Building new teaching practices with the use of online tools and technologies

Nowadays, technology and online tools play an important role in the construction of learning environments. They can no longer be left outside the classroom or used just in case of emergency to replace traditional lessons. Technologies and online tools are then one of the keys to build new blended learning environments.

The new edition of the course “Making the most of new technologies, apps and social media in the classroom​” course took place in Palermo from 09/07/2023 to 15/07/2023. The participants came from all across Europe, with Jennifer, Michaela, Judith and Nicole from Domschule Osnabrück in Germany, Zsolt from Tisza-parti Általános Iskola in Hungary, Jana from Gymnázium Šrobárova in Slovakia, Magdalena, Nina and Doinita from Colegiul National "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" in Romania, Zoltán from Pannonhalmi Bencés Gimnázium és Szakkollégium in Hungary, Agueda Ribes from Institut Pedraforca in Spain and Michaela Valova from Stredni skola a Vyssi odborna skola, Koprivnice in Czech Republic.

During this course the participants learnt about new tools to use in education and trained also with already known tools, trying to integrate them into teaching and thus improving the teaching experience as much as possible.

First of all they had a look at the most effective tools used in education to work on collaborative projects and to design engaging multimedia content for students.

On the second day, they explored different tools used to create quizzes and games to involve students in the activities but also to realize some formative assessment moments.

During the training course, they also had the possibility to work on editing tools for pictures and videos that may find a lot of different applications in the classroom; introducing a new subject, revising an old one, creating multimedia lessons, foster creativity among  the students.

At the end of the week, they focused on the creation of multimedia and interactive content through two popular web tools but also on the creation of a website or a blog, a challenging activity both for teachers and students.

During the whole week, they also explored tools used to regroup and share resources and content. In particular, they worked with platforms that make it possible to upload videos, pictures, documents, texts, audio file, drawings, and other materials, and to share all of this with students and colleagues using just one link. They trained a lot on collaborative walls, sharing not only their works but also their ideas and best practices from their schools and countries.

Sharing has been one of the pillars of this training course. The participants were open to share their knowledge on online tools and best teaching practices with colleagues from other countries and they were also not afraid to tell their opinion, especially about the use of social media in the classroom, one of the topic covered during this course that was also used during the exploration of an online tool suited to debates. The exchange of views was also useful to discover the different rules used in different schools and countries on the use of online tools and social media.

Finally, some time was spent on the presentation of the different schools and of the works produced previously using online tools already know by the participants and to take a look at the most useful for the teaching experience among these.

It was an enriching week and we are sure that the participants will improve more and more in the use of technologies and new tools, given the high quality of the works that they produced in just one week. For sure this team of teachers will make learning engaging and unforgettable for the students.

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Discover more about this course here.