TE year2sourcebook/year2 unit1 Introduction to the Unit

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 (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.

The digital resource creation offers some significant advantages:

1. Resources can be easily edited - using the same software - either by the author and others, to further revise and refine it.
2. The resource can be saved / retained with ease in a personal digital library retrieved whenever required, for using and sharing.
3. The tools allow for lessons to be created based on the needs of the classroom, in a contextualized manner, thus supporting the progressive pedagogies outlined elsewhere in the D.El.Ed course.

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.