Archive for the ‘Educational technology’ Category
Some Influentials on Educational Technology
Below find a list of interesting folks to follow on Twitter to keep tabs on the latest technology trends. Some are individuals, and others are tech sites or companies who use Twitter regularly. Descriptions are from the users’ profile descriptions. Keep in mind that there are a LOT of folks out there who talk about technology of all kinds – so don’t consider this an exhaustive list! Feel free to share your favorite tech tweeters in the comments section!
Read also: Some more on Twitter
OpenEMIS – Open Source Education Management Information System
UNESCO launched a new version of OpenEMIS, a generic and open source Education Management Information System software package issued without conditions or restrictions for use by countries. Able to run offline on desktop computers or on the web and on mobile devises, OpenEMIS facilitates the collection, processing, analysis and supports the dissemination of data on education systems. It is a tool conceived to be easily and quickly adapted to the needs of information producers and users at national and sub-national levels. It manages a broad range of information: data on student enrolment, teachers, non-teaching staff, classes, textbooks, infrastructure, finances and learning outcomes. In order to meet country requirements, OpenEMIS can handle both individual and aggregated (census) datasets for pupils, teachers and non-teaching staff.
Learning Reimagined: Participatory, Peer, Global, Online
This is a golden age for motivated self-learners, given the availability of open educational resources – from MIT’s OpenCourseWare, Wikipedia, Wikiversity, and YouTube EDU to the Khan Academy and Apple’s iTunes U, together with every possible online communication tool a learner could want – audio, video, forums, blogs, wikis, chat rooms, whiteboards, social bookmarking, mindmapping, and curation services, all free of charge or inexpensive. A population interested in online learning, a mountain of content, and a cornucopia of communication media are almost sufficient for explosive growth of networked, collaborative learning, but require one additional key ingredient: know-how.
After a thousand years of experience in traditional physical classrooms with print media and lectures, we’ve only had a few years of widespread experimentation with online social media and digital texts for learning. Given the availability of open educational resources and free Web media, what does a group of people need to know about pedagogy in order to self-organize into a peer learning community?
UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers
The ICT Competency Framework for Teachers aims at helping countries to develop comprehensive national teacher ICT competency policies and standards, and should be seen as an important component of an overall ICT in Education Master Plan.
UNESCO’s framework emphasizes that it is not enough for teachers to have ICT competencies to be able to teach them to their students. Teachers need to be able to help students become collaborative, problem solving creative learners through using ICT so they will be effective global citizens. The Framework therefore addresses all aspects of a Teacher’s work.
Bridging the Knowledge Divide: Educational technology for development
Addressing the challenge of bridging the knowledge divide through the use of educational technology, this book is organized around four main themes: empowerment, knowledge, flexible delivery, and teacher preparation. Contributors to the discussion of these themes raise strong alarms about the potential pitfalls of the shift from a digital divide to a knowledge divide, calling for planned action. Drawing on their experience with education technology and distance education policy, theory, practice, and implementation in different societal and cultural contexts, in both developed and developing countries, some 40 contributors present roadmaps and strategies for planning and implementing educational technology that can bridge the knowledge divide.
