How to Teach Teachers to Teach with New Media

1. How to Teach Teachers to Teachwith New Media Initial and Further Teacher Education in a Collaborative Learning Environment 2nd National Conference POSKOLE 2003 on Computers in Education Lazne Sedmihorky, 23 – 25 April 2003 Peter Gorny Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg Projekt eL3 – eLernen und eLehren in Lehrer-Aus- und Weiterbildung

2. Contents • The situation in 2000 (when proposing the project) • The project concepts – content and methodology • The project realization • First evaluation results and participants` opinions

3. Project eL3 funded by BMBF-Program New Media in Education The situation in 2000 (when proposing the project) • Approximately 75 % of all teachers in Germany (> 700,000) do not use a computer for teaching or preparation of teaching material. • Only 5 % use computers in the classroom. • Only 2 % use the internet in the classroom (Estimated by Federal educational administrations, 2000) • The Federal organisation of the school system leads to a great diversity – and little influence for the Federal government. • But singular Federally funded projects might help a little ....

4. The eL3 Project Consortium www.eL3.de • Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuernberg • FIM-NeuesLernen • Dr. Walter Kugemann (Chair of Consortium and of subproject Erlangen) • Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg • Learning Lab for Multimedia-supported Learning • within the Center for Didactics • Prof. Dr. Peter Gorny, Informatics (Chair of subproject Oldenburg) • Prof. Dr. Hilke Guenther-Arndt, History The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) – Program New Media in Eduaction Financial volume 2,3 Mio Euro (approx. 72 Mio CSK) Jan 2001 – Dec 2003

5. The objectives • Development of a system of distance education courses for teacher education • pre-service = teacher students • in-service = professional teachers • for all school subjects • for all school types • general schools • special schools • vocational schools • For all school levels • Primary (grades 1 - 4 — age: 6 - 10 yrs.) • Lower Secondary (grades 5 - 10 — age: 11 - 16 yrs.) • Upper Secondary (grades 11 - 13 — age: 17 - 19 yrs)

6. Self-organized, open, active learning The pedagogical concept • Awareness of New Media („media competence“) • Learning by Doing Direct application of New Media in each school subject • Technical skills not presented separately and in advance, but embedded in the classroom content (method: training modules for those who lack some technical skills) • Methodological competence („media didactics“) • The web-based material to be completed with other material to be retrieved from the internet or other sources • One task for a small group (max. 5) to be solved cooperately in each team at the end of each content module

7. A hybrid approach to distance education The methodological concept (1) • Web-based learning material • hypertext structure • embedded applets for simulations and animations • Tutorial guidance • max. 15 persons – preferably in one school district – form a team with online communication and regular F2F-meetings • Direct online contact to peers • Discussion forum (newsgroup) for each team and for each course • Chatrooms for each team and additional focus groups • Database with glossary, bibliography, expert addresses etc.

8. The methodological concept (2) Support functions Communication Source: Stefanie Teufel 1995 Video-Conference Chat E-Mail Virtual Bulletin Boards Hypertextsystems Workflow Management- Tools newsgroups Coordination Cooperation

9. The methodological concept (3) • Face-to-face group work „real“ plenary discussions in a team (max 15)or meetings of small groups (max 5)

10. The methodological concept (4) • Forms of learning and associated media • self organized learning, mostly online-learning, including the possibility to annotate web pages for exchange of ideas within a team. • Request for help from a tutor: per E-mail • Discussions via newsgroups („Forum“) or via Chat • Exercises: Learning by Doing with tutorial feedback on request per E-mail • Tasks: sent to the tutor, graded and detailed feedback per E-Mail • Work in small (local) groups, espec. for exercises and cooperative tasks (online or F2F) • Creating cooperative environments: F2F team meetings

11. The technical basis • The course material • embedded in the learning platform Hyperwave eLearning Suite, which offers the necessary functionality, especially also the groupware functions. • The content is authored • with the scripting language XLML (XML-based Logical Markup Language), developed for eL3. • Internet access • provided by the universities Erlangen and Oldenburg and by regional school networks.

