TESS-India OER: Collaborative practices to improve teacher education

As the numbers of children attending school in India rises rapidly ensuring a productive learning experience for every student is a huge challenge. Quality is central to the Government of India’s education policy; major education goals recognise that changes in teachers’ classroom practice are critical to improving students’ learning in elementary and secondary schools across India. This paper describes the rationale and pedagogy of an innovative response to these challenges harnessing contemporary ideas on ‘open’, learning and the increasing availability of network technology in the form of a multilingual Open Educational Resources (OER) teacher education toolkit. The main section of the paper then describes the processes for multi-stakeholder participation in the development of the elements of the OER toolkit and the paper concludes with a discussion of the ‘open’ dimension of the project and how this enables ‘local’ authentication and mediation of use of the OER in each of the project states

Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality

Building upon a process-and context-oriented information quality framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities. A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media, youth, and information quality -- primarily works from library and information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic studies -- reveals patterns in youth's information-seeking behavior, but also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors both for search and evaluation. Looking at the phenomenon from an information-learning and educational perspective, the literature shows that youth develop competencies for personal goals that sometimes do not transfer to school, and are sometimes not appropriate for school. Thus far, educational initiatives to educate youth about search, evaluation, or creation have depended greatly on the local circumstances for their success or failure

Learning Networks of Schools: The key enablers of successful knowledge communities

In an effort to intentionally create the level of deep learning necessary for practitioners to make meaningful changes in their classrooms, professional networks are increasingly being promoted as mechanisms for knowledge creation that can makes a difference for students. This paper explores the way networks function by testing a theory of action within the Network of Performance Based Schools (NPBS) in British Columbia, Canada. It presents networks as collaborative systems that support particular ways of working and find expression within two distinct organizational units – the network itself and its participant schools.Dans le but de créer un niveau d’apprentissage en profondeur (deep learning) nécessaire aux intervenants pour que ces derniers apportent des changements importants dans les salles de classe, les réseaux professionnels sont de plus en plus promis comme des mécanismes de création du savoir qui peuvent susciter le genre de changements qui feront une différence pour les élèves. Cet article permet d’explorer le mode de fonctionnement des réseaux en faisant l’essai d’une théorie de l’action au sein du réseau Network of Performance Based Schools (NPBS) en Colombie-Britannique, au Canada. Il décrit les réseaux comme des systèmes collaboratifs qui appuient des façons particulières de travailler et qui trouvent une application dans deux unités organisationnelles distinctes – le réseau lui-même et ses écoles participantes

Developing the scales on evaluation beliefs of student teachers

The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to investigate the validity and the reliability of a newly developed questionnaire named ‘Teacher Evaluation Beliefs’ (TEB). The framework for developing items was provided by the two models. The first model focuses on Student-Centered and Teacher-Centered beliefs about evaluation while the other centers on five dimensions (what/ who/ when/ why/ how). The validity and reliability of the new instrument was investigated using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis study (n=446). Overall results indicate that the two-factor structure is more reasonable than the five-factor one. Further research needs additional items about the latent dimensions “what” ”who” ”when” ”why” “how” for each existing factor based on Student-centered and Teacher-centered approaches

INNOVATIVE MODELS OF WEB‐SUPPORTED UNIVERSITY‐SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS

This study explored how the Internet bridges theory and practice. Teacher educators, teachers, and prospective teachers used collaborative technologies to design networked communities embedded in three distinct perspectives: the networked learning community, the networked community of practice, and the knowledge building community. Networked communities prompted the development of solutions for integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) at the elementary, secondary, and post‐secondary levels. These communities provide opportunities for sustained theory‐practice dialogue between teachers at different stages of their professional development and opportunities for ‘boundary spanning’ between courses, practica, pre‐ and in‐service education, graduate seminars, and collaborative research activities. Key words: teacher education, professional development, collaborative reflective practice, networked communitiesCette étude explore les possibilités d’Internet, entre autres, le Web et certains de ses outils pour soutenir des échanges propices à l’établissement de liens théorie‐pratique au sein de communautés en réseau. Trois modèles sont présentés, chacun ayant conduit à la mise à l’avant de solutions novatrices pour l’intégration réussie des technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC) aux niveaux primaire, secondaire et postsecondaire. Les communautés en réseau ont fourni des occasions de réflexion et de mise en relation d’activités de cours et de stages, de formation initiale et continue ainsi que de recherches réalisées en collaboration. Mots clés: formation des enseignants, développement professionnel, pratique réflexive, communautés en réseau

Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health

Based on a literature review and interviews with digital learning experts, explores how digital games can foster skills and knowledge for better academic performance and health. Makes recommendations for government research, partnerships, and media

A Rule Set for the Future

This volume, Digital Young, Innovation, and the Unexpected, identifies core issues concerning how young people's use of digital media may lead to various innovations and unexpected outcomes. The essays collected here examine how youth can function as drivers for technological change while simultaneously recognizing that technologies are embedded in larger social systems, including the family, schools, commercial culture, and peer groups. A broad range of topics are taken up, including issues of access and equity; of media panics and cultural anxieties; of citizenship, consumerism, and labor; of policy, privacy, and IP; of new modes of media literacy and learning; and of shifting notions of the public/private divide. The introduction also details six maxims to guide future research and inquiry in the field of digital media and learning. These maxims are "Remember History," "Consider Context," "Make the Future (Hands-on)," "Broaden Participation," "Foster Literacies," and "Learn to Toggle." They form a kind of flexible rule set for investigations into the innovative uses and unexpected outcomes now emerging or soon anticipated from young people's engagements with digital media

The Future of the Internet

Presents findings from a survey of technology leaders, scholars, industry officials, and analysts. Evaluates the network infrastructure's vulnerability to attack, and the Internet's impact on various institutions and activities in the coming decade

Schools of the future in Hawai\u27i: networked learning communities and teaching innovation

Networked learning communities have the potential to improve teacher practice more effectively than traditional professional development models by expanding the pool of ideas to draw upon and engaging participants in mutual problem solving (Little, 2005). The intent of this descriptive, quantitative study was to better understand how network factors and benefits relate to teaching innovation in a networked learning community, part of the Hawai\u27i Schools of the Future Initiative in Hawai\u27i. Forty-one teachers from 10 schools took a customized 50 item Levels of Teaching Innovation Digital Age Survey to generate ratings in three key areas, Personal Computer Use, Current Instructional Practices, and Levels of Teaching Innovation. Existing data regarding type of professional learning community and intensity of professional development was also utilized. Results were analyzed descriptively and inferentially in order to better understand the nature of participation in the networked learning community as it relates to digital age teaching practices. The researcher concluded that: * Teachers with higher levels of network participation demonstrate higher fluency with digital tools and learner-based methodologies. * Teachers who collaborated more often with higher quality collaboration and established more new professional relationships demonstrate higher fluency with digital tools. * The type of professional learning community in place at the school level does not bear a relationship to levels of teaching innovation. * The intensity of professional development offerings in place at the school level does not bear a relationship to levels of teaching innovation. * Teachers with higher levels of teaching innovation place greater value on learning from experts outside the network and collaboration at individual schools in transforming their practice. This study was limited as it studied only one network, it had a lower than expected response rate, and relied on a snapshot versus intervention lens. Recommendations for future studies include replicating the study in subsequent years of the project or in a similar network, further exploring the nature of professional relationships formed in the network, and focusing on the online Ning tool