International Education

September 22, 2015
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Bringing the World into the Classroom with Twitter

Posted by | International Education, iPad, PYP, Social Media, Technology, Twitter | No Comments
At TCIS we have adopted Schoology as our primary tool of communication. We have adopted Schoology Groups as a type of blogging format, albeit basic, it is working well. This is however restricted to our immediate school community. What about the big wide world? What about collaborating with others? Living in a non-English speaking country limits the kind of interactions we can have with local Korean schools and distance prevents us from visiting other international schools who are over two hours away in both directions. Enter the wonderful world of Twitter!
We have a small group of classes we are following and also follow a few experts we have linked up with. We have started posting our work and will soon be posting our thoughts and ideas. I had this account set up last year but could never really get it off the ground – this is the year!

Follow us @Grade1TCIS and @MrsLauraW

March 19, 2013
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Pasi and the Finns

Posted by | International Education | No Comments

I have had an interest, nay – an obsession about Finnish education since watching this video on TeacherTV about 5 years ago…
I have read a few articles and watched just as many lectures, news programs and documentaries, yet what I really wanted was a resource that brought all these ideas together… thats when Pasi Sahlberg’s book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? came into my sights. I was really excited, nay – too excited. As the ebook version is not available in Australia, the audiobook is free as an introduction to Audible, and I have just started driving two hours a day doing the round trip to drop my son at school, I got the audio book. Almost 8 hours! Hard core education theory! The narrator is clear and very well spoken, so much so I get confused about his nationality sometimes (American? Not English?). I will have to buy the printed version too at some point – book depository is the best for us Aussie’s as they have free postage – because I want to see the graphs and read it more thoroughly. Having the printed version would also be good for referring to in essays. I ‘d like to include a study of international education in my masters, when it happens, and a study of Finland would be great.

There are so many things that make this book brilliant and I’m sure I could talk about it for 20 posts but I won’t – I will just recommend VERY VERY strongly that you buy the book. For me it has elevated my opinion of being a teacher. The saying goes, “be the change you want to see” and this book articulates that change. The bar is set high but are our children worth any less?

NOTE: After publishing this post I noticed that the title sounds like a 50’s band like “Jerry and the pacemakers”.

Relevant Links:

Strong Performers and Successful Reformers: Finland