I have called this post 51/2 reasons (5 and a half reasons, not five half-reasons) because I’m not fully convinced the final reason is a valid one.

Before I start, I feel a need to clarify what I mean by ‘eLearning’. It has become clear to me that there is some confusion over the term as different people take it to mean or to include somewhat different things. My definition of elearning is largely learning that is done online. In this definition, I do not include using computers and software in a classroom as part of a lesson. To me that is what I have been doing and promoting for years; it is now the norm in teaching(*) whereas online learning is not, or not yet, part of the norm.

So, what are these 6 (or 5 and 1/2) reasons we should introduce elearning into high schools?

1. Teaching less popular subjects and/or additional subjects. Let’s say you have a group of students who want to learn economics or parapsychology or African biology but you’ve not got a teacher or a classroom or a timetable slot to allow this, what can you do? The traditional answer would be that you don’t offer those subjects and tell your students to pick another subject, which also risks potential students opting for another school which does offer those subjects. Elearning offers the opportunity to provide such courses in a number of possible ways, such as linking with another institution and sharing teaching resources online, buying-in courses provided by outside educational bodies or sharing a teacher from another institution. In this way, elearning can enable a school not only to offer a wider range of subjects but also to make the school more appealing for potential students.

2. Teaching difficult to reach students. There are a range of students who might be considered ‘difficult to reach’ and for whom elearning may hold some potential. Let’s consider students who cannot physically attend school or who can do so only on a restricted basis, such as traveller children, sick or hospital students, young carers and excluded students. while these students remain on the attendance books of a school, the school has a responsibility for their education. Where such students acnnot attend school, then elearning has the potential to reach them and to provide them with a level of education despite their chosen or enforced circumstances.

3. Sharing teacher capacity. We know that teachers are expensive but also important. Yet schools cannot always ensure the availability of quality teachers able to provide teaching across all subject areas. Schools may experience either temporary or long-term teacher shortages. Elearning has the potential to mitigate this by allowing teachers to teach groups in different institutions. So a school with a teacher or teachers particularly skilled in teaching a particular area or subject, say advanced calculus, can offer the teaching services of a teacher to teach advanced calculus, online, to students at another school which does not have such a teacher. In return for part payment of the teacher time or for the the second school offering online teaching in another area or subject. Of course, this arrangement need not apply only to the sharing of a physical teacher but also to any range of teaching resources a school may have to offer online which another school may lack.

4. Alternative to Homework. I know this is a thorny issue but homework in its traditional sense is largely an out-dated concept which, even in its heyday, rarely reflected sound educational practice. Traditionally, homework, where the teacher remembered to set it, usually involved reading a passage from a book, writing an essay, doing textbook exercises, all of which usually reflected or repeated what had been taught in class and rarely provided the student with extra insight or learning. Elearning has the potential to offer students much more than this by becoming an extension to class teaching and an enhancement to student learning. The only caveat is, of course, that the student should have access to online resources out of school hours.

5. Timetable flexibility. Anyone who has ever had to face the task of timetabling or scheduling will know it can be a nightmare to match subjects, teachers, classrooms and groups of students together. By incorporating elearning options within subjects, a school may be afforded greater flexibility in its timetabling. A class does not always require a teacher to supervise or lead elearning, therefore one group of students studying a subject may do so online for a period while another group is led by a teacher.

6. Saving money. This is the half reason. I know some people in schools will jump at an opportunity to save money and I’d sympathise with them if I had responsibility for budget control. However, I’m not fully convinced that elearning will always be money saving. Sure, providing learning online can be cheaper than paying for a teacher but there is also a lot of finance and time that has to be supported in setting up online facilities, developing online resources and monitoring/maintaining systems and these should not be overlooked in a rush to engage in elearning. Nevertheless, in a long term, elearning may have the potential to save money and if anyone can achieve this and maintain a delivery of quality learning then I’d be more than happy to talk to them!

