THE CREATION OF VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES: ONLINE TEACHER COLLABORATION TO SUPPORT THE EFFECTIVE PROVISION OF PERSONALISED LEARNING (ONLIFE) – A PILOT PROJECT FROM THE FEDERAL STATE OF BRANDENBURG ( GERMANY )

Michael Kaden, Ministerium fuer Bildung, Jugend und Sport des Landes Brandenburg

Predstavitev

Abstract
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Federal State of Brandenburg and IBM aim within this project to enable teachers to collaborate and improve the quality of their teaching. Both partners aim for a change to individualized forms of teaching and learning in public schools. The initial focus is on concepts for students with special educational needs and gifted and talented students. An integral aspect of these concepts is an emphasis on diagnostic competencies.

The joint programme addresses this policy objective by offering selected teachers access to a sophisticated on-line platform which will help them to develop innovative teaching methods. Teachers will use the on-line tools to collaborate with colleagues from other schools, universities and colleges. They will exchange experience, develop new skills and competencies and build professional knowledge network across the State. The project sets out to introduce web 2.0 approaches to a professional community of teachers.

Keywords
Teacher Collaboration, Personalised Learning, Change Management, Professional Communities, Networking, Quality of Education, Virtual Communities, Special Educational Needs, Gifted & Talented, Knowledge Management, Wikis, Blogs, Web 2.0

Spletni naslov projekta
http://www.bildung-brandenburg.de/onlife.html