Teaching is a wonderfully versatile thing, almost an art form in itself, and most certainly a challenge for all involved. You see, teachers, this day and age don't have a lot of time for learning themselves, you could argue that the holiday periods present a very large time for learning but it's often overlooked as that is the time they create all the teaching materials (possible the most time consuming element of teaching).
So how is a teacher expected to implement multimedia into their teaching methods if they've not enough time to learn how; very frustrating indeed. Learning takes a lot of time, as I'm sure your aware, even the most intensive courses involve hours upon hours of "out of classroom" work.
The dilemma is this: "How do you get knowledge into the teacher's brains without impacting their time?" I came across this dilemma when I needed to teach some teachers how to use certain software programs, Flash in particular. The software in itself harbours some very broad concepts, so how do I teach them how to spice up their lessons with multimedia when all the time they have is a little hour here and there.
I have come up with a method, and maybe this method only applies to software and nothing else, but still, it's a starting point. What if you just taught them the very basics, how to put the pen onto the paper and just taught them enough so that they can have a play and have an experiment. I know one of the most effective ways of learning software is experimentation, testing all the "what ifs" to create something. If I gave the teachers an hour or so of hard training about the very basics and tried to make them feel as comfortable with using the software as possible then, when they have 5 minutes to spare they could have a play around, to see what they could come up with. This can then be done in whatever 5 or 10 can be spared, even possible in a lesson. Also, then provide them with a brief (and i mean brief) idiot's proof guide about everything you taught them and nothing more.
I'm still just testing this method and we'll see how it goes when I have a meeting with some of those involved on Friday but I think there's something there for development at least.
If I can create a multimedia application about these lessons, with voice overs and video examples and interactivity and quizzes, then maybe I'd not need to be there at all... it's worth a thought! After all, I've been saying all along that using multimedia is a very useful advantage! Why not teach teachers how to use multimedia with multimedia?
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2 comments:
Maybe another thought is for the kids to teach the teachers how to use multimedia!
But how would the teachers feel about that?
Yeah, the teachers go through countless qualifications such as the PGCE etc. and then the kids teach them... I think we'd have a revolt on our hands, but it's very true that the kids know much more about technology than even some of the ICT Teachers
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