Changes

Curricular resource creation by teachers has been seen as an important process of teacher professional development (TPD).  Using technology for creating is a strong emphasis of this course as well.   

Curricular resource creation by teachers has been seen as an important process of teacher professional development (TPD).  Using technology for creating is a strong emphasis of this course as well.   

In the first year, the student teachers were introduced to resource creation in multiple formats - textual, numeric, image, audio visual - which could be used for creating resources on any area.  These tools are not subject-specific.  In the second year, the course will introduce student teachers to integrating specific applications for use in teaching learning.  The focus is on developing curricular resources for teaching different subjects in higher primary school levels as well as being able to develop skills for evaluating digital resources.  In addition to the emphasis on resource creation, the course will also include a focus on developing a critical perspective on technology in education and society at large.   

In the first year, the student teachers were introduced to (generic) resource creation in multiple formats - textual, numeric, image, audio visual - which could be used for creating resources on any area.  These tools are not subject-specific.  In the second year, the course will introduce student teachers to integrating specific applications for use in teaching learning.  The focus is on developing curricular resources for teaching different subjects in higher primary school levels as well as being able to develop skills for evaluating digital resources.  In addition to the emphasis on resource creation, the course will also include a focus on developing a critical perspective on technology in education and society at large.   

Free and Open Source digital tools are available for creating educational resources in most school subjects, including the 'subjects' whose pedagogies are covered in the second year of the D.El.Ed. course, Mathematics, Science, Social science, Language, Art, Music etc.

The digital resource creation offers some significant advantages: 

 

# Resources can be easily edited - using the same software - either by the author and others, to further revise and refine it.  

There are some significant advantages that are usually available in creating such resources, due to their digital nature. The resource can be edited using the same software by the author and others, to further revise and refine it. The resource can be saved / retained for posterity in your PDL and retrieved whenever required, and shared with others.  

# The resource can be saved / retained with ease in a personal digital library retrieved whenever required, for using and sharing.

 

Given that the spirit of teaching-learning is to share of ones' own learning, thoughts and experiences, it is important that the resources created are also possible to be re-used and revised by others. Hence any resource created must carry a copyright which allows for such re-use and revision. The Creative Commons (CC) licenses are usually used by  the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement and this has been discussed in unit 1 of year 1.

Keeping in line with the National ICT Policy, use of free and open source software is emphasized in the creation of digital resources.  Using specific applications and in combination with generic resource creation applications, resources can be created for most subjects,  whose pedagogies are covered in the second year of the D.El.Ed. course.  Given that the spirit of teaching-learning is to share of ones' own learning, thoughts and experiences, it is important that the resources created are also possible to be re-used and revised by others. Hence any resource created must carry a copyright which allows for such re-use and revision. The Creative Commons (CC) licenses are usually used by  the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement.  This has been discussed in unit 1 of year 1 and the year 2 will also emphasize resource creation as OER. The student teacher will learn to create resources for their subjects, (including modifying/revising resources created by others) and share with their classmates, under a CC copyright.

 

In this unit, the student teacher will learn to create resources for their subjects, (including modifying/revising resources created by others) and share with their classmates, under a CC copyright.