Education platforms

The aim and scope of this work shop has been to with the help of education platforms and its various tools to try to find out various possibilities of how to teach history in upper secondary school. Furthermore the purpose of this work shop has been to find out how well suited the educational platform itself is in order for it to actually work as a complementary educational tool.

Educational platforms, in our case It's Learning, are fairly frequent at Swedish schools. However they are seldom being used as they should be or to the extent of their full potential. With the help of the various tools that the platform give us we wanted to find out if the students would learn things better and more easily if given the information via modern technique. This work shop has also been an opportunity for the school as such to implement the use of the platform among the teachers.

The result has in many ways been very positive. First, we have once more established the fact that the knowledge shared between teachers and students when it comes to using modern technique are not always the same. The students are often very quick to adept and use parts of the technique, but they do not necessarily use it the right way or in a way that is developing their skills and enhancing their knowledge. The teachers on the other hand are perhaps not as quick to adapt and use the technique, but they are better at using it correctly and using it in a way that enhances their knowledge. They are in a way more aware of what they are doing and why.

In the subject history we have been successful in implementing various new methods of teaching by using the tools available by the platform. These new methods have also been widely appreciated by the students. The educational platform makes it easy to use fairly many different methods quite easily since they are gathered in one place, i.e. the platform. The platform contains for instance; a blog, net meeting capabilities, various forms of examination, and possibilities of spreading information. The availability of the material being presented during lessons and so forth is also being enhanced. If students miss out on classes the teacher more easily can see to that the information can be made available via the platform.

If we look at the structure and content of the platform itself and how well it is suited for school use, we can conclude that there are things to wish for. When we have encountered problems of different sort and contacted the manufacturer of the platform, we have on occasions been informed that the platform is not to be used like that. This is of course rather disgruntling when one is trying to make things better.  At the same time we must also say that the educational platform has given us many new possibilities. The most positive thing is that the work for the teachers has been made easier by the use of the platform. Many time consuming things have disappeared. The gains in time and the education for the teachers in how to use the platform, has made the actual use of it more frequent. This in turn has, as said before, made many aspects of the profession easier.

For further information contact

Mathias Ohlander
mathias.ohlander@vaxjofria.se