During last year, the ICT teachers' training in Portugal has been deeply restructured. The main objective was, after a decade of ICT teachers training using local approaches defined by teachers training centers, define and conquer digital literacy for all Portuguese teachers, independent of their basis area of teaching. Now, and a year after the beginning of the new model, it's important to reflect about the detected difficulties, to do the balance between the expected outcomes and the real ones. There are some relevant questions: are there any new advances? What are the new challenges for teachers? What are (or can be) the outcomes? Are the outcomes the expected ones? How can schools, teachers, students, teachers training centers' and trainers get together to make b-learning a real and sustainable approach in all Portuguese non high schools? This paper includes research about the Moodle dissemination in Portugal, reflections about the new and the old ICT teachers training model and guidelines to improve the new model success.
CRIE (in Portuguese, Workgroup for Computers, Networks and Internet at Schools) is the entity responsible for the new model for ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) teachers training. It has been launched by the end of 2005 (November). Its purpose is to deeply restructure the former ICT teachers training model, changing the learning paradigm to be focused not on applications but on students needs, and how ICT can be used to fill students and school project’s needs.
The new model is based on a set of four different courses, the same for all the teachers training centers in the entire Portuguese country, using a b-learning (blended-learning or mixed training, with presence and distance classes) approach. b-learning has several advantages comparing to traditional/presence classes: flexi2 ble timetables for study and trainees interaction; physical trainees location is not relevant for course development; the costs are less than the ones for traditional/presence model; it’s easy to reuse and update course contents; it’s possible to innovate the training process by using multimedia interactions.
ICT Teachers training using e-learning is not a new method: Prof2000 project
[
CRIE has proposed four different courses on ICT teachers training [
The workshop model, using a b-learning approach and a LMS (Learning Management System) Platform as Moodle, defines that, all the actors (trainers and trainees), must work together beyond the presence classes: teacher’s participation must be active (forums, chats and messages are important communication tools), the class must work as a Virtual Community (a sustainable one), the courses impact will be evaluated and, for this evaluation could be possible, there is a temporal gap - 2 or 3 months - since the teachers are expected to do real work with their students. 3.
Moodle was the reference LMS Platform to implement ICT teachers training.
This is an open source software and, although being a very recent LMS (it’s an
4
Australian Project in development since 1999), it puts together a significant user’s
community: Portuguese Moodle Community - http://web.educom.pt/moodlept/
and International Community - www.moodle.org ) as two distinct examples.
Figure 1 compares the exponential growth considering two reference dates: December
2006 (the end of the first ICT teachers training) and July 2007 (the end of the first
period of the second year). Registered sites, Courses, Users and Forum posts had a
30% improvement. Teachers grown less: only 17%. There are 186 countries
registered (169 were registered in December 2006). Portugal had 581 registered
Moodle servers (December 2006) and has now 1084, an 85% grown in a 6 months
period. It means that Portugal belongs to the top 4 countries considering this value
and also school population. Countries like Germany (834 -Dec. 06, 1232 now,
48% grown), Spain (1460 -Dec. 06, 2147 now, 48% grown), and United Kingdom
(1549 -Dec. 06, 2052 now, 32% grown). Data for countries like Australia (611,
822 now, 35% grown), Brazil (874, 1459 now, 67% grown) and United States of
America (3913, 5595 now, 43% grown) [
December 2006 July 2007
Moodle allows profile definition for users (teachers, students and groups), file sharing, chats and forums discussions (all the posts can be sent to all participants registered in a specific course), work submissions, sharing results and feedback for students as grades and comments, trace participants workflow, referenda, questionnaires, glossaries, wikis, pear-coaching using workshop activity. However, if we intend to explore e-learning tools beyond Moodle using as a complement for presence classes, lessons, diaries, and tests could be good tools. Moodle has also 5 other possibilities: a calendar where all tasks can be announced; a messages exchange system completely supported by the platform; an area where is possible to know who is online (could be important information in virtual communities).
