Module #10: Conversations with a Technology Teacher from Estonia

Module #10: Conversations with a technology teacher from Estonia

I was able to connect with Birgy, a technology teacher in Estonia, through a teacher at my school. Birgy studied at BGSU a last year and interned at our school with or technology teacher. She is from Estonia, Pelgulinna Gymnasium, IT-development manager. She told me about an assignment she gave our students last year using QR codes and running around the building; she stated that they take learning a bit differently and openly with more student responsibility and less teacher meddling. They don't have the policy that students cannot leave the room or need a permission to do that. She agreed that it would be difficult to do that in American schools.

Her school is 1-12 grade school with 900+ students and 60+ teachers. They don't have any main teachers but have teacher groupings and their leaders that decide what is going on at school. It is not common in Estonia, just in our school. She said they don't like "bosses"; everyone is equal and has the same responsibility to help the students. They also have one class teacher for every 30 students.

They teach four one-hour lessons every day to first graders; it continues to increase until 12th graders have seven to eight lessons per day. Lessons are divided all over the year or over one week, so students usually have the same schedule through the year. Up until 9th grade students take the following courses: 4-5 math, 4-5 Estonian language, 3 English, 3 Russian/German, 2-3 science, 2 history, 1-2 art, 2 handy craft, 2 sports, 1 informatics etc. In gymnasium level it is kind of similar but the classes vary more (some lessons will stop after 10-11 grade).  

Birgy teaches computer graphics, making websites, doing research (they have an obligation that students must do on 8th grade and 11-12^th grade big research project), innovative teaching (Birgy teaches teachers how to use tablets, mobile phones with their classes). She is also the founder of Estonian Computer Teachers Society where they together and talk about informatics teaching and learning. She also does online seminars as everyone is in different places.

Her school has two computer labs, one set of laptops for math, 11 computers for any other proposes (teachers brings it to the class) and 25 Android tablets. In Estonia, they have free Wifi everywhere and students can bring their own devices and use it in the classes when agreed upon. Usually it is, because then they have access to new data and extras.

Software for system is Windows 7 and other software is free - about 70 different programs, some listed below. A lot is online - they have several learning spaces and e-learning tools. For example, eMoodle and or Estonian developments, they also use a lot of blogs, half or more teachers have their own blog where they share materials, students work etc. Social networks are widely used - Facebook form teaching, learning and class information sharing.  They also have an e-school that also provides material sharing etc.

For now Birgy’s biggest challenge is that she can’t be at school all the time (due to traveling or other responsibilities), so she is giving her students e-learning lessons. Usually there are some individual tasks and then some group work. So the issue is that when they are alone they sometimes misuse their time and then at home must work so hard. She, of course, would rather they work on class time.

One other innovative idea they have in Estonia, this they are starting to teach robotics and coding from the 1st grade. So every week she has some foreign TV on her back and she is explaining how she is teaching and why: from Canada to Japan, and every European country has visited us. Birgy jokes that primary and secondary school students’ normal experience in computer class soon is that they always must present their learning to TV and reporters.

Here are some examples Birgy shared with me. They are very cool!

5^th graders had visitors from George Washington University and they asked students to teach them some robotics and coding, solving problems.

Students have leaned English for two years, and robotics/coding two-three meetings.

http://pelguit.blogspot.com/2014/01/kulalised-pelgulinna-gumnaasiumis.html

Here is one video on BBC that explains it the best: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-25648769

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If you want to learn more technology usage, then in English and through pictures you can see this here (what happened in classes -  there are also a lot using technology mixed with science and other lessons) that they did in the US last year:  http://birgytea.blogspot.com/

In math we are using usually http://www.geogebra.org

From elementary school to university level they use Interactive geometry, algebra, statistics, and calculus software. Tens of thousands of free materials and this is a very interesting tool that they use.

http://learningapps.org/

It is an environment where a teacher can develop their own tests, and use other teacher’s tests. It has around 30 different options.

It can be used on computer but it is suited to use on mobile devices.

