Sunday, December 7, 2008

Some information on our Webinars

We're still a new blog. We've got more to report about future events than about what's already taken place in our webinars - though hopefully some discussion around those webinars, and the issues raised in them, will soon become an integral part of what appears here. In the meantime, we're still learning what the best ways to bring attention to these sessions might be. Below is a slideshare presentation - please let us know if it's useful and informative for getting the word out.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Ooh, Ooh, Ooh! What a little advertising can do!

This blog is approximately a week old, and though it isn't being kept secret, it's far from in the public eye. The only people who viewed it in its first few days of existence were the OLE people who are responsible for it - and who wanted to take a look.

But yesterday, according to the Google Analytics that any responsible blogger who wants to know if anybody is actually reading what he or she writes checks (at least occasionally), views of the blog jumped last night to about thirty.

The obvious reason for this jump was a bit of advertising. Last night we held an online session (okay, a lecture from me [Jay], but that's a different story) and mentioned this blog. It's a very good guess (and perhaps even the only logical guess) that participants who were told about the blog typed in the URL and took a look. That's nice to know - and it was nice to see those visits. But we're not fooling ourselves - if nothing else happens here, those people who took a look (maybe that's you, by the way) aren't going to take more than one or two more.

So? Well, the next step seems pretty obvious - REACT! Even before the upcoming Interwise sessions, if you've got an opinion, or a question, relating to ThinkAloud, or to the New Framework for Teacher Education in Israel, add a comment about these. Hey, you can even comment on last night's lecture.

It's nice to see that people actually took a look at this blog, but if they're going to continue to do so, we need some action here.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Building Teacher Education - A Case Study

How can we best prepare students to become effective and successful teachers? Though a great deal has been written on this subject, nobody (of course) has the answer. Many attempts have been made - some with better results than others. Often, a good teacher will simply say that what he or she learned while in teacher training was soon forgotten, and that the best teacher was simply experience.

The Israeli experience can perhaps be very instructive. Over the past decade a major revisal of the entire system of teacher education has taken place in the country, first via the drawing up of conceptual guidelines, and for the past year and a half their implementation in the field. In an online presentation:

The New Frameworks for Teacher Education in Israel: Rationale, Conceptual Perspectives and Implementation

Professor Tamar Ariav will discuss the two stages of this new framework. Professor Ariav, the president of Beit Berl Academic College in Israel, and a lecturer and researcher in numerous educational fields, served as chairperson of the committee that developed the rationale of the new framework, as well as of the implementation committee. Her perspective on both of these aspects of the development "The New Framework" can be particularly instructive to all educators concerned with issues of teacher training.

The online session will take place on Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 19:00 - 20:30 GMT+2. In addition to the lecture, time will (of course) be devoted to questions and discussion.

Please note - participation in this session is open to paying participants and requires downloading and installing the Interwise online communication tool. More information on these, and registration, can be found at: http://mofetitec.macam.ac.il/calendar/Pages/TheNewFrameworks.aspx

Think Aloud?

Some people think that something must be wrong with them because they talk to themselves. But experienced teachers know that this is a way in which we make sense to ourselves. Sometimes we do this when we're alone - putting ideas into words helps us organize our thoughts. But it can be even more effective when we're in a group. This even has a name: think-aloud.

Think-aloud is a meta-cognitive strategy in which we think publicly about our thinking processes as teacher educators and examine them with our student teachers. Teacher educators use think-alouds to assist their student-teachers to understand how teaching and learning interact by overtly presenting aspects of their pedagogical decision making and putting these forward for discussion, analysis and criticism.

At our upcoming online session (Thursday, December 18, 2008, 20:00 - 21:30 GMT+2) we'll listen to a report of a study in the use of think-aloud conducted simultaneously by teacher educators in Israel, Australia, and Canada. We'll be meeting with the chief researchers:
Prof. Lea Kosminsky,
Kaye Academic College of Education Beer Sheva and The MOFET Institute, Israel
Prof. Tom Russell,
Queen’s University, Canada
Prof. Amanda Berry,
Monash University, Australia
This was a "self-study" in which the researchers examined their own use of think-alouds and the ways these contributed to the learning of their student-teachers. The researchers served as critical friends for each other, sharing protocols of think-aloud episodes and commenting on their insights concerning the use of the think-aloud approach.

The research on think-aloud with teacher training is still rather sparse, and we hope that this upcoming session with spark additional interesting in this promising tool.
Please note - participation in this session is open to paying participants and requires downloading and installing the Interwise online communication tool. More information on these, and registration, can be found at:
http://mofetitec.macam.ac.il/calendar/Pages/TheBoundariesofThink-Aloud.aspx

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

A bit about us

There are already numerous, perhaps countless, blogs that deal with technology in education. Some of these report on the personal experiences of teachers in the classroom, some deal with larger philosophical issues. Many are very interesting - though even from those that aren't, much can be learned.

But who needs yet another blog of this sort? That's a hard question to answer - but we'll try, though not in a statement of purpose here, but by dealing with issues that are hopefully of interest.

The Online Learning Environments Unit of the Mofet Institute is a group of educators who offer training and support to teacher educators who have chosen to implement online teaching in their courses. The Unit conducts online activities in the form of workshops, symposiums and seminars as well as publishes an online journal in the field of teacher education.

We'll be reporting on these activities (and inviting you to attend them) here. But we also hope to engage you in discussion around these issues.