In Portugal, there was no tradition on teacher’s virtual communities besides some punctual projects like Prof2000, RCTS (in Portuguese, Rede Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade or Society, Technology and Science Network) or UARTE (in Portuguese, Unidade de Apoio à Rede Telemática Educativa, Supporting Unit to Educative Telematic Network). Teachers were not very familiar with sharing work with other teachers, other schools or other projects. Even during former projects, there was the challenge to online sharing using Internet Web Pages but there was also a difficult task because most of the updating work was centred on ICT teachers, they were not part of school staff for more than a year and so, there are many schools sites that are not updated for long time. With Moodle, the whole paradigm can change: for the first time, teachers have a platform were they can be completely autonomous - they can update their courses anytime, anywhere, for their own. However, they must decide what is relevant for students, the personal contents that can’t be available like personal restricted data. To solve these problems, teachers are encouraged to use inscription keys besides user authentication on Moodle Servers: with this option, teachers can assure that there are no unwanted users among their course participants. Even so, it was not very friendly for teachers to get used to this approach: they weren’t accustomed to their class visibility paradigm and now they must (or they could if they wanted to) to a global paradigm. Questions like: “can other teachers use my work without asking me?” were very frequent ones. Figure 2 is a course example, in Portuguese, using Sofciências Moodle Server. This course has been the virtual community for one of ICT teachers training class.
The ICT teachers training focus now on processes that can be translated in a more efficient learning model for students in schools, while in the past was centred on applications (how to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, for instance).
At the beginning (May 2006), there were many obstacles to conquer the aimed goals:
- Lack of information about the new ICT teachers training model: many teachers didn’t know that they had to do the training using a workshop model and blearning. Many didn’t have internet access at home and the school internet accesses were very slow.
- In workshop model, working in a Project beyond presence classes is mandatory. Also, the presence sessions must be very separated in time for a 2 or 3 months since the beginning until last session. Teachers weren’t prepared for these exigencies.
- Schools were not prepared for Moodle Platform: there were not enough
computers for teachers. Meanwhile, a Program to equip schools with portable
com7
puters (Portables at School [
- There are many courses where it is difficult to interact with Moodle: expressions areas like music, sports, arts, are difficult to adapt to an on-line platform;
However, teachers tend to overcome all their difficulties and many schools
have now their own Moodle Server. By the end of June 2007, there was a good
evolution in what concerns to number of Portuguese Moodle Sites (servers) and
the former teachers’ expertise is now helping the ones who are just beginning.
CRIE, with the Portables at School Program (in
http://www.crie.minedu.pt/index.php?section=39, only in Portuguese version) and all the reports and
mandatory demanded questionnaires that generated an important dynamic for
teachers to define that they need to do training to be able to get the expected
outcomes from the laptop computer. Moodle can be also a very interesting platform
for Long-life Learning: teachers must do training every year and they haven’t free
time to do it; schools are creating courses to get older students: these students have
jobs and they don’t have time to be at school. As the main obstacles are now
overcome, it’s important to create sustainable communities: as in [
There are many interesting and positive topics about this new model for CRIE ICT teachers training: Portuguese teachers’ efforts to avoid the info-excluded phobia; the improvement of their digital literacy using Moodle to create their courses and other important projects at school; the students feedback to teachers courses; the Moodle Portuguese community growth during last year and specially during last 6 months; the courses visibility in Moodle and b-learning and virtual sharing contents communities; the focus on student’s needs. However there are still improvements to be done: schools must continue their efforts to get more and better equipments; a Moodle Manager should be available at each school (a task that can be assured by ICT teachers, with a specific timetable or online); schools and trainers must try to get answers to anticipate the excluded teachers and define specific tools to evaluate the ICT training impact to measure digital literacy at Portuguese schools. There is an important question: for how long are the online communities sustainable? These teams need feedback and motivation to get together or the positive effect can be definitely lost.
I would like to thank to all my former trainees and all my colleagues in ICT teachers training context for their precious and wise advices.