The Importance of Inter-School Communication and Resource Sharing

Teachers nowadays are constantly trying to develop new ways to teach, or they are constantly having new technology thrown at them to bring into their teaching methods. Thing is, if one teacher comes up with a revolutionary way of teaching a lesson, one that brings both joy and knowledge to the pupils, they wont tell a soul. Why?

Truth is, everyone is too concerned over inspection results and reaching farther up the teaching ladder. It's not about that.

I was told that having something unique on the inspection report would get you extra points when it comes to your schools grading and having a unique teaching method would get you more likely considered for a higher position.

However, what if you shared this "revolutionary" teaching method, and it was being used all over the country - wouldn't you get much higher acclaim for that?

And during inspections, if the inspectors had been all over the country to see this method and then you told them you were the developer, the creator of this revolutionary teaching method then wouldn't you get even more points for that, with inter-school communication and your unique way of teaching to consider. Actually, come to think of it inter-school communication probably ranks highly on their scale of points, after all, it's essential in some areas.

What we really need is to use the VLE to talk to other schools of the "consortium" or even all other schools, to share resources and teaching methods with other teachers.

Think about this, 1,000 Geography teachers all transcribing the same lesson - tedious? How about 1,000 Geography teachers using a full combined effort to transcribe the lesson. Less work per teacher, and better ideas with the result of more innovative teaching methods.

The VLE is a great help with communications, if it was used in the manner that it was intended life would be so much easier, and all the pupils all over the country would benefit from this.

The Very Essence Of Teaching & Multimedia

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?