Evaluation
I have now been working in the field of media education fort two years in a job that I do additionally to my studies. Thus I already knew quite a lot of the basics in this field at the beginning of this course. I have had several trainings on how to teach children the use of new media in this course and I also had the chance to gain a lot of experience in my weekly work with the kids. Because of this I stated the course thinking that I already knew most of what we would work on.
What I did not really consider at the time was that the focus of this course would be on working in school as a teacher and not as a pedagogue with a small group. So what I learned in this course had a lot to do with media didactics, namely how to integrate the use of the new media into the teaching process.
The first thing that I really found helpful was to get to know a lot of new tools that I had not heard about before. These were tools like Wordle, Prezi and so on. These are tools that are very helpful in productive work with pupils. I suppose I am going to be using a lot of them in my future work with students.
I generally favor using the new media in the classroom. From my experience with schools media equipment connected with what we saw on our field trip to the Martin Luther Schule I again realized that schools today lack behind the latest development concerning equipment. This is a field I might actually try to put a lot of energy into in the future. I think it is very important that teachers advocate a wider use of media in school. For that to be possible they have to rally school boards to buy the equipment that is needed.
Working on the teaching idea was another thing that was quite new to me. In my normal work the media is at the core of the sessions that I am planning. With the teaching idea I had to take a new angle as the topic I would work on would have top priority and the new media tools would be merely there as a vehicle for the content. At the same time the promotion of media literacy is supposed to play a role but not as overtly as in my work as a media educator.
While reading teaching ideas from other teachers I realized that this is a field where a lot of creativity can be invested in the future and where good didactic concepts are needed. In this field it is still quite hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. I found it very interesting to work on my own idea, putting a lot of thought into how I could deal with a current topic using current technology.
When I finished my teaching idea though, a thought that came to my mind was: “Now I would really like to put this into practice”. This is a small point that I would criticize about the seminar. To my mind it lacked an a little more hands-on approach. I know that for universities it is always quite hard to find schools that allow them to actually work with the pupils. What I would have liked though would be having a look at recorded sessions using the new media and to do a reflection on that course. Also when we were at the school I would have liked to have the opportunity to talk to the students. In my job I find it very interesting what the kids tell me about their media teachers. This ranges from praise to the assertion that their teachers do not even know how to drag and drop. It is not that I think the pupils response should be the sole basis for evaluating the teaching in the area of the new media but I do think that the mostly very media competent kids today have a lot say on what goes on (or doesn’t) go on in the field of the new media.
On a personal note, I can say that I found the amount of group work that we did a little too high. I would have liked a little more input. But that does concern my preferences.
All in all up till now I was quite happy with course. After all I would say that it taught me more than I initially expected.
What I did not really consider at the time was that the focus of this course would be on working in school as a teacher and not as a pedagogue with a small group. So what I learned in this course had a lot to do with media didactics, namely how to integrate the use of the new media into the teaching process.
The first thing that I really found helpful was to get to know a lot of new tools that I had not heard about before. These were tools like Wordle, Prezi and so on. These are tools that are very helpful in productive work with pupils. I suppose I am going to be using a lot of them in my future work with students.
I generally favor using the new media in the classroom. From my experience with schools media equipment connected with what we saw on our field trip to the Martin Luther Schule I again realized that schools today lack behind the latest development concerning equipment. This is a field I might actually try to put a lot of energy into in the future. I think it is very important that teachers advocate a wider use of media in school. For that to be possible they have to rally school boards to buy the equipment that is needed.
Working on the teaching idea was another thing that was quite new to me. In my normal work the media is at the core of the sessions that I am planning. With the teaching idea I had to take a new angle as the topic I would work on would have top priority and the new media tools would be merely there as a vehicle for the content. At the same time the promotion of media literacy is supposed to play a role but not as overtly as in my work as a media educator.
While reading teaching ideas from other teachers I realized that this is a field where a lot of creativity can be invested in the future and where good didactic concepts are needed. In this field it is still quite hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. I found it very interesting to work on my own idea, putting a lot of thought into how I could deal with a current topic using current technology.
When I finished my teaching idea though, a thought that came to my mind was: “Now I would really like to put this into practice”. This is a small point that I would criticize about the seminar. To my mind it lacked an a little more hands-on approach. I know that for universities it is always quite hard to find schools that allow them to actually work with the pupils. What I would have liked though would be having a look at recorded sessions using the new media and to do a reflection on that course. Also when we were at the school I would have liked to have the opportunity to talk to the students. In my job I find it very interesting what the kids tell me about their media teachers. This ranges from praise to the assertion that their teachers do not even know how to drag and drop. It is not that I think the pupils response should be the sole basis for evaluating the teaching in the area of the new media but I do think that the mostly very media competent kids today have a lot say on what goes on (or doesn’t) go on in the field of the new media.
On a personal note, I can say that I found the amount of group work that we did a little too high. I would have liked a little more input. But that does concern my preferences.
All in all up till now I was quite happy with course. After all I would say that it taught me more than I initially expected.
