ITEMS project

ITEMS project has been presented at the Nordic Geogebra Conference held in Reykjavik,  Iceland August 12th – 14th 2010 http://vefsetur.hi.is/ngg2010/

ITEMS contributed with a 90 minutes workshop presenting the Geometry module as in such teaching sequence most of the developed simulations are geogebra files. Workshop participants included Markus Hohenwarter (Geogebra creator), he congratulated ITEMS for the use we do of Geogebra in the Geometry module. Participants posted useful discussions about using together Moodle and Geogebra. Following some suggestions ITEMS geometry simulations are now ready to download at Geogebra site in this link

Based initially on presentations at the CESI Conference 2005, the teacher support services in Ireland developed Moodle based supports for teachers including free teacher workgroup and individual teacher spaces, project supports, generic Moodle training and online professional development courses among others.

Discussion with EU partners suggested that many teachers needed:

• Moodle as a free service for any teacher in any school
• Example courses in specific subject areas
• Training and support to run courses with students
• Encouragement to modify, extend and share courses with other teachers

The ITEMS EU project was introduced at the CESI Meet September 2009. An update was given in a posting in the CESI Google Group in May 2010. The project has also been presented at ASE, UK, 2010 among others and will be presented at SMEC, Dublin, 2010.

Some courses have been through a development cycle of testing by teachers and subsequent modification. Some teachers will trial these with students this coming term. Other teachers will be introduced to 3 of the courses in maths and science at the following double evening sessions (19 00 – 21 30) blended with online support:

• Blackrock EdCen Tuesday 28 September and 5 October
• Drumcondra EdCen Wednesday 6 October and 13 October
• Galway EdCen Tuesday 12 October and 19 October
• Cork EdCen Thursday 4 November and 11 November

A 2 day Saturday course with online support is also on offer in Dublin 13 and 20 November.
For further details and registration call Brid Finn, Administrator, SLSS / PDST 061 437999.

A more specific online course based on science (electricity) publicised by the EUN is also available (see https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en_GB&formkey=dFpDV2JqQ0lVbnFadHZabWhfZllGeFE6MA#gid=0 where those interested can register.

Although based by design on specific subject areas (maths and science), targeted at age 12 to 16, and intended to support inquiry based learning, one course may be suitable for primary level and all teachers should find the content of some courses readily accessible in the context of an introduction to how Moodle can be used with students effectively.

Participants of the teacher training at the "Studienseminar Celle".

Celle, 7.6.2010. In Germany, teachers pass an university study in the first phase of their training. The second phase begins with a study at an institution called “Studienseminar”. At this institution, teacher trainers join teacher students in their classes, and give practice lessons how to teach topics. ITEMS was invited to give a teacher training session in the ITEMS – “Introduction to Graphs” unit. The training session, led by Karl Sarnow, Gymnasium Isernhagen, started with a theory on Moodle, the base CMS of ITEMS. Then introduced into the goals of the ITEMS module. In the third phase, teachers practiced using the unit. Finally, those teachers who showed serious interest, received their own ITEMS course “Introduction to Graphs” in order to continue real life working witth the unit. Michael Zilk, head of the Studienseminar, invited participants to make use of the ITEMS module in their final examination work.

As every year SIRIKT  Conference  is the place for meeting all Slovenian teachers interested in using ICT tools in the classroom. This year  ITEMS project group was well represented by the presence of Bernat Martinez (ITEMS coordinator), Agueda Gras-Velazquez (EUN) and Breda Policar (Gimnazija Poljane). ITEMS project have been accepted with enthusiasm by Slovenian teachers. Here you can find Bernat’s presentation  at https://vox.arnes.si/p31816867/ and the workshop on Teaching Geometry online using ITEMS elearning module at https://vox.arnes.si/p77622448/.