Reflection on Schools' Visit during the Coordinating Committee Meeting (CCM)

The Power Of Power Point During The Coordinating Committee Meeting (CCM)

The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education(MoBSE) in the Gambia conducts a Coordinating Committee Meeting (CCM) at one of the (selected through a ballot) six Regional Educational Directorates(REDs)  every eight weeks on a schedule. The CCM comprises of Directors, principal Education officers and other Senior Education officers and other stakeholders and partners in Education.

During this meetings all directorates, units and othe partners do a power point presentation of  their updates . 

This is one advantage of power point presentation as the CCM is attended by 200 plus participants including the Minister and the Permanent Secretary as the chairperson.

There are so many activities on the agenda. One fundamental one is the schools’ visit.  The participants are divided into teams and each team has a team leader and  the host cluster monitor of the school. A particular number of schools in the host directorate is selected and shared among the teams.

The teams visits their school and use the Minimum Standard assessment tool to assess the stipulated areas in the school. It is a day’s program and the teams will all converge at their meetings venue and compile their reports in a power point format for presentation the following day.

During the presentation of each team , the school head is present.  The CCM is not a witch hunting exercise but together with partners to evaluate teaching and learning activities in schools  constructively. Some head are rewarded but some are also warned. 

In these presentations by teams, the power of power point cannot be overemphasized.  With the power point I,information is received faster than the speech as the recipient does not only hear but see and start analyzing the moment the slides are presented before the presenter starts the the discussions/lectures.

The power points with  all its designs and animations makes the presentation of ideas more lively, comprehensive  and vivid.

The above power point  presentation was one of the teams  at the CCM schools visits. Some slides could be reduced through an interactive discussions.

For more information, check for CCM School visit report in power point, uploaded on wiki ’’ https:/sites.google.com/site/courtneyswebskillswikifall2013/interactiveppt’’

THE PARTNERSHIP OF PROJECT - BASE LEARNING, WEBQUEST & RUBRICS IN THE ENHANCEMENT OF HOLISTIC TEACHING AND LEARNING

                   
                                         

THE PARTNERSHIP OF PROJECT BASE LEARNING ANG RUBRICS IN THE ENHANCEMENT OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

The 5^th week of this course has  explored  the use of technology in education as a tool to enhance teaching & learning.  With the introduction of Project Based Learning(PBL) , WebQuest and Rubrics, participants will learn & demonstrate independent learning.
 Topics in this course so far have are included numerous  aspects of technology in education, record management, introduction to technology uses across the curriculum & classroom, and  the maintenance of effective learning environments using technology in education.
The usage of the rubric  has  fulfilled the assessment questions of how, why, where, when etc. therefore there is an urgent need and Importance of Information Technology in Education

The need of IT in a developing country like the Gambia includes the following objectives:

• Education is a life long process therefore anytime anywhere access to it is the need
• Information explosion is an ever increasing phenomena therefore there is need to get access to this information
• Education should meet the needs of variety of learners and therefore IT is important in meeting this need
• It is a requirement of the society that the individuals should possess technological literacy
• We need to increase access and bring down the cost of education to meet the challenges of illiteracy and poverty-IT is the answer .

The importance of It has been demonstrated as a useful phenomenon in the lives of every learner and these are the benefits from PBL and Webquest:

• access to variety of learning resources
• immediacy to information
• anytime learning
• anywhere learning
• collaborative learning
• multimedia approach to education
• authentic and up to date information
• access to online libraries
• teaching of different subjects made interesting
• educational data storage
• distance education
• access to the source of information
• multiple communication channels-e-mail, chat, forum, blogs, delicious etc.
• better accesses to children with disabilities
• reduces time on many routine tasks

The pace of change brought about by new technologies has had a significant effect on the way people live, work, and play worldwide. New and emerging technologies challenge the traditional process of teaching and learning, and the way education is managed.

 Information technology, while an important area of study in its own right, is having a major impact across all curriculum areas.

Easy worldwide communication provides instant access to a vast array of data, challenging assimilation and assessment skills. Rapid communication, plus increased access to IT in the home, at work, and in educational establishments, could mean that learning becomes a truly lifelong activity—an activity in which the pace of technological change forces constant evaluation of the learning process itself.

Friends, as educators and learners, lets live for the sake of Project base Learning. It has come to assist us reserve our energy.

With PBL ,Rubric and WebQuest, every learner is a tutor and every tutor a learner!!!