Teacher training experience

I have always been a great fan of technology, computers, internet, games, etc. Today I found out there is a term for that, I don't know if it is used in other countries. This generation that is totally connected to these gadgets is called geek. There it is, I found myself. Of course I am not an expert. I still have so much to learn, but I use to tell my friends that I am not afraid of trying, and normally read the Help files. This is the recipe of my technology knowledge.

Last week, I had a great experience I want to share. About 4 years ago I took a course about Web Tools, but mainly related to iEarn. Since then I have tried to apply some of the things I learned in my classes, and to share this with my colleagues in my school. Not everyone was as interested as I was.

Last year I had the opportuniy of taking part in the ILEP program, also sponsored by the US State Department, and during the 5 months I stayed in Kentucky, one of our mandatory subjects was Technology applied to Teaching. Lots more of resources were made available, and again, my desire of sharing it with others became stronger. I simply can't avoid. It is a kind of mission I have to accomplish, teacher formation, or training, is something I would really like to develop.

Back to Brazil, I intented to develop a workshop or training sessions, basically about web tools and resources, but again, don't ask me why, it was not possible. I took an online course here, offered by a teacher formation center in Brasilia, where I live, but it was very short, and dealt only with blogs and their use in teaching. To be sincere, this course was very superficial, I can see now. Time was very restricted.

Finally, I got to this group. And things have started very well this year. In the planning week that preceeded the beginning of classes, we had a lot of meetings, and one of them was mine! I was invited to present a small session about webskills, or internet resources, to my coleagues. As our group is very varied in terms of computer/internet skills, I had to choose some points. I taught them something about templates in Office programs (Word, Power Point and Excel), gave a small lesson about iGoogle (page agregator) and finally introduced blogs to them. At the end of the session, most of the teachers had created their own blogs, and we had the opportunity of sharing ideas on how to use blogs in classes.

It was the first step. There are more to come. We have already decided that we are going to set other sessions to continue this "training". I am sure all the ideas and suggestions that I have seen throught this course will enrich even more my sharing with my teachers here. And at the end, there is only one objetive: enhancing our students' learning.

That is all, for now!!!!!!

Marcia