http://hdl.handle.net/10453/246 2013-05-22T17:40:09Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/17805 Instant messaging in primary schools Maher Damian B.G. Kutais The use of instant messaging (IM) in primary schools is a recent phenomenon having been around for less than 10 years in most schools with internet access. There is an expectation by Educational authorities, parents, teachers and students that interactive technologies such as IM be included as part of learning experiences. To date there has been very little research examining the use of IM with primary school students. The use of IM has the potential to change the nature of education by expanding the range of participants with whom students can interact, both while at school and in their homes. Students now have access to experts online and other community members which vastly increases their access to different ideas and opinions. In addition, students can interact with other students who are geographically distant which enables increased cultural awareness. Students are also able to interact with each other, family members and their teachers while at home, which is dissolving the boundaries between school and home. Access to other participants via IM has brought with it new challenges. In particular, the safety of students online has been a main focus of schools, parents, educational authorities and Governments and is examined in this chapter. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/17806 Resisting complacency: my teaching through an outsider's eyes. Schuck Sandra S.Schuck and P. Pereira As an experienced mathematics teacher educator, how can I creatively disrupt my current practices? In this chapter I describe what happened when I invited a teacher educator of social studies into my classroom to help me challenge my assumptions and reframe my practice. Would a critical friend, with similar passions about teacher education but a different discipline expertise, help me to see things that a colleague from maths education might not see? Certain issues arose in our discussions, including my nervousness before classes, my efforts to build a safe and welcoming environment for the students, the relative importance of our different subject areas, the aims we each hold for our classes, and our thoughts about control. I found that my ideas of maths teaching, highly influenced by reform notions of maths education, needed to be made more visible to my critical friend. This gave me important insights into the assumptions I hold that might need to be made more explicit to my students. The critical friendship did disrupt my complacency, and it also stimulated my thinking about my aims for my teaching and for my students' learning. For both of us, the critical friendship contributed a different set of lenses with which to view our teaching. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/17808 English Education in South Asia: The Challenges of Globalisation Farrell Lesley; Giri Ram Lesley Farrell, Udaya Narayana Singh, Ram Ashish Giri NA 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/17807 Adding value to self and content in mathematics education: working in a third space Pereira Peter; Schuck Sandra S.Schuck and P. Pereira The chapter discusses the complexities that are an inevitable part of mathematics teaching, introduces the concept of a 'third space' as a way of thinking about these complexities, shows how the chapters in the book can be located within a third space, and explores ways in which the metaphor of a third space can be used to gain insight and raise questions. The chapter concludes with an appeal to readers to try their own discipline based self-studies as a way to rejuvenate their own practices. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z