OPLS blog

The professional development team at the IB are pleased to announce the release of our 2009 calendar of online workshops for teachers. These workshops currently appear in a calendar for each of the IB’s programme’s:

Primary Years Programme
Middle Years Programme
Diploma Programme

Our online workshop provision is likely to increase throughout 2009, hence teachers and coordinators are advised to regularly check for updates ( this can be done automatically by selecting to receive notification of page updates, this option is available on all calendars).

This year’s online workshops will begin across all IB programmes on Monday 26th January 2009 (registrations for this iteration will close on Friday 16th January).

As part of our commitment to increasing the standard of the professional development of IB teachers, this year the certificates issued at the conclusion of a workshop will be awarded showing a level of engagement, this will be reached through reflection by both participant and workshop leader.

There is a comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions section on our professional development website, however if you require more information please contact the online workshop team.

Clare recently alerted me to this screen sharing application: Yuuguu.

Great for collaboration and demonstration - although it does involve a download.

Just when we thought we wouldn’t need to download anything ever again.

An interesting meet-up is being planned around BETT next year. Called TeachMeet08, it is a gathering of education technologists, willing to share their experiences and expertise. It is being led by Ewan McIntosh among others and he has blogged about it here.

If you want to sign up, please do so at the supporting wiki: TeachMeet08.

Hope to see you there.

Just a reminder re. the K-12 online conference starting in just over a couple of weeks time.

From their about page:

The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone.

We knew it would only be a matter of time before the IB learning community began to inhabit media sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr. Here are two examples we’ve come across recently - both from YouTube.

The first is a PYP exhibition sample, contributed by students and teachers at the International School of Tianjin, China.

The second example is from a TOK student in the Diploma Programme. We don’t know who he is or where he’s from, as there are no end credits, but we think you’ll enjoy it nevertheless:

With either video, we make no claims as to their adherence to programme requirements. What we do want to do, though, is use them to highlight a number of important issues.

The first is that they’re two examples of students using new technologies to get a message across and show evidence of learning. This is something we will need to come to terms with as a curriculum and assessment authority, and particularly as an awarding body, in the future. Recognising student learning, when evidence of it is so dispersed on the web, will be a real challenge for us in the years ahead.

The second is that they’re both examples of resources which can help teachers in furthering their understanding of the programmes. Discussions around what’s good, and not so good, about them are invaluable for teachers as they attempt to come to terms with programme requirements and continuously improve their practice.

Thirdly, and as a corollary of the above two points, where these examples are located will increasingly be irrelevant. What is important is how we describe them (ie what metadata will we need to establish and use in order to tag these resources?) and how we link to them (ie how can we make use of the semantic web to go beyond a closed teacher resource exchange, such as that on the OCC?)

Something to think about anyway.