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http://downloads.smarttech.com/media/services/promo/SMART_Summer_Institute_FSO.pdf

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Lorne Charles explains how he has avoided the isolation that a classroom can bring by taking on CPD with the help of the General Teaching Council.

In the studio, Peter Curran talks to Anne Jasman from the General Teaching Council and Alison Kitson from the Training and Development Agency. Peter is also joined by Patrick Nash from the Teacher Support Network, and all discuss how to judge what CPD to take on and when.

The programme also explains how to put the skills into practice, while various teachers discuss the benefits that CPD has brought them.

http://www.teachers.tv/video/20474

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We received a question from a listener about how American schools use educational technology. There is not a simple answer.

It depends on the subject and level of students, of course. But it also depends on the interest and training of the teachers, and the goals and budgets of the schools.

Schools are almost all connected to the Internet. But some have more technology, and use it more, than others. For example, some schools use computers for activities like video conferencing, to bring the world into the classroom.

And some classrooms are equipped with things like a Smart Board, a kind of interactive whiteboard. Interactive whiteboards are large displays for presentations.

They connect to a computer and can operate by touch. They can be used for documents or writing or to project video.

Some teachers are trying creative new ways to teach with devices like iPods and mobile phones.

But educators say the most important thing, as always, is the content.

Yet technology can have special importance in some cases.

Cosmobot is a therapy robot. It stands about half a meter tall and has a blue body and a friendly face with big eyes.

One child who works with it is six-year-old Kevin Fitzgerald. Kevin has developmental dyspraxia; he has difficulty moving his mouth and tongue.

He works with Carole Semango-Sprouse as he uses a set of buttons attached to a computer. He can make the silent robot move forward, backward or around in circles.

Kevin’s mother thinks the robot has had a calming influence, helping her son get along better with his friends.

Cosmobot was developed by AnthroTronix. Corinna Lathan started the company ten years ago to work with children with cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, autism and other developmental disabilities.

Children become friends with the robot, she says. That can have a big effect on their behavior, helping them work harder and longer in therapy sessions.

Corinna Lathan is currently working with a British company to develop other socially assistive robots.

She says they are still considered research tools in the United States. They are not used as much as in places like Britain and Japan. But she hopes to change that.

And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report. You can comment on our reports at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

(Adapted from a radio program broadcast 17Dec2009)

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Hong Kong’s public education system certainly needs reform, and the new curriculum, I hope, shall break the obstinacy that plagues the local pedagogy. The curriculum will hew the old into the relevant and prudent, quickly, please.

That said, I am fiercely critical of these government-sponsored courses whose objectives include promoting obsequiously their agenda. Though I did gain, I freely admit, a few worthwhile, practical module ideas, I was more interested in what was not being shown than what, in fact, was presented during the afternoon meeting. I, as an educator, need to balance my perspective in teaching and learning, particularly since my most profound learning moments have struck me while in the analysis of failure, not victory. I was disappointed, although unsurprised, that the government and its test schools painted a ridiculously rosy picture of a thousand flowers in full bloom across this Chinese territory, sparing me timorous thoughts of struggle, success, and failure. I indeed like my pedagogical development to be framed in a realistic, balanced manner.

I’ve spoken with EMB agents in regard to my concerns, but their ideological zealotry matches my own educational ardor step-for-step in the race to win the hearts and minds of a society in transition – might I add, I was told that there would have been a more reflective, realistic account of each school’s pilot actions had there been more time! Hence, for the public whose time is less penurious, I present an unduly critical video that captures the essence of a typically fawning, government-sponsored showcase series.

http://misterwoo.blogspot.com

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