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Altahair Attia Adelkarim

Innovation

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Yes, but more importantly, they should be needed. There will always be those opposed to innovation, either through resistance to change in general, or through resistance to a specific change.

In my own teaching context, one big innovation has been the use of skype; through using this medium, I can sit in my home in Bristol and conduct a one-to-one Spanish lesson with a student in Hyderabad, starting a lesson at 12:00 local time, which is 17:30 for the student. In the one hour lesson, I can teach as I would if the pupil was present in my home, with live discussion, and speech in Spanish.

The organisation which organises these classes (3A Tutors) offers iGCSE to students worldwide, and is therefore very innovative in its use of technology for teaching, with a choice of tools; skype, E-lecta (a flipped classroom) and other online facilities. This does not really need a policy or statement; it is simply a necessity for a company of this type to use technology and innovation in teaching.

This has not directly affected my own views on the use of innovation, since I have always had an interest in technical advances, and did my first degree through distance learning with the OU. That qualification is respected and accepted worldwide, and the University of the West of England, where I did my PGCE (at Master’s level) Secondary MFL were more than happy to accept that I was at the same level as other students who had obtained degrees from conventional universities. In fact, the distance learning gave me advantages over some of these students, since I was able to bring experience of the work and the world to my studies.

Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Linda Audsley, Saturday, 15 Feb 2014, 14:19)
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