30 Haziran 2008 Pazartesi
ICT IN EDUCATION, ARION STUDY VISIT, 12 – 16 MAY 2008, SPAIN, INDIVIDUAL REPORT
1. Introduction
Participants
1.Tunç Erdal AKDUR – TURKEY,
2.Mehmet SARIKAYA – TURKEY
3.Marie-estelle LIEGEOIS – FRANCE
4.Angelo CONTI – ENGLAND
5.Daniel DE VRIENDT – BELGIUM
6.Florin GHIOCEL – ROMANIA
7.Marc THOMPSON – ENGLAND
8.Katalin FAZEKAS – HUNGARY
9.Aivars OZOLS – LETONIA
10. Timo KAINULAINEN – FINLAND
11. Maya ARNAUDOVA – BELGIUM
12. Lloyd FORSTER – ENGLAND
13. Marjan GRADISNIK – SLOVENIA
14. Jos JOSSO – HOLLAND
15. Johanna VAN HUIJGEVOORT – HOLLAND
Topic of Study Visit: Information Technologies in Education
Dates of Study Visit : SPAIN, Asturias, 12 – 16 May 2008
Program
12 May 2008 Monday:
Morning, opening ceremony was performed by the education authorities of the region where study visit was done. Information about the usage of IT in Spanish education system was explained to us. Educastur education portal was introduced. Asturian parliament was visited.
Afternoon, IES Aramo Secondary 2nd level vocational school was visited. How IT is integrated into vocational training of photography and cinematography was presented.
13 May 2008 Tuesday:
Morning, CP San Felix Advanced Level IT integrated primary school was visited. After that teacher training center in Gijon, Where teacher inservice training system on IT integration to education was explained to us, was visited.
Afternoon, historical places of Gijon city were visited. After that group returned to Oviedo City and group report study was started to be written.
14 May 2008 Wednesday:
Morning, Education authorities of Asturias made presentations about the integration of IT into education. IES Cerdano Secondary and Vocational Training School was visited. Integration of IT in education program in this school was introduced to us.
Afternoon, participants made presentations about IT integration into education systems of their own countries. Every country presented their applications of education portal, learning object developments, IT integration, inservice teacher training on IT, etc.
15 May 2008 Thursday:
Morning, CPEE Latores special education school was visited. How special need students are educated by IT tools was introduced to us in this school. After that Asturias Central Hospital was visited. How student patients are educated by IT in the hospital was explained to us.
Afternoon, participants continued to prepare group study visit report by coming together in the hotel.
16 May 2008 Friday:
Morning, EEI Pena Careses Infant School was visited. How IT is used as an teaching and learning tool was introduced to us.
Afternoon participants came together to prepare group study visit report.
2. Findings
Th following findings about integration of information technologies into Spanish education system were obtained at the end of the study visit performed between 12-16 May 2008 in Asturias region of SPAIN.
Integration of IT into Education
a. Educastur Education Portal:
There is an educational portal of Asturias region that we visited. The name of the portal is Educastur (http://www.educastur.es/). Educastur education portal includes knowledge and tools for teachers and students at every level of education from infant to secondary schools to integrate IT into their teaching and learning processes.
Students and teachers can enter to Educastur educational portal and they can share their homework and projects by means of blog preparing web pages. Teachers can give homework and project assignments to their students by means of blogs. By using basic blog preparation web tools, students can prepare and present their homework and projects to their teachers with blog web pages that include text, pictures and videos. Teachers can check students homework and project blog pages and add their comments and feedbacks to homework and project blog pages of students. Teachers can also prepare blog pages for lesson instruction for their students and publish these blog pages at the portal.
Educastur education portal includes educational content for the students who are infantry, primary and secondary school levels. Students can use course materials prepared for them by entering with their username and passwords. Teacher studying in a group work at school prepare web based educational materials and publish them at the Educastur education portal. So that educational content of Educastur education portal is upgraded and improved continuously.
There are also course support resources, online grade entrance facilities, educational software and resources for teacher to teach them integrate IT into education in Educastur education portal. There is an 140.000 user capacity of Educastur education portal.
b. Inservice Teacher Training Centers
There are Inservice Teacher Training Centers in Asturias region that we visited. Inservice training is given to teachers in every course topic for their professional development. There are about 100 schools in the responsibility of inservice teacher training center that is visited. This center is responsible for inservice training of about 3100 teachers work in these schools. Every inservice training center has its own instructors and trainers. There are three methods of inservice training. 1st one is inservice training courses taught to teachers. 2nd one is group study for teachers in schools. 3rd one is school projects method. The inservice teacher training center which was visited provides 11 inservice teacher training courses, 8 group work study and 2 school projects for teachers to integrate IT into their instruction.
