English Language Fellow Jamila Barton conducted teacher training in educational technology for her classroom in Amman, Jordan. Barton provided tablets, Bluetooth speakers, tablet stands, as well as internet to 20 teachers in public schools in the greater Amman area.
During the 2-day teacher training sessions, teachers learned how to set up and use the equipment. Discussion topics included blogging, wikis, online student exchanges and internet research. Teachers contributed to a project wiki during the last training session, where they each contributed a page on how they use educational technology in the classroom.
Teachers presented their wikis as a poster session at the 2-day ALC Shaping English Teacher Conference in Amman. By the end of the training sessions, teachers had successfully designed a classroom project and will receive mentorship through school visits for the next six months. Teachers remarked that the skills they learned and the help of the technology has made their lives easier and has allowed them to try out different methods for online communication.