IT education: challenge the limitations, don’t limit the challenges

TEMIT Workshop, Borovets, April 12, 2008

IT education:challenge the limitations, don’t limit the challenges

Evgenia Sendova – IMI, Bulgarian Academy of SciencesEliza Stefanova – FMI, Sofia University


Ideas in constructionist spirit we try to follow

• Learning by doing• IT as building material• Hard fun • Learning to learn• Debugging as an educational idea• Learning is a struggle (including for us, the teachers)• To study IT and acquire IT skills is important but the most

important is to use them NOW in such a way that we could cope with complex problem situations in the FUTURE


Vision for education

Every citizen should enter the world with:• A proud vision of self as a powerful life-long

learner• A vibrant vision of a worth-while life ahead• An optimistic vision of a society to be proud of• The skills and ethic needed to follow these

visions


Policy makers pay attention to IT education hoping that a young population well-educated in this modern technology will contribute to the future welth of the nation.


Some limitations

• The limited time in a class setting• Time needed for preparation• Difficulties when working with many students• Lack of appropriate materials• Following a fixed curriculum


Let us dream together…

М Е Ч Т А


Helping the archeologists


How were these two vessels used?


Decoding

In Sea

Water

Wine

Dolphin

Circling around

Psikter

jump

put

Crater


We found together:



Computer models with Elica



How much wine?


A cup after one's likeness


• Coding:– Transmitting information– Why is should be hidden– How the nature is coding its

secrets– ….

Coding as the red thread


Cezar’s code


The beginning of criptography

One of the first

methods for secret

transmition of

information


Frequency analysis of a text

Графинята отвори библията и преброи гласните на една страница, за да види кои се срещат най-често...

Из Черните диаманти на Мор Йокан

Графинята отвори библията и преброи гласните на една страница, за да види кои се срещат най-често...

Из Черните диаманти на Мор Йокан




Chilbolton radio telescope in Hampshire, UK


Acting as midwives of

teachers’ ideas





The novelty is sometimes well forgotten old...

• The methods and the spirit of teaching are more important than the curriculum

Bertrand Russel

• The biggest success of a teacher is to be able to say: My students work as if I don’t exist.

Maria Montessori

• He who dares to be a teacher shouldn’t stop learning.

John Dana

• If we pass to our students our love to learning they will learn to learn.

Sir John Lubock

• Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

A Chinese proverb


Innovative TeacherBG/05/B/P/PP-166 038

http://www.elica.net

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IT education: challenge the limitations, don’t limit the challenges