“We are becoming the world’s citizens!” – Johnson Monari, Kenya
Johnson Monari – Teacher of English Language & Literature and Theory of Knowledge: Aga Khan Academy Mombasa
Just a year into his teaching profession, MIE Expert Johnson Monari was feeling bored. He had heard about the Microsoft Educator Community as an online educators’ platform, so he signed up with the intention of making strides toward transformative teaching.
“I started using online collaborative tools, and at first things did not work out,” Monari tells us. “At one time, my lesson was being observed by the vice principal and I wanted to really show that I was using technology. Students were working online and they unfortunately lacked netiquette and kept deleting their colleagues’ work. This made the class chaotic and the lesson fell apart.”
But that experience didn’t dissuade Monari from his dream of becoming a more innovative educator. Instead, he gradually learned how to make tasks more authentic and to create more meaningful and smaller task-oriented groups.
“I took risks and introduced some tools like OneNote, Sway, and even a class blog,” Monari says. “Teaching and learning became more interesting, especially when we started connecting with classrooms across the world through Skype. From the Microsoft Educator Community, I can quickly find innovative educators from any part of the world and Skype with them. Learning has gone beyond the barriers of my classroom walls and we are now working on doing collaborative projects with students from two different continents. We are becoming the world’s citizens!
Source: Daily Edventures
Ismailimail 