Bonus. Extra Support Learning. We all recognise that there are some students who have the potential to learn but who learn more slowly than their peers or who sometimes need materials presented in certain ways in order to better grasp their significance. Such groups of students may include those with special needs but not exclusively so; it could also include those with language barriers and those with attention difficulties. For such groups, elearning has the potential to offer extra learning opportunities in addition to their regular class-based sessions. Elearning also has the potential to offer resources in particular ways or formats (such as audio podcasts) for students who find it easier to learn in such ways. Even for your high-flying students, elearning has the potential to offer extra learning support in which to extend their thinking and knowledge within the subject.

I’m sure there may be many other reasons or benefits of elearning in secondary education, if you know of any, please add them as a comment.

10 Tips for Effective eLearning (dougwoods.co.uk)
E-learning, Why does it have such a Bad Name? (dougwoods.co.uk)
eLearning Startup Opportunities (elearningtech.blogspot.com)
Distance education and eLearning practices: In Turkey and Eastern countries (downes.ca)
What Makes eLearning Courses Different? (elearningcentralia.wordpress.com)
Survey Says: Students Satisfied with eLearning at Centralia College! (elearningcentralia.wordpress.com)
Agile eLearning – 27 Great Articles (downes.ca)

Five and a Half Reasons to Introduce ELearning into High Schools

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Tags: Distance Learning, Education, eLearning, K through 12, school, Student, Teacher, Technology
Posted in elearning, Online Resources | No Comments »

Lesson Plans or Learning Plans?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

: Image via Wikipedia

In a previous post I mentioned the opportunity I had to observe a group of teachers doing team planning. As well as the observations I noted in that post, there was a further observation that I want to talk about in this post. It appeared to me that most of the teachers taking part in the team planning exercise were essentially still creating what I’d regard as an old style lesson plan. That is to say, it was to be a lesson that was to be delivered by the teacher and the planning focused more on what the teacher was going to do or what the teacher was going to get the pupils to do and what resources would be needed. The lesson, while not always a straightforward ‘sage on the stage’ approach, was certainly one that emphasised teacher direction or teacher facilitation, focused more on the teaching rather than the learning or the learner.

This type of planning was very familiar and would have been easily recognisable to a teacher 10, 20, even 30 years ago, it was only the resources available which were different; the approaches were much the same. This led me to wonder how might we change lesson planning to be more reflective of modern learning approaches?

It seems to me that the plan could be less about the structure of the lesson and more about the learning. I know they are called ‘lesson’ plans and in the past they have tended to describe the content of the lesson. Nowadays, though learning doesn’t just take place in the lesson; it can extend into the home and via out of school activities. There are also a wide range of informal learning opportunities which a learner can bring to contribute to their learning. So there is no need now for our planning to be restricted to a traditional lesson structure.

I know some people will argue, quite correctly, that we have always given homework to learners, where appropriate, to supplement their learning in school. However, the concept of ‘homework’ is quite dated now. It would be wrong, perhaps, to continue to think in terms of schoolwork and homework. It would be better to think simply in terms of ‘learning’ and what formal learning that takes place at home is an integral part of the ‘school’ work that takes place also in school.

So instead of presenting the learners with schoolwork in a lesson and then giving them homework to be done afterwards at home, a teacher would present learners with, say, an area or topic for study. A lesson or a series of lessons would be made available for the learners to study this in school, supported by the teacher, a range of resources and the face to face guidance of the teacher. In addition to these school sessions, a learner would be required to continue or extend their studies outside lessons, bringing in any experiences, resources available to them together with outcomes from any informal learning they may feel is relevant.

So Learning Plans would contain more than just plans for a lesson, they would seek to set out a number and range of ways in which learners could explore a subject area. Each of these ways would be designed to ensure the learner encounters particular objectives. Each of the ways could incorporate a different learning style, so as to appeal to different learners. There could even be discussion between teacher and learner as to what particular types of activities they would like the chance to explore.

In a way, I guess you could see a learning plan a bit like a treasure map but with different routes to the treasure, or maybe even several different treasure locations.

