30 Mar 2012

Integrating Technology with Education

Technology Integration is the use of technology tools in general content areas in education in order to allow students to apply computer and technology skills to learning and problem-solving. Generally speaking, the curriculum drives the use of technology and not vice versa.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has established technology standards for students, teachers and administrators in K-12 classrooms. The ISTE, a leader in helping teachers become more effective users of technology, offers this definition of technology integration:
"Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting... Effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information, and present it professionally. The technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions — as accessible as all other classroom tools. The focus in each lesson or unit is the curriculum outcome, not the technology."
Integrating technology with standard curriculum gives students a sense of power, but also allows for more advanced learning among broad topics. Technology contributes to global development and diversity in classrooms and helps develop upon the fundamental building blocks needed for students to achieve more complex ideas.

29 Mar 2012

Emotional Intelligence


Emotion. In this model, emotion refers to a feeling state (including physiological responses and cognitions) that conveys information about relationships. For example, happiness is a feeling state that also conveys information about relationships -- typically, that one would like to join with others. Similarly, fear is a feeling state that corresponds to a relationship -- the urge to flee others.

Intelligence. In this model, intelligence refers to the capacity to reason validly about information.

How is school leadership connected with Emotional Intelligence?


I’d like to look at the link between school leadership and emotional intelligence. I was forwarded on an article on this very subject a while back. It makes for interesting reading, here’s the main points.

  • On top of this, supervisors and staff rated the named principal using the same criteria and scoring system.
  • Results showed that the self scoring and staff/supervisor scoring tallied in a major way.
  • Above average emotionally intelligent principals tended to be stronger in4 scales. These were emotional self awareness, self-actualisation, empathy and interpersonal skills.
  • Female principals scored higher in interpersonal skills but there were no other differences noticed between the sexes.
  • The study also referred to Humphrey’s defintion of task-orientation leadership and relationship orientation leadership. People often think that being a leader (relationships)is more important than a manager( task) when in fact, they are intertwined. It found that task-orientated EI skills like emotional awareness, self-actualisation, problem solving, flexibility and impulse control were the most important ones. In the relationship-orientated skills, the emotional inteligence skills that were the most important in an effective school principal were empathy, interpersonal skills, flexibility and problem solving.
  • Note that problem solving and flexibility were in both task and relationship orientated emotional intelligence skills for an effective school leader.
  • So, what did these reports recommend? That professional development programs for school leaders needed to focus on developing these EI skills and competencies by using EI assessment tools in the recruitment and succession planning of incoming and outgoing principals.
  • The study can be found here.

So, effective leadership is not based on making things easier or giving more capitation grants to schools. Of course, these things wuld be nice but it is more important for principals to keep their own mental and emotional level healthy. Book yourself in for an EI assessment and work on a practical skill-based emotions pathway. It will help your staff, family and the children.





What great people say on Education

  • The secret of educationis respecting the students.
                                                                                                                      Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Knowledge which is aquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
                                                                                                                                                   Plato
  • The things always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in athing makes it happen.
                                                                                                                            Frank Lloyd Wright
  • Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you'r flying high at first, but it won't take long before you feel the impact.
                                                                                                                   U S President BaracObama
  • "We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself."
                                                                                                                                      Lord Alexander

23 Mar 2012

love time





Love Time





If I could have all the time in the world,
I know what I would do:
I’d spend the time
In pleasure sublime,
Just by being with you.





By Joanna Fuchs

22 Mar 2012

English Language Acquisition

 One of the websites debates English language acquisition:

The CLESS project is investigating children's acquisition of English using spontaneous production data collected from children in the United States. In our work thus far we have concentrated on children's knowledge of morphological compounding, and their knowledge of complex predicates such as verb-particle constructions, double-object datives, and goal-phrase constructions. In addition, we are examining the acquisition of negation, verbal inflection, preposition stranding, prepositional complementizers, and wh-questions.

12 Mar 2012

Teaching skills

         Teaching skills are one of the aspects of the preparation of the teacher. Therefore, those skills have great emphasis in all educational systems. with proven success and major influence on helping teachers to undertake teaching efficiently and effectively. Teaching skills are classified into three categories: general skills, special skills and performance skills.


First:, general skills: these skills are acquired through teacher’s public life before joining the teaching profession. Patience is one of these skills The most important skill a successful teacher must have, is patience. There will be times when students drive him mad, but he can never allow his emotions to get the better of him, not in front of the students, anyway. Also, to be punctual is an important skill that includes:being on time, turning up with the right materials, producing well-planned lessons with suitable materials. 


Second, special skills:: are linked to organization of the lesson and its objectives and being well-prepared. to answer questions in a clear and concise way. Also, Personality: Being able to create a positive learning atmosphere and develop  good relationships with all students without showing favoritism. Also, having the ability to engage and involve students into the class activities.


Third, performance skills: Such skills are related to performance of the teacher and the standard of efficiency is the ability of the teacher to do the desired behavior, and teacher performance demands the ability to do behavioral tools including multiple dimensions of the whole educational situation.


Finally: The efficiency in the broad sense is the knowledge and mastery of scientific material, as it means an individual's ability to translate what they have learned in life situations of actual like patience and good organization, and building on his own to acquire knowledge in different ways that indicate good performance and operation of the mind in doing his job well.

10 Mar 2012

Japan

Japan is the best place to grow old . There are now more than 36000 people aged 100 years or more