Day 2 Dominica IT Summer Institute

Day two! These teachers are really working hard to get through the project in the course. The thing is, this project is not very good. Even after they watched videos from Edutopia.org that show well-constructed projects - the kind I hope to get them working on - they still wanted to finish the provided project. They felt they were learning valuable skills in Microsoft Office software. I purposely choose a project that had too many finicky details, but this did not bother them at all. This is the thing about projects - even the poorly constructed ones are engaging when the learner wants to learn!

The participants all seem to know their way around Word, and are gaining experience in Excel and Access. Between you and I, I am gaining skills right along with them! 

Day 2 Dominica IT Summer Institute - slide show

Tomorrow we start investigating the project-based learning approach. Technology is a real asset for students working on projects, but the access here in Dominica can be a problem. Although there are enough computers for everyone, there are several problems that can occur: the mouse, the monitor, the internet cable or the CPU itself can be non-functional or the software [Adobe Reader!] is not available. This is ongoing; a couple of computers that worked for us yesterday did not work today. When teachers have these problems in computer labs it makes the use of technology very frustrating. I hope some of them can continue to try if things do not improve.

The good news is that they are having no problem working in Moodle, the learning management system we are accessing course materials through. Today three of the ten uploaded assignments and will be reading the feedback I provided tomorrow morning (if they haven't already!). I have been answering questions about whether they will be able to use this platform in their classrooms ... here's hoping they can!