On 25 and 26 January 2011, VVOB organized a two day workshop in PTTC Siem Reap. The objective was to give a final overview of the possibilities that animations offer for use in teacher training practice for biology, earth science, physics, chemistry, agricultural life skills and environmental life skills. Participants were the (subject) teacher trainers from the VVOB pilot teacher training colleges, RTTC Kandal and PTTC Siem Reap, as well as representatives from the Provincial Offices of Education, the Teacher Training Department of MoEYS and the ICT in education office.
For this workshop, two ICT experts were invited: dr Thanomporn Laohajaratsang of Chiang Mai University, Thailand, and Hartfried Schmid, information assistant of APEID, UNESCO Bangkok. The first day of the workshop, Dr Thanomporn treated the pedagogic use of multimedia in detail, referring to existing academic models regarding use of ICT in education, like TPaCK, expository and inductive approaches, etc. The role of the student in the learning process was emphasized.
After acquiring these theoretical insights, the participants brought the lessons learned into practice by preparing and presenting micro teaching sessions. Khmer versions of multimedia prepared by VVOB were used for these sessions, mainly originating from the UNESCO ICT in education series and the Phet simulations of the University of Colorado. Each presentation was followed by a discussion highlighting the mentioned pedagogical aspects of use of ICT in teacher training.
On the second day of the workshop, Mr Schmid introduced a number of educational software programs to the participants. Participants had the chance to explore programs linked to their field of expertise, including Phun software for physics simulations, Virtual Chemistry Lab for Chemistry, Celestia for Earth Science, Google Body Browser for Biology and Third world farmer for Agriculture. Participants also had time to further look at the multimedia distributed on the first day, as well as other educational software present on the UNESCO CDs that were distributed.
This workshop was the last in a serious of three to provide the teacher trainers with an understanding of the use of multimedia in teacher training practice. Participants got the chance to look at materials for subjects beyond their field of expertise. They acquired insights in the pedagogic aspects of teaching using multimedia, and could apply these backgrounds in practice. In the future, teacher trainers will receive subject specific training for their teaching topics during the trainer of trainer sessions, when relevant Khmer multimedia materials have been developed.
