More than 50 speakers from Serbia, the region and the UK prepared interesting presentations about creative ways of using ICT in education.
Apart from the presentations held at the conference (halls 'Space', 'Insert' and 'Alt'), the fair exhibitors organised lectures and presentations at their stands and at the central fair stand Enter ExpoHub.
Here are some of the many speakers that had their sessions at the New Technologies in Education in 2015.
Aleksandar is a teacher of Serbian language and literature. He started his presentation by talking about learning Serbian grammar through images. Then he presented 'Led learning' followed by a short demonstration with one of his students.
Aleksandra is a teacher of Serbian language and literature in the School of Economy and Trade in Kula. She talked about an example of project-based learning and the use of modern technology. For the exploration of Krleza's drama 'Gospoda Glembajevi' her students used PowerPoint, MS Office, free e-tools Wikispaces, Bitstrips, HotPotatoes and social networks. The results of the research were presented at a public class.
Aleksandra works as an assistant researcher at the Belgrade Open School. She presented serious games for developing social competencies. These games are created for students from disadvantaged groups. Research studies show that serious games have the potential to be educative and highly motivating for students.
Anica works as a math teacher. In this presentation she talked about work that math teachers do on the internet (mostly Facebook), and their co-operation on different projects. ‘Tepih Sjerpinskog’ is well received in our country and has a special place among teachers. Serbia now has a very important place in it.
Anđelka teaches Serbian language and literature as well as civic education. She talked about how to motivate students to work, without grading them? In her opinion, one of the possible answers to this question lies in Civic Education lessons, enriched with the use of IT and web platforms (Google Drive Form, Facebook, PowerPoint, Prezi, YouTube, blogging, smartphones).
Biljana briefly talked of the significance, place and role of ICT applications in the area of inclusive teaching of mathematics. She also presented the application Divisibility through game (different levels of complexity) 'Space Ships'. Biljana presented the application Division of three-figure numbers (co-operation between schools).
Delivered in partnership with FutureLearn, The British Council's first MOOC (Massive Open Onlince Course), Exploring English: language and culture, attracted over 120,000 learner registrations. This talk looked at the ways course design and management tried to engage and retain students for the duration of the six-week course. It also showed how the course took off and how they dealt with the huge number of learner comments and questions.
Chris Cavey has worked in English Language Teaching for over twenty years and taught in a number of countries including Japan, Slovakia, Hong Kong and Italy. He is currently based in Manchester where he is Open Learning Manager for the British Council.
Christine is currently a Headteacher at Harbour Primary and Nursery School. Under her leadership the School was recognised nationally through winning ‘Best School in the South East’ in 2010. In 2014 she was one of only seven educators from England invited to attend a prestigious digital learning conference in the USA, and has become a member of the leadership council for this network in the UK.
Christine shared her tips for leading a primary school forward towards embedded use of new technologies across the curriculum. She focused on shared vision, commitment, leadership teams, expectations, evaluation and future planning.
Danijela and Sandra are teachers of physics, astronomy, informatics and technical culture. They presented an example of a scenario, its phases, purpose and its use, along with some widely applicable Web 2.0 tools. Danijela and Sandra showed the audience how this technology-based learning can improve and enrich the educational process.
David is an independent adviser and a passionate supporter of the exploitation of educational technology. He works with a range of private, public and third sector organisations as well as individual schools.
In his presentation David talked about some trends in changing curriculum across the work and the pressures and tensions for change. He also considered some different approaches to addressing ICT curriculum and what needs to be in place to make curriculum change work.
This panel discussion, that David was moderating, talked about the changing context of education, the place of ICT in 21st century education and the need for schools to become effective in their use of ICT.