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Teacher Development and Technology

December 03, 2000: This message was distributed by Papyrus News. Feel free to forward this message to others, preferably with this introduction. For info on Papyrus News, including how to (un)subscribe or access archives, see http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/web/faculty/markw/papyrus-news.html

TechKnowLogia, November/December 2000 Issue: http://www.techKnowLogia.org.

The thematic focus of this Issue is on TEACHER DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY.

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ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS- TechKnowLogia VOL. 2, ISSUE 6,
November/December 2000
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Editorial
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1.Teachers...Training...and Technology
Wadi D. Haddad, Editor

Teachers have a very difficult mission and recent developments have not made it any easier. To meet the unfolding challenges, conventional training of teachers must be replaced with a continuum of lifelong professional preparedness and development. ICT can contribute significantly to the implementation of all elements of the continuum. Teachers are our greatest asset and deserve the best in policies, measures and technologies.

2. World Teachers' Day - 5 October 2000: Expanding Horizons

A joint message by KoÔchiro Matsuura, Director-General, UNESCO; Juan Somavia, Director-General, ILO; Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator, UNDP; and Carol Bellamy, Executive-Director, UNICEF.

3. Email to the Editor

Read what your colleagues have offered as feedback on previous issues of TechKnowLogia.

Frontline
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4. Teacher Training or Lifelong Professional Development?
Francoise Delannoy, Senior Operations Officer, World Bank

Teacher training has been in a state of flux worldwide. This article summarizes the trends and challenges and outlines an emerging paradigm for lifelong professional development of teachers and promising responses in difference parts of the world.

5. Supporting Teachers with Technology: Don't Do Today's Jobs with Yesterday's Tools
Mary Fontaine, The LearnLink Project, Academy for Educational Development (AED)

This article presents a short survey of the conceptual hopes underlying the use of Information Technologies as support tools for teachers, focusing on professional development. It also draws on practical experiences and short-term monitoring results from computer mediated professional development programs underway in five countries.

6. Teacher Training and Technology: An Overview of Case Studies and Lessons Learned
Joanne Capper, Education Technology Team, World Bank

Case studies have been conducted, with World Bank support, to document various models of teacher training and technology initiatives from around the world. This article presents an overview of these studies and lessons learned.

7. Teacher Training: What Works and What Doesn't
Juan Carlos Navarro and Aimee Verdisco, Inter-American Development Bank

This article analyzes eight case studies of innovations in teacher training in Latin American countries and draws six trends that can be adapted to meet the daily challenges of improving learning in the classroom.

8. TechKnowNews

DeVry Institute Wins Accreditation for 2 Online Bachelor's Programs / Bill Gates Offers Fund for India / Put Down Your Pencils; Florida High School Students Become USA's First Online Class / Sweden First for Educational Use of Internet / Choosing Quick Hits Over the Card Catalog / Kansas Educators Turn to the Web To Create a Unique 'Virtual' School / Indian Duo Build 'Dirt-Cheap' Radio Station / SchoolNet Africa To Launch Its First Year's Activities This Month

Technologies at Work
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9. Armenia: The Three Pomegranate Network (3PN)
Anoush Kacherian, Anoush Margaryan, Robert Gabrielyan and Artavazd Mamyan

The authors describe a global online learning program that connects Armenian students and teachers throughout the world by engaging them in collaborative, project-based learning activities. Almost all of the training for teachers was done through the project's website.

10. China: Teacher Training with TV Technology
Chen Xiangming, Associate Professor, Institute of Higher Education, Peking University, China

China has an extensive system of TV-based distance education, which also has been used to provide in-service training for teachers. Two sites that are offering this training to teachers are documented and compared.

11. Costa Rica: Teacher Training for Education Technology
Aimee Verdisco and Juan Carlos Navarro, Inter-American Development Bank

The Costa Rican experience regarding the introduction of computers in schools constitutes both a case about training teachers to use technology and using technology to train - and provide support to - teachers involved in a technology program. It suggests that the infusion of technology into the teaching-learning process seems to have the potential to change traditional notions of teacher training, beyond the classroom and immediate teaching practices.

12. Philippines: Infotech -Training in Remote Places
Elaine Furniss, UNICEF New York and Mayevelyn Remigio, UNICEF Manila

The aim of the Infotech project is to provide teachers and students from far flung areas of the country with the knowledge, skills, facilities and the materials to use information technology in teacher and student training; and access to information available through the Internet. The article records observations from a recent visit to the sites.