Developing independent young learners through learning how to learn (slideshare.net)
Diverse Children’s Learning Styles And Activities (brighthub.com)
Creating and Using a Learning Styles Chart (brighthub.com)
Lesson Plans Integrating Differentiation (brighthub.com)
Designing Informal Learning (elearningstuff.wordpress.com)
Learning Score, a lesson-planning tool. [Review] (dougbelshaw.com)

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Tags: Education, Educators, K through 12, Learning, Learning styles, Lesson, Lesson plan, Teacher
Posted in Transforming Learning | 2 Comments »

Do Learners want Teachers?

Monday, December 12th, 2011

: Image via Wikipedia

Do Learners want Teachers?

It seems a strange question, doesn’t it, but do learners want teachers?

Over recent years there has been a shift in emphasis away from teaching and teachers toward learning and learners. This has been to such an extent that even a major quango spent thousands changing one of its departments from Teaching and Learning to Learning and Teaching.

I will say, though, that I think the change in emphasis is justified; learning is more important than teaching.

A teacher in a school can teach and teach as much as they can but if the people they are teaching do not learn, then the teacher has been wasting time; the role of the teacher is to enable and ensure that learning takes place. Of course, any and every teacher knows this and also knows different strategies and approaches to facilitate learning. At the end of the day, a school is judged on how/what the learners have learnt (or parts of what they have learned) rather than on what teaching took place.

Increasingly, we hear people say that the learner is responsible for their learning and that the role of the teacher is to guide the learner through their learning. The teacher standing in front of the class is something that is frowned upon nowadays, rather the teacher should be at the side of the learner to give support and direction; this is the ‘sage on the stage’ versus ‘the guide at the side’ argument.

While we can accept that the role of the teacher is changing, that learning is now seen as more important than teaching and that the learner now has responsibility for their learning, does this mean that teaching or the teacher are no longer valued?

I think not. It still seems that people want teaching and value good teachers. Let us consider an example; if you wanted to learn something completely new and, all things, such as price, being equal which approach might you choose? You could choose to learn from an online course, from text books or attend classes led by a teacher/tutor/facilitator.

Most people would appear to opt for an approach that involves a teacher over a completely self-learning approach. Even if the approach had just one session with a teacher, it would appear to be preferred over an approach that has no teaching element. It would seem, therefore, that learners do value being taught or, at least, having some teaching input.

Consider the training courses you have been on, though, and ask yourself what have been the most valuable parts of those courses. The chances are that you will say the most valuable parts have been those times when you have been allowed to trial, play, or explore for yourself. These have probably been the times when you have been able to learn what you have wanted to learn or to learn what appears most relevant to you or your work.

Other valuable parts may have occurred when you found yourself ‘lost’ or had made a mistake and called upon the teacher to help you fix the situation and to avoid it happening again.

How many of us, also, have been on a course that we initially thought would be a ‘waste of time’ only to have new light or new possibilities created because of the enthusiasm, passion or skill of the teacher?

So the value of having a teacher would appear to lie in having an expert on hand, in having someone to at least introduce an area of learning to us and in having someone open our eyes to new possibilities. So while it may be clear that the nature of teaching and the role of the teacher may be changing, it is also clear that teaching and good teachers are also highly valued.

Inspiring active learning with limited resources (guardian.co.uk)
Examples of Diverse Learning Styles (brighthub.com)
Reflections (gartmanbarryedm310.blogspot.com)
Fred Garnett on how to create new contexts for your own learning (alchemi.co.uk)

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Tags: Education, Educators, K through 12, Learning, Learning Theories, Methods and Theories, school, Teacher
Posted in Training INSET and CPD | 1 Comment »

Do we Still Need to Explain Why Teachers Should use Educational Technology?

Monday, September 5th, 2011

There was a post on the inaugural #ukedchat twitter debate posted by @JamesClay which read

“Before you answer how, you need to really answer and explain the why you should be using tech in education.”

Unfortunately, I was travelling home on a rather crowded train and was unable to fully follow the online debate but this post caught my attention and made me think;

“Do we really need to explain to teachers why they should be using technology in their lessons?”