The purposes of the inservice teacher training about integration of IT is to teach teachers to use IT in their daily teaching activities, to determine new methods of integration of IT in education and to improve the teaching process of teachers by means of IT. For this purpose one teacher from every school is selected and trained as IT coordinator.
c. IT Coordinator Teachers
There are IT coordinators in each school. IT coordinators are trained at inservice training centers. Coordinator teachers are selected and trained among teachers who are enthusiastic about usage of IT in their schools. IT coordinators are trained with an 100 hours course at the beginning to be an IT coordinator. After that they return their schools and are called to inservice training centers frequently to be trained further. Coordinator teachers are trained on basic technical skills about IT, usage of IT in education and about group work with IT. Coordinator teachers are also trained on usage of Educastur education portal. Coordinator teachers are also trained on usage of Tablet PC’s, Digital Boards, educational software. Coordinator teachers teach courses in school 10 hours less than the other teachers in school.
Coordinator teachers train other teachers in their schools to use IT in their lessons in these hours. Coordinator teachers are also responsible from the equal access of teachers to IT tools in school for their teaching activities in their lessons. They also repair small computer breakdowns in their schools.
d. Digital Educational Content
Coordinator teachers bring teachers together in group studies and teach them IT based educational materials. The digital educational materials prepared by teachers in group works are uploaded to Educastur education portal. Beside this, the educational materials prepared in Moodle LMS software are used in course activities.
e. IT Classrooms
Students prepare their projects by using computers and internet in primary and secondary schools. Therefore, there are 1-3 computer laboratories in each school, each with 15-20 computers. There are also at least 3 computers in each school library.
In the classrooms of primary schools, there are one projector, a computer and a smart board. Students study the educational web blogs from the smart board. Students also can use tablet PC’s that are distributed individually for each one of them. Students prepare their homework and projects and when they finish their projects upload them to Educastur education portal via internet.
There are a computer and projector in classrooms of vocational training schools. Disabled students in special schools use also smart boards and projectors in their classrooms. Students do learning activities by using these smart boards. Disabled students improve their drawing and writing skills by using educational software in digital boards. Disabled students are also taught speaking skills by using IT tools.
There are IT classrooms with 20+1 computers in infant schools. Two students use one computer not to lose their sociability. Students in infant school also use educational software in IT classrooms that Educastur portal provide to them. Students also use smart boards to study the educational software prepared for them.
3. Conclusion and Discussion
The benefits of this study visit for my professional work area can be listed as followings:
As in the Spain, students in my country can prepare blog web pages for their homework and projects in educational portal of Ministry of National Education (http://egitim.meb.gov.tr/) and share these blog pages with their teachers. Our teachers can give homework and project assignments by blog pages to their students. Students can prepare blog web pages for their homework and projects with text, pictures and videos and send them to their teachers throughout the education portal. Teachers can check students projects blog pages and add their comments and feedbacks to their students blog pages. Our teachers can also prepare educational blog web pages to teach their lessons and upload them to the portal.
Our school IT formator teachers should be taken into inservice trainings continuously as in the Spain. The IT formator teachers should be educated on IT skills, usage of IT materials in education and group work in inservice training centers.
School formator teachers should bring teachers in their schools together to teach them preparing web based educational materials for their lessons. The materials prepared by teachers in group work should be able to be published at educational portal. (http://yazarlikyazilimi.meb.gov.tr)
Our students, like the students in Spain, should be able to prepare their homework and projects in IT laboratories and libraries. There should be a computer, smart board and projector in each classroom of our schools. Students should be able to use smart boards to study educational web blogs prepared for them by their teachers.
As in the Spain, there must be inservice training centers for each 100 schools in Turkey. There should be continuous training for teachers for their professional development. The inservice training centers should have regular instructors and trainer personnel in these inservice training centers. Inservice teacher training centers should continuously follow teachers who work in schools and improve their knowledge and skills by inservice training activities.
As conclusion, this study visit was very helpful and beneficial to understand the integration of information technologies in Spanish education system.
The photograps about this study visit can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/tuncakdur
# Tunc Erdal AKDUR tarafından gönderildi @ 01:03 
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