Technology workshop for teachers

Technology will never replace a great teacher but technology in the hands of a great teacher is transformational. George Couras An online workshop was conducted between 26 and 29 June 2020 to upgrade and enhance the skills of our teachers as they restart conducting online classes. All the teachers of The Indian School attended the four-day workshop. Ms Sonia Wadhwa, Supervising Examiner and Academic Coordinator ICSE at The Sanskaar Valley School, Bhopal, was our resource person. Ms Wadhwa is a senior educator with more than 21 years of experience in the field of educational technologies. She is also the recipient of the Coordinator International School Award by the British Council. She is a google certified digital citizenship facilitator, Adobe Creative Educator and Ambassador and a Microsoft Certified Educator Expert. [gallery link="file" order="DESC"] On the first day of the exchange, Ms Wadhwa highlighted the two major concerns of a teacher. The first concern is whether the children on the other side of the screen are actually attending the sessions or not. The second concern shared by her was how a teacher can engage his/ her students effectively during online sessions. She stressed upon the need for feedback from the students in order to assess the quality of teaching. She mentioned that it is imperative that the teachers use tools which allow them to undertake a quick check and help them guage if the the students are absorbing what is being taught. Keeping these two major points in mind, Ms Wadhwa spoke about an excellent tool called NEARPOD. This tool can help teachers teach, assess and connect with the students. She briefed her audience about the basic interface of NEARPOD and also showed how the platform can merge Formative Assessment and dynamic media for a collaborative learning experience. Ms Wadhwa demonstrates how teachers can create and share lessons with the students. She showed the teachers how to access these lessons and view student participation. The experience was not only enriching but also helped the teachers gain an insight into some interesting and creative ways to add an interdisciplinary dimension to their teaching methodology. The session saw active participation by the teachers. On the second day Ms. Wadhwa began the workshop by introducing a tried and tested foolproof platform for evaluating student performance. The platform us called Exam.net. Ms Wadhwa explained the benefits of this platform and showed teachers how to conduct exams with the help of it. She said that the tool id widely used by Swedish schools to carry out multiple exams each semester. The audience attempted the application on their laptops even as they followed the resource persons instructions at all times. It provided the much-needed hands on experience. The third day started with Ms Wadhwa clarifying the teachers doubts in regard to what she had taught them in the past two days. She then began the days session with an explanation of a new tool called WAKELET. Wakelet is a tool that allows users to take control of the content that interests and inspires them. It allows teachers and students to easily integrate and streamline the learning experience into a curated collection of videos, ppts and other links. Ms Wadhwa explained how the tool can be used for Flip teaching. She explained the various options through which educators can create a self-paced lesson and share it with the students. Such lessons allow the freedom to students to learn at their own pace. She explained the various features of the tool along with their uses. On the fourth day Ms Wadhwa talked about another useful tool called FLIPGRID. This is a social learning platform that allows teachers to ask a question to which the students respond through a video or an audio clip. Flipgrid is a free tool and enables one to foster short video-based discussions on classroom topics. The tool can be used by students to create and share recordings online with their classmates. Ms Wadhwa explained all the steps required to create a grid, using different subjects as examples. The teachers were also invited to share their videos on the same grid. It was a very informative workshop which helped teachers know about the latest tools available for to best facilitate teaching online.