13. Singapore: Pre-service Teacher Training in Technology Use
Insung Jung, Ewha Women's University

Singapore is training pre-service teachers to use technology in the classroom and has developed a fairly comprehensive approach to training faculty and student teachers, and providing both groups with support to make this transition.

14. Zimbabwe: The Bindura Internet Learning Center
Anthony Bloome, Regional Coordinator, World Links for Development

The Bindura Center caters to learners of all ages. Students and teachers are using the resources and IT training to complement their classroom activities, open university students are downloading useful research information, and private clients are developing skills to improve their professional and organizational productivity.

15. Video Technology for Teacher Training: Micro-Teaching and other Adventures
Sonia Jurich

This article shows how micro-teaching, a decades old method of improving teaching through videotaping, has been a powerful but inadequately used tool for improving teaching.

Under Observation
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16. Scripted Learning Needs Teachers Who Follow the Script
Claudio de Moura Castro, Chief Education Adviser, Inter-American Development Bank

Does scripted learning lead to more learning? This article debates this question and analyzes the Latin American experience with structured learning.

17. The Teaching Profession - Beyond Training
Juan Carlos Navarro, Senior Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank

Training of teachers has, generally, produced relatively little impact compared with the substantial size of the investments made. Fortunately, there is now a widespread understanding of the problems of conventional teacher training practices and plenty of innovations flourish in this field. However, many other incentive and management issues remain untouched.

18. Images of Teaching: The TIMSS Video Taping Project
Laurence Wolff, Inter-American Development Bank

TIMSS researchers undertook to videotape actual eighth grade mathematics lessons in the US, Germany, and Japan to understand what was happening in the classroom. This was the first time videotaping had been used to compare cultural differences in teaching. The results are fascinating, but perhaps dismaying.

Planning for Technology
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19. Do You Know Where Your Teachers and Schools Are?
Kurt Moses, Vice President, Academy for Educational Development (AED)

Many countries in the world do not know where their most valuable educational resources are. This article analyzes the dimensions of the problem, proposes solutions, and describes technologies that will help to account for personnel, determine what they are doing, and make it easier to spot problems before they become larger.

20. Technology for Teacher Support
Gregg Jackson, Associate Professor and Coordinator, Education Policy Program, The George Washington University

Teaching is a tough job and teachers deserve support. Technologies can help provide such support: they can help motivate and empower teachers, assist them with their day-to-day situations, provide avenues for lifelong professional development, and enrich teachers' work lives and enhance their effectiveness.

21. On the Move

Upcoming Events: Conferences, Seminars, Exhibits, Training Courses, etc.

Technologies Today
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22. Will Voice Portals Speak to Consumers?
Editorial Staff

Voice Portals are being hyped as the next wave in mobile Internet. They are designed to give personalized information using special voice recognition software and offer an array of basic financial, entertainment and technical services.

23. Handheld Computers: Which One?
Editorial Staff

Nothing exemplifies more elegantly the synthesis of mobility and advanced computing than handheld computers. They are easy to use but hard to choose. This article outlines the technical and financial implications of the key device features and reviews seven top handheld computers on the market.

24. WorthWhileWebs
Gregg Jackson and Nina de las Alas, The George Washington University

An annotated list of several websites with useful resources on teacher support; they include lesson plans and teaching guides as well as other supports.

Technologies Tomorrow
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25. E-Sign on the Dotted Line...
Editorial Staff

E-signatures are a form of encryption technology. They encourage advances in the online services market and reduce laborious contract filing procedures. E-signatures will have an impact on the management of the education enterprise as well as on online testing and evaluation.

26. Just Click and Sniff
Tressa Steffen Gipe

Some companies are experimenting with introducing scent technologies into your computer so you cannot only hear and see the Internet, but also smell. These developments have dramatic implications for the education domain.

Profiles in Development
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27. AED: Teacher Training with Technology - Experience in five country programs
Mary Fontaine, LearnLink, Academy for Educational Development, (AED)

LearnLink, operated by AED, is implementing, in five countries, computer-mediated professional development activities that take advantage of the potential of information and communication technologies to improve training and support services for teachers. The article summaries these activities and demonstrates the kinds of applications for pre- and in-service teacher training and for ongoing professional development opportunities for teachers.

28. Teachers Talking about Learning: A UNICEF web initiative for teachers around the world
Elaine Furniss, UNICEF, New York

UNICEF hosts a website for teachers, which provides access to teacher training materials, a discussion forum, and a list of useful ULRs of interactive projects.


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Last updated: December 4, 2000 in Hot Metal Pro 6.0