Teaching with IT for Different Level of Learners

Three Examples from the Czech Republic

Bozena (Boba) Mannova

Czech Technical University in Prague

 

Introduction

Some IT courses delivered at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague permit interesting educational experiments in which we aim both technical and social aspects of teaching that uses modern Internet - based tools. Some of those experiments are courses itself (as example  I will describe here IT courses for third age university ).

 

The First Example

In-Service Teachers Education

The computer can be a catalyst for change in teaching and learning, but pedagogical issues are still being explored. Only if in-service support can focus on these issues and support the strategies required to achieve a new perspective can computer deliver their promise. Information technology also behaves differently from other subjects which is disorientating for teachers. The concepts of progression and the increase of experience with age are challenge when a teacher is faced with a pupil who is clearly more able and better resource in this field. This  undermines the authority of teachers.

We are running international project "Implementation of Telematics in Education", which is based  on an idea to support teachers in-service education in telematics. We use the experience of management, organization, delivery and evaluation gained in United Kingdom and Finland.

The project objectives are to state strategies for teacher education in telematics, to develop  the in-service training system and development of quality assessment system. The training system was designed as a part of continuing teachers education scheme. Courses are designed mostly as a distance courses.

 

Strategies for teachers in-service education

Resourcing is a problem as teachers are not usually given computers as part of their job. Without the tool, teachers can feel deskilled. Reading and writing skills are no longer adequate. As well as academic literacy, professional teacher must master computer literacy, network, media literacy and all based on HCI.

We are  trying to develop a range of innovative strategies to increase the opportunities for in service education for teachers, putting the teacher first, not just in increasing their professional development opportunities to develop skills, but also in feeling confident in the judgments they must make about the role in of advanced technologies in society.

The goal is to create irrelevant, responsive and information-rich learning environment for teachers. The focus have to be on some basic problems as:

·        To study effect of technology on curriculum development and teaching methods.

·        To determine techniques for on-line workplace training and life-long-learning.

·        To define knowledge and skills required for students and teachers.

·        To train teachers and students in project based, service-driven learning.

·        To develop a virtual community linking teachers to information technologies.

 

The Second Example

Teaching IT for Seniors

The educational system is very quickly changing. When in the pass the people were educated at school and then they left for the jobs and work for whole life, now everybody must take part of life long learning. Life long learning is one very important characteristic of life in an information society.

As a part of life long learning system was in the Czech Republic introduced Third Age University  (U3) for senior citizens. The department of Computer Science and Engineering is offering in frame of U3 course  of  basic use of computers. Course is design for two terms, "U3 students" are using departmental computers laboratories, they have an account number and E-mail address as other university students.

Because most of the participants have no previous  experience with computers and they are afraid to use a computer, we are trying to motivate them as much as possible. Our courses starts with WWW search, continue with writing letters, using E-mail and they also create their own web pages. At the end of course they have public presentation of projects which they prepare with as much as possible different kinds of IT.

We have very good experience with this kind of course. This is quite different from "normal" IT courses. The students need more support during laboratories, but they work harder and their results are perfect. The topics for their project are very often from their profession  (we have there M.D., lawyers, writer etc.). They feel that education keep them younger, they can help the wife and husbands in work, but what is may be most important, they feel as a part of society. A lot of them are saying, that this is very helpful to them, because before they have no contact with family members, because they are very busy, but when they are sending them email, they have again good relation. This is special good when this is relation between grand parents and grand children.

After the first year of course former U3 students are creating web page for senior citizens. There will  be not only information about services for senior citizens but all information relevant to them.

 

 

The Third Example

Global Team Teaching

The project Global Team Teaching was first time run during the summer term of the 1998/99 with computer science classes in North Hennepin Community College, USA and Czech Technical University in Prague. Although the main aim of both classes was programming, the students also obtained a basic instruction  how to use modern Internet - based communication tools. The project was conceived as a pilot project for teaching team cooperation on a global scale. For three month students worked in teams consisting of team members from remote places and different working and social background.

There were videoconference sessions, but most of the communication was done via E-mail, file transmission and www presentations. We tried to stress the social aspects of the project so that the students were asked not to restrict their communication  to professional issues.

For many participants the project was the first opportunity to have real working contact with a person from another country. They learned     a lot about differences in living style and working attitude. For the Czech students there was great motivation to learn English. We noticed a remarkable improvement in their command of the language when comparing their initial  and concluding presentation.

For the teachers the project confirmed that good motivation helps the students more then hours of lecture. This is in fact same experience in teachers courses and U3 courses.

We would like to continue in this experiments, because the first result are very good and improvement of education is obvious.

 

The goals of the project are in the following two areas:

· Promote the ability of students to work in teams, learn how to use correct programming techniques and get used to the method of cooperation for a distance. Using top technology communication means such things as videoconferencing, sharing application and sharing files.

· Promote multi-national cooperation and understanding of diverse groups of people. It presumes that the participants will get to know each other not just in a professional way but also in a personal way.

 

 Our overall experience as well as feedback from the participants are very positive in all those three examples. In our future work we plan several extensions of those activities.