Flipping 2011 to 2012 with a Plan for Professional Development Program

Today in Eritrea Institute of Technology more than 25 Instructors participated in an orientation for Professional Dedevelopment program Using E-Learning and Web 2.0. The plan of the program is to provide an extensive engaging training to educators on how to present their educational Content by integrating eLearning tools and the web 2.0 technology offerings.

Wishing a Merry X-Mass and Happy New Year for all the Participants of the Orientation, we are glad to start this blog as one of our global engagement using web 2.0 Technologies. This remarkable post will remain being as a bridge while flipping away the year 2011 and well coming the New Year 2012. The main aim of this day's post is to tell our community and followers that EitCloud has come out as a global presence environment for the community members and inspirational event for our followers while constructing a powerful Authentic Educational Environment. The Following is a brief Plan of the Professional Development Program (PDP) in Our Institute using E-Learning Technology and the Web 2.0.

Goals of the PDP
The Goals of the professional Development Program for:

• Creating 21st century Educators (we have not such educator yet)
• Providing 21st century Educational Content
• Creating an Authentic (Real World) Learning Environment
• Meeting the Needs of Our Digital Natives (the Students)
• Fostering National and Global Educational Development and
• Preparing for the Future

 Approaches of the PDP
To achieve the Professional Development Program the approaches we are following are the following:

• Giving Orientation 
• Case Study Method [the case Study is given below]
• Coaching
• Communities of Practice
• Technical Assistance

Case Study for Professional Development Program using E-Learning and Web 2.0
  This is our statement of the problem acting as a working base

Colleges and Universities have a key role in promoting high quality and reliable education and the development of knowledge, but are far from being the only (or even the main) source of information and knowledge nowadays, due to the expansion of new forms of communication (most notably the Internet and world wide web). From the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), a global society arouse, and knowledge is now shared without constrains of geographic proximity and political or social barrier.

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies.

As a result of the fast growing technology, media and information systems, it is obviously becoming very difficult to cope with the needs of today’s students by confining education in colleges. Many students are losing interest to learn in colleges being overwhelmed by the information created by virtual communities. As an educator of the 21^st century education, how would you design your “New” classroom, your curriculum and then today’s education in general? Write papers and demonstrate your idea with the help of E-Learning and Web 2.0 Technologies.

Method of Training and Duration
Throughout the training program we are going to follow the methods listed below.

• Project Based Learning
• Blended Learning

And the Duration of the training will span for about three months taking 6 hours (2 hours face-to-face and 4 hours online/Offline) per week.

Training Topics that will be covered in this Program
The general topics that will meet our intended outcome are:

• Brief Introduction of E-Learning and Web 2.0
• E-Learning and Collaboration System Tools
• Interaction and Collaboration System the case of EitCloud an Intranet
• Social Networking Tools for Education (Using Facebook, Google Plus and Others)
• Global Engagement Using Free Online blogging systems (Blogger is one of such systems)

The above technological knowledge training topics will be fully accompanied by effective pedagogical and Content matter of the educators so that to meet the TPACK( Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge) Educational Framework of the 21st century.

Awards for Successfully Accomplished Instructors
Instructors who will successfully accomplish the Professional Development Program meeting the TPACK requirements and complaining it with inspirational innovative papers will be granted a Professional Development Certificate and Professional Development Credits from the Institution. In addition a Copy of Scholarly Published Education Enhancement Magazine that will be prepared as a result of the collaborative work will be given to them.

Again wishing you a Merry X-Mass and Happy New Year in 2012 to all community of EIT and the World, I conclude this post by promising that more is coming from our collaborative Educational Community  in the next Year(2012).

Merry X-Mass and Happy New Year 2012 from Collaborative Educational Community (EitCloud)