Digital pedagogik

I am a big fan of  the ICT resource "Digital pedagogik" which is the new name of Mediapoolen's digital resource page for teachers and students. I have the fourtune to work in a municipality where all the schools are connected to several services provided by Mediapoolen. Your school need to have an agreement with Mediapoolen if you want to use "Digital pedagogik".

First you will need to register at their site with your workplace connected e-mailaddress and verify that you belong to a workplace with an agreement. When you have registered you can login from any computer and surf around the site. You can find streamable movies, shorter films and audio recordings for any subject. Make sure you have a good internet connection if you want to stream anything. You can search by resource type, age group, language and by theme. Say you are going to have a theme based teaching method in class for a week or two about Sweden. Then you can enter "Sverige" in the search field and click the theme named "Sverige", now you'll see this view:

 
At the left hand side of the screen you will see all the site's resources connected to the theme. Many resources come with a teacher's guide with examples on how you can use it in class. I use this ICT resource on a weekly basis mostly in the subjects general science and English. In my second grade English class the students love "Kids English Zone" and "Muzzy in Gondoland", both in very simple English. And they learn a lot bu them especially since we always do something practical to use the new knowledge connected to the English class. I really like the fact that I can look around for a suitable resource during my planning hours and attach the resource to my personal pinboard.

Students can also register to the site even if its regulated by the same rules as for teachers. If the students are connected and know how to use the site many new possibilities opens up. I think that I would use this choice mainly with older students. Since I really like the idea of flipped classrooms I could give homework to watch a short film or listen to an audio file which we then could discuss later in class.

As if this wasn't enough you can also create music and use the softwares Creaza and Vocalex right there on the site. Creaza lets the students create digital mind maps and their own comic strips. It is also possible to edit both video and audio clips within this software. Vocalex is an easy to use word translation / glossary software which is great to use for extra pracitce. It is also siutable with students from foreign countries. One thing that I like in particular is the fact that you can switch between different languages quite easily. You can also switch between different kinds of exercises like reading or listening comprehension.

To sum it all up. Digital pedagogik is a site with a lot of content. Try it and you will like it!

//Therese Ahl Lennartsson