MMVC16 Flocking birds of different feathers

7th  August 2016
Day 3 MMVC16
I could see the presentation online by  Azmira Amran : the title was " symbolic"  and I feel "catching" for the educators who were following her online while she was speaking about the world of
education today and what we are expected to do or rather what we should do:

"Flocking   Birds  of  different  Feathers"

The presenter is a young educator but has acquired a lot of  experience by learning and studying about educational issues. She is currently studying in Europe and has interesting ideas.

               The presenter worked on an engaging topic: educators working in the XXI century. What she focussed on were ideas related to Dewey and the complexity of approaches to the world of education by underlining the importance of  collaboration.

Educators should not work on their own but they should rely on a network of educators and work together.  Professional Development is today  a must for everybody who is involved in the profession. But the world of educators should be a network of different people who work in different  fields and share ideas about the complexity of teaching and working and  know what should be taken into consideration as the real world is part of education. 
I found the link to Dewey was great: his ways of thinking is still important today!!   

Monodisciplinary collaboration has  some limits :

I really  appreciated the approach to the links among educators, society , social media and technology in today's reality: we can study  Shakespeare or  the cells but we do need to find the best ways for teaching and working on collaboration by helping our learners to develop critical thinking skills, working online and collaborating with their schoolmates. 

Going beyond collaborations with educators:

There is a need for different tasks and she underlined the importance of  collaboration in education and in activities based on problem-solving. 

We must learn how to create  more engaging and meaningful activities in class and I agree with what she said in her presentation.More tasks should enhance collaboration and should based on PBL . I feel that  a lot of projects and CLIL activities are now popular among educators who are trying to follow new ideas about education. The approach is complex but this is similar to the complexity of the world in which we  live and work .Our students are expected to be working in their life after they leave school and we should never forget this.  

        An interesting point she covered was about  collaboration : a new model involving different   " participants": the real world is now part of our world of educators.


I feel that it is a new approach as  it implies  inter-collaboration and new ways of learning and working.

These are the main ideas which she underlined in the webinar online.
When I was online I felt really engaged in the discussion as what she was saying was based on the changes that education is facing in the XXI century.
Personally I think that the issue needs a lot of reflections and as educators we are involved in re-shaping our activities.
However, I must admit that in my country a lot of teachers in the secondary  school  system do not have any connections with the outside world. Teachers of Latin or Maths sometimes lose the contact with the real world and continue working in the same old way.
As a teacher of  Foreign Languages I feel that we are in some ways ready to start collaborations and we often rely on the support of the IT teachers. A lot of projects are now presented in English or other foreign languages in Europe and also abroad . I am sure that  most of  language teachers have already started working in a different way.
I was pleased to learn that other educators are re-thinking the way we can collaborate and work together to better our teaching. Good examples have been presented also in this conference online.

Any challanges?  Not for me, but  maybe I will have to work with my friends and suggest them more formal and informal meetings :  we should all be aware that the old system in education is going to end and it is up to us to choose how to change our systems. 
Meanwhile ,we have online virtual conferences where we can interact and learn from the others. Hopefully the UE has many projects that can support our teaching and my great hope is to start working for some of them. I live in Europe and although we are facing a lot problems due to the bad financial situations we can enhance our best practices by connecting and working together. The community is growing and we are learning together!!
I have also found an engaging community online and sharing ideas and following the great thinkers can help me develop in terms of  self- professional development.

If I could ask a question to the speaker of this presentation, I would like to ask her this simple question:

           How  can we spread these ideas among politicians?
Educators are ready to learn and start a new way of working.

It seems to me that educators are now working and are aware of the steps we do need to follow but we need to rely on world wide events which can reach more people. I wish we could all have more events like this where we discuss, share ideas and try to connect to learn more.


Link to the presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBWqO_o1894