Scientix webinars for Czech teachers

by

I am a teacher  from the Czech Republic. I have taught for 20 years at primary school and I am an ambassador for the project Scientix for the Czech Republic. Our main task is, among others, to disseminate information about the project among teachers and to acquaint them withthe Scientix web portal’s offer. For this reason, I regularly attend conferences and meetings for teachers and I present the project. Another very good way to disseminate the project is to cooperate with the Czech National Contact Point (DZS) in Prague, which supports our efforts.

WE –the three ambassadors for the Czech Republic, regularly prepare webinars in cooperation with DZS. They are accessible for all teachers, free of charge and they are held at times when, in the comfort of your home, participants can use their computer and they can voluntarily continue their self-education. Because I myself have participated in webinars but I never led them, it was a new experience for me.

I had to prepare the presentation and the links of all sites I wanted to show to teachers. Because the SCIENTIX offer and the possibilities of  the portal are very extensive, I chose to show only a part of this portal: I showed, mainly, teaching and learning resources that are interesting for pupils, teachers; that are easily accessible for teaching and that could be easily adjusted.

My first trial to lead a webinar was with Miss Pavlicová from DZS, in order to learn how to use the tool WEBEX. I learned how to share the presentation and  my desktop with other participants. Because the internet at my house is slow to retrieve videos and interactive animations, I finally had to hold webinars at the school where I teach.

Finally  the D day came, I entered the darkened school at 6 o’clock in the evening and went into the PClab hoping that everything would work, including internet access. Before 8 pm, the first participants started joining, finally there were about 30 teachers. Vladimíra  first  familiarized the participants with the objectives of the project and the Scientix portal and then my turn came. My goal was  to show to teachers Project Global excursion and its Excursions (free resources for Science education  which are stored on the portal wishub.org), to get acquainted with the project down2earth to simulate an asteroid impact on Earth, with the project Go-Lab and its laboratories on line …

… And especially with Zondle  pages. They enable you to create tests for children which you can modify through different ways -like games, voting for touch devices or games for  teams.  Zondle works very simply and quickly. Teachers tried the role of students and worked very actively during the “knowledge test” about the project Scientix: they answered most questions correctly. Then I carried out a step-by-step way presentation to create a test for the subject taught. There was still the area for questions and webinar slowly ended.

Since it was my first webinar, I was pleased with the positive feedback from the participants. I was worried  that, since I couldn’t see the faces of the audience, I might miss some feedback but I think it’s just a habit. The chat ensured some feedback, as participants could ask questions. It is only necessary to plan everything well, I don’t think it would be very good to improvise.

I am happy with the new experience, now is the turn of my colleague ambassador Martina Kupilíková. If I  have the chance, I would  like to lead a webinar again, because there  are many possibilities offered by Scientix and it’s a pity that teachers are not aware of it. Webinars are a very pleasant way  to learn something new in the comfort of your home!

webinář

Screenshot of my Webinar

webinar

Screenshot of my Webinar

Article written by: Helena Lazarová, Scientix Deputy Ambassador

Tags: , , , ,

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>