Digital Teacher

“Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire” WB Yates

Welcome to 2012

The year of Digital Teacher Hacking

Coming soon: This (front only) web Page for Digital Teacher will become a Blog or Forum. There will be 3 main topics to this informative section. To get updates in your email client you will be able to RSS the Blog.

The wonderful education tool that Moodle has become and how to get the best out of it in any subject area.
Devoted to online, media rich learning objects for Design and Technology students and teachers. There will often be links to free or affordable online content.

Support for Digital Teachers.

From Top 10 Stories in Education in 2011

Number 1. Hacking Education. Strong is the will to break away from the traditional, industrial schooling model and move toward individualized learning enhanced by 21st century technology. This concept, which I loosely call "hacking education," is a movement that is not confined to 2011, but has gained steam as educators, entrepreneurs, journalists and technologists connect. Sir Ken Robinson's famous animated articulation continues to ground the discussion, but all around the world, local innovators are springing up to perpetuate real change in great knowledge exchanges. From LearnBoost's Edu Tech Innovators Meetups in San Francisco and Colorado (and more in the works!) to edu-focused TEDx events to savvy publications like EdSurge, the urge to meet up, collaborate, and change the paradigm is growing, and growing fast. Ideas are becoming action!

Imagine: Your work accessed by your students outside classrooms, at the kitchen table or their grandparents house afterschool. Imaginehow that simple step could change the way you organise and create their working world. You are an individual teacher, head of department organising 4 or more teachers or an author who has sweated away months to create the perfect text book. We are all educators, so Imagine the creativity and freedom online time could give your students. Class time becomes offline time, a place to act out, create and construct practical projects,take video clips, pictures of experiments, processes, audio of debates or discussions. Online time can happen anywhere anytime, at home, with grandparents or small groups in the school Library waiting for the bus. This learning could be a more personal, private, reflective approach to the lesson or offline time. Digital Teacher gives teachers the tools to change the way they teach as well as extend the time students are able to access their innovative content. A very powerful medium.

The concept of Digital Teacher had been a long term project for many years. It seems that I have always been researching and trialling different ways that digital lesson content can be used to enhance students learning. This web site has been developed so that digital lesson content can not only be viewed by students, they can also interact with it through the safety of an industrial strength LMS or Learning Management System.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system

Through the LMS students will be able to access video, audio, other research links, quiz, tutorial, questionnaire, test or even an exam from a bank of questions. All online no matter which school you are teaching in.To start with Digital Teacher is a place for my students and myself but the LMS is designed to take many more teachers who would like to have their digital content online in their own LMS environment. Shortly I will be looking for a small group of ‘Digital’ Teachers from around Australia who would like to pilot this innovation, with me. If you are a current practicing teacher with:

Basic skills in digital content development
Perhaps have a web presence i.e. web site, blog, wiki etc.
Perhaps work in a remote situation but with reasonable computers, internet access and a little IT assistance.
Are interested in Moodle, WebCT or Blackboard type environments (Digital Teacher uses none of these)

UPDATE: We now use Moodle. Creating 'How To' files was just too difficult for the original LMS. If you have used Moodle you will realise it is a wonderful LMS with amazing 'How To’ files and hundreds of other online tutorials.

Dare to Imagine

If you answer yes to most of the above and are prepared to go where others have not, you might be just the person I am looking for.