UNESCO Chair International Seminar 2011

‘Teacher Training: Reconsidering Teachers’ Roles’

The VIII International Seminar was held Thursday, October 6 and Friday, October 7, 2011. The disruption of technology and, especially the Internet, has radically changed the way we live, the way we communicate, the way we buy, the way we learn. But, has the way we teach changed accordingly? Is the educational system following the pace of all the rapid changes caused by new technologies? 

And what about mobile teaching or game-based teaching? Isn’t teaching as important as learning? Or maybe teaching has become an obsolete concept and learners can nowadays learn by themselves using all these available resources and services? Is technology eventually going to replace teachers or there is a “third way” of doing things? We think there is such a third way where teachers fully or partially adopt these technologies in order to experiment a new way of teaching. 

Education has always been a process of content transmission and then accreditation, a one-to-many model in which one teacher, according to the educational context, decides which contents are interesting, and establishes all the details of the learning process, including evaluation and further accreditation, while learners must obey all the rules and follow the paved path if they want to achieve such goal. 

Creativity and decision taking seems to be forbidden, teacher-learner relationship is reproducing the same scheme again and again, instead of taking control of the very learning process in which learners and teachers assume new active roles and new shared responsibilities. Teachers need to be aware of all the possible uses of ICTs in the classroom, leading its adoption rather than just trying to catch up with learners.

Speakers

• Steve Wheeler, Learning Technologies Department at the University of Plymouth, UK.
• Signe Sutherland, Deputy Principal Curriculum and Business Development, North Hertfordshire College, UK.
• David Pitcher, Assistant Principal, Academy of Creative and Cultural Industries, North Hertfordshire College, UK.
• Douglas Thomas, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, University of Southern California, USA.
• Yehuda Elkana, Distinguished historian and philosopher of science, former President and Rector of the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.
• Hannes Klöpper, Founding Member of iversity.org, Germany.
• Peter Baptist, Chair of Mathematics and Mathematics Education, Mathematical Institute, University of Bayreuth, Germany.
• Hanna Teräs, Senior Lecturer, School of Vocational Teacher Education, Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland.
• Edem Adubra, Chief of the Section for Teacher Policy and Development, UNESCO Paris, France.
• Janak Bhimani, Doctoral Student, Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, Japan.
• Ichiya Nakamura, Professor, Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, Japan.
• Ferran Ruiz Tarragó, Expert in and author of books on ICT and Education, President of the Education Council of Catalonia, Spain.
• Jordi Blanch i Huguet, E-learning Coordinator, Ministry of Education of Catalonia, Spain.
• Jordi Moral i Ajado, Manager of Technological Resources, Open Institute of Catalonia (IOC), Spain.
• Diego Haro Nieto, Teacher Trainer for Preschool Education, IOC, Spain
• Teresa Guasch, Associate Professor, Psychology and Educational Sciences Department, UOC, Spain.
• Guillermo Bautista, Director of the Master Degree in Teacher Training – Secondary Education, Language Teaching and Vocational Training, UOC, Spain.

Presentations

• Teresa Guasch & Guillermo Bautista, “Training New Teachers for Secondary Education”.
• Ferran Ruiz Tarragó, “The Usual Suspects? Teachers, Their Challenges and Development”.
• Janak Bhimani & Ichiya Nakamura, “Enhancing the Creativity of Children Through the Use of Digital Video Technology”.
• Edem Adubara, “Enhancing the Status and Professionalism of Teachers in the Digital Age: UNESCO’s Perspective”.
• Douglas Thomas, “Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change”.
• Signe Sutherland & David Pitcher, “The Learning Team: Creativity and Collaboration in Teacher Education”.
• Steve Wheeler, “Learning and Teaching in the Digital Age”.
• Closing remarks