Primary teachers

According to Creative Commons there are over 1.6 billion openly licensed teaching and learning resources available on the internet. Open Educational Resources (OER) are quality, free educational resources, that you can use without having to ask for permission, and that can be adapted to better suit local contexts and needs.

Many educators and developers don't know how to efficiently search for and identity useful resources. Some throw up their hands in horror and give up when tasked with finding suitable resources on the Internet. In this tutorial, we are committed to providing you with a search strategy for open content to ensure that you quickly find open resources. Let us begin!

On completion of this unit of study you will be able to:

• Decipher open licenses i.e. identify rights and permissions contained within Creative Commons licences attached to open content.
• Search for open content using common tools and filters such as on Google Advanced Search and the YouTube Creative Commons filter, as well as specialized services such as Creative Commons Search to find open media.

Curriculum documents now identify skills and knowledge sets that are in addition to the specific confines of particular subjects or learning areas. One of these skills is ICT literacy but there are numerous others too. It's time to take a deeper look at how ICT can support the curriculum and the delivery of skills necessary to function in the 21st century.

On completion of this unit participants will be able to:

1. Investigate and source digital versions of curriculum documents from the national education authority's website
2. Determine what role for ICT has been envisaged by the national education authority as expressed within the official curriculum
3. Identify sixteen 21st century skills as defined by the World Economic Forum
4. Integrate at least two 21st century skills into their teaching and learning.

The internet and internet-enabled technologies are continuing to develop at a very fast pace. This has many benefits, but it also changes the way in which students learn, communicate and interact. Learners are keen and avid users of the internet and mobile technologies. They are seen as ‘digital natives’, always surrounded by technologies. There are many social, educational and economic benefits for learners in using ICTs but learners do need to understand what is acceptable and appropriate behaviour in an online society.

On completion of this unit of study you will be able to:

• Model and instill in students appropriate behavior when communicating online, i.e. netiquette
• Identify digital citizenship knowledge, skills and values
• Design a lesson that incorporates digital citizenship competencies.

In this unit, we will demonstrate how technology can contribute to teaching, learning, administration and professional development.

By the end of this unit, you should be able to use ICT to:

• add value to your lesson planning
• make lesson content, more professional
• provides learners with tools to demonstrate what they have learned and demonstrate new competencies
• complete educator administrative duties
• connect with other educators and pursue further professional development

In this unit of study we will investigate what has emerged as global good practice in terms of ICT and education, as well as identify what your role is in this regard. As an introduction consider the video below that demonstrates how educators, ICT and development are linked to national priorities.

By the end of this unit, you should be able to use ICT to:

• Appreciate your significant role in national development
• Be aware of the potential benefits of ICT in teaching and learning
• Be aware of the potential benefits of ICT in class and school administration 
• Be aware of the potential benefits of ICT to your own continuing professional development
• Be able to identify specific ICT skills you wish to acquire using the UNESCO ICT competency framework for teachers (CFT).