For programming and math, this is a similar tool they use:

http://light-bot.com/hocflash.html

Students are also doing Scratch animations: http://scratch.mit.edu/

Microsoft provides online App development here: https://www.touchdevelop.com/

Economy game that is used all around the world for students’ Olympics:

http://titan3.ja.org/

They also use this virtual business game:

http://www.virbusgame.eu

In our second conversation, I asked Birgy if she had ever used PLEs as I am focusing on them for my project. She shared with me the following sites as examples:

http://lepress.net/2012pelgu/

http://lepress.net/pelgulinna/

If you open the blog you will see that she has students names listed on the right. On the blog you see "replies" to her assignments. Lepress tool gives, when you log into the system, a corner where you can see/post teacher assignments.

When students reply to it then it goes directly under where her assignment post is.

As a teacher she logs into the system to grade and give feedback in one place – she doesn't have to surf on their websites and can see in one place what they have done or not and give feedback.

She has also used ordinary blogs with her university students

http://taristuseminar.blogspot.com/ was the main website and then they had their own similar websites also.

She then gathered the posts using RSS. I used example http://feedreader.com/

but there are many more that can be used with mac also. She shared that RSS gives you gaood way to gather data from students’ blogs and then again you will see when someone has posted something up. To give feedback is much harder, as then you have to go there and reply to them, so she used the end of the course teacher feedback option and asked others students to comment their peers.

She expressed concern at the use of blogs and their “openness” as she doesn’t believe that secondary schools students’ learning should be visible on web. One solution to that is to keep the systems password protected or use invisible solutions. She also recommended Weebly www.weebly.com and has used it to do her website, but not with students as a  e-learning course yet. On Weebly you can make invisible students’ blogs under your blog and you can upload different files to the systems. It’s similar to Google Site, but much nicer and easier. She stated that they also use Wikispaces and Google Drive.

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She recommended using Weebly. There is just drag and drop and it is very easy for students; it looks nice too. For social network, she recommends Edmondo, It is a safe and private network to motivate students, to share info, pictures, links and remind them to do assignments and be active online.

I also asked Birgy about her students compared to our students. She stated the major difference is the way teachers/school will deal with the issue of completing work and the school culture. When she was here in the US, she observed that we grade assignments and give feedback that they must learn. She stated that she feels our education system is good at keeping everyone on target. She stated they don’t really help kids with special needs; she liked seeing that our kids with special needs are not left out.

Another major difference is that we don’t allow kids time to think and socialize. She fears that, after years of a strict schedule to their thinking, they won’t know what to do when they have free time. The structure to their day as far as teachers are concerned is very different.  They have a completely different schedule. For example our math teacher gives classes for 6-12 grades and every week has 24 lessons (5 lessons per class in wherever time it is on the schedule) but classes are in different levels. So the teacher must be really competent and find time to understand different level problems, etc. At the same time she has only a four-day week and she has three days off. Their system allows the teachers to not to be at school when you don’t have lessons or other responsibilities. But it does not give stability as we have. At the same time if they go to training or get sick nothing will happen to the students, so it is ok to do things at your class time.

They don’t really give homework in Estonia. They see that as the parents’ responsibility to find and give homework to their children if they’re not doing well on their assignments. If a student is behind, they will find a workbook or something of that nature to send home.

In Estonia they have a law about breaks; they get 5-20 minutes breaks between every lesson. Their school doors are open and students can some and go as they please; they have freedom to decide and behave. Estonia’s expectations for students starting in the primary grades are that they have freedom to choose learning, good behavior and to do the assignments.

Birgy’s belief is that learning should stay in school - at least textbooks etc. She likes projects and she starts them in class and finished at home/online. Estonia’s way of teaching gives the teacher other challenges, so she believes it is wisest is to be in the middle. They have also changed also their grading policy; they don’t give grades any more from primary until 6th grade.  Teachers give feedback only, so you will know what was ok, what was not and what to do next, without a grade.

One funny fact that Birgy shared with me is that Estonia’s weather is very similar to Ohio. However, they never close due to weather. It must be -33 degrees to do that!(-27 in farenheit) Birgy was amazing to talk with; I hope to stay in touch with her and learn more from her innovative ideas! She agreed to help me with my project and offered up ideas. We talked about me visiting some day which I would truly enjoy. It's fascinating to learn about other school cultures.