12. The course content (1) • The course material • consists of problem-oriented case studies from school subjects, • presents technical advice and methodological solutions. • Concrete methodolical problems or class room scenarios • analysis • selection of an appropriate medium • derivation of an methodological approach and its mapping on technical fucntions • problem-based exercises to enhance the necessary technical skills and competences

13. The content (2) • The content is organized in three levels • Basic Level with main focus: How to teach with the help ICT in the classroom (specialized for each school subject), • 2nd Level with main focus: How to organize students' ICT-supported learning (specialized for each school subject), • 3rd Level for in-depth courses (in planning) • production of eLearning material (e.g., database applications, digital video / audio, simulations, animations), • "Beyound the classroom walls: The Global village”, • computer-supported student projects, • evaluation methods.

14. The Content (3) • Course modules ( e.g. for the subject History ) • Introduction: Teaching and learning with the computer • Collecting and organizing educational material with the computer • Computer-based communication and cooperation • Information retrieval with new media • Designing work sheets with the computer • Preparing digital images for the lessons • Presentations in the classroom • Animations and simulations • Collecting and analyzing data • Designing interactive work sheets • Applying data bases and designing own data bases LeveI I Level II

15. The practical realization • Staff • 11 full-time developers • 15 teachers on part-time basis • Development time • 3 years • Course system development phase • Test phase: Summer term 2002 (5 courses, max. 15 participants per course) • Prototype system: Winter term 2002/2003 (9 courses, max. 45 participants per course) • Course system – full access starting Summer term 2003 • for min 50,000 teachers (distributed over several years) • organized by U Erlangen-Nürnberg and U Oldenburg • or organized via other institutions („franchise-model“)

16. First evaluation results and participants` opinions (1) • Course platform • The performance of our course platform Hyperwave eLearning Suite is extremely bad: very long responce time for the users. (This is caused by a poor cordination of several systems: OS Solaris / Oracle / HIS / eLS).Solution: New hardware for Redhat-Linux / Oracle / HIS / eLS. • The participations complained over inadequate communication functions of the platform.Partial solution: Customization of the user interface. • The participants preferred to work offline with the course material. eLS was only activated for communication purposes.Solution: a download version and tutorial support for triggering online communication.

17. First evaluation results and participants` opinions (2) • Didactical concept and course contents • The participants approved the strong school subject orientation of the course material – especially as didactical motivation for exercising the software functions. • The participants disliked, that the lecturers and tutors „synchronized“ the participants` work with the course modules • by giving late access to the exercises and tasks • and by strict deadlines for sending in the task results. • An evaluation of the content quality of our course material is not yet available. (To be performed in Fall 2003.)

18. First evaluation results and participants` opinions (3) • Communication and cooperation • The amount of communication amoung participants and between participants and tutor or lecturer was surprisingly poor due to several causes: • Our course authors have not given sufficient incentives for online communication in the teams. (The material is still very similar to common textbooks.) • The participants were not willing (or able) to start online cooperation or collaboration in small virtual groups. • The possibility to discuss module texts with the help of cascadable annotations (a function of eLS) was rarely used.

19. Solution: „Blended Learning“ First evaluation results and participants` opinions – SUMMARY • Limits of virtual learning • An online identity does not produce the necessary confidence as a face-to-face meeting. • Participants rejected to cooperate with „strangers“. • Participants are reluctant to spontaneously ask „stupid questions“ online. • Individual learning required much self discipline and high competence for self-organized learning.

20. Thank you for your attention !

21. Analysis

22. Analysis

23. Selection

24. Concrete Examples

25. Concrete Examples

26. Exercises

27. Exercises II: Evaluation

28. Exercises II: Evaluation of students

29. Exercises II: Evaluation of teachers