I go into schools often and also meet other teachers on training sessions. I often meet teachers who do not use technology or who use it only a little. It is clear, though, that each of them know that they could and should be using technology or using it more. Quite often, these teachers will express their worries that they’re not using ICT and that they sometimes feel their class are missing out compared to pupils in a different class.

In reality, the ‘why’ teachers use educational technology is well established and accepted, even among those teachers who rarely or reluctantly use it. I don’t feel it would be very productive to continue ‘banging on’ about why teachers should use technology in their lessons; this message has already been received.

What may be lacking in some teachers is the knowledge of ‘what’ technology to use or ‘how’ it can be used. This may often be accompanied by a low level of confidence in using the technology and possibly poor experiences of trying to use it in the past. Where this is the case, we need to be able to provide training to enable the teachers to explore technology and to ‘play’ with it in order to develop their confidence and allow them to identify for themselves the ways in which they might use it in their teaching.

In terms of the ‘what’ to use, it may often be the case that teachers have had exposure to only a limited range of technology. This is sometimes the case where the technology is situated in a special room, such as a computer suite, and can only be accessed if ‘booked’ or scheduled on a timetable. This can be further compounded if the technology is seen as being the ‘property’ or domain of a particular person or department within the school.

I mentioned, in a previous paragraph, the need for training, for me, the word ‘training’ is not the best word to use. What we are talking about here is more professional skills development and peer collaboration. At least that is the way I try to approach teacher ‘training’ sessions. Training seems to imply that there is something you lack and, until you get it, you are not a full professional. This seems to be an almost negative and demoralising, maybe even patronising, approach which doesn’t really convey a positive, supportive and professional approach.

In my many years of working with teachers, I have consistently found that if you give them a piece of kit, or anything, and ask them how it could be used in a lesson, they will come up with 101 suggestions, most of which you will never even have thought of before. Let us not forget that these are teachers; they are intelligent people with lively curious minds who genuinely want to give the best for their learners.

Okay, so we have established that we no longer need to explain to teachers why they should be using technology in their lessons, it is the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ that needs to be tackled. I have also suggested that, in my opinion, changing our approach to training would be beneficial. The question still remains, though, as to ‘How can we get more teachers to use technology effectively in their teaching?’ which was the question posed at the beginning of the #ukedchat twitter debate.

a transcript of the #ukedchat twitter debate can be downloaded here

Top 100 Technology Blogs for Teachers (whiteboardblog.co.uk)
31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader: Are You REALLY an Ed Tech Leader (ictineducation.org)
Outfitting 21st Century Classrooms with 21st Century Teachers (isteconnects.org)
The Best Blogs for Tech Savvy Teachers (brighthub.com)
Preparing Teachers for the Digital Future (microsoftontheissues.com)
Technology Does Leave a Permanent Record (haroldshawjr.com)
Educational Technology Quotes (slideshare.net)

Do we Still Need to Explain Why Teachers Should use Educational Technology?

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Tags: Education, Educators, K through 12, Knowledge, Professional development, school, Teacher, Technology
Posted in Classroom Technology, Training INSET and CPD | 1 Comment »

Posts Tagged ‘K through 12’

Iris_Connect at Balby Carr

Education Technology; Teaching Tool or Learning Tool?

6 Ways ICT Can Improve Education

Five and a Half Reasons to Introduce ELearning into High Schools

Lesson Plans or Learning Plans?

Do Learners want Teachers?

Do we Still Need to Explain Why Teachers Should use Educational Technology?

Contact me

Follow us on Twitter

Doug Woods

Posts Tagged ‘K through 12’

Iris_Connect at Balby Carr

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Education Technology; Teaching Tool or Learning Tool?

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Five and a Half Reasons to Introduce ELearning into High Schools

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Lesson Plans or Learning Plans?

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Do Learners want Teachers?

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Do we Still Need to Explain Why Teachers Should use Educational Technology?

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Contact me

Follow us on Twitter

Doug Woods