Prior to the ICT course organized in Verona in which 14 teachers from William Shakespeare High School took part, one important step had been identifying some of the needs and challenges of the future participants as far as technology in the classroom was concerned.
After having been selected to participate in the training course, the 14 teachers were invited to an online meeting in the form of a focus group where they could share ideas on the challenges of online teaching and the future of teaching whether it was face to face, online or blended.
Starting from a series of funny pictures and memes reflecting the new reality of teaching, the participants were invited to share their own thoughts about teaching from behind a computer screen. The task proved a success, as all teachers could easily relate to most of the situations illustrated in the pictures. What all of those pictures and stories about teaching had in common was the challenge of keeping students engaged from a distance while competing with the more attractive temptations of video games or social media which would often distract students from the lesson. As such, while Google Classroom and Meet had been indispensable during teaching, they had certainly proved to be insufficient. More than ever, creativity had become one of the primary soft skills a teacher would need to be able to still do their job in an efficient, impactful manner.
Using Padlet, teachers collaborated in 3 different groups and brainstormed digital tools already used in the class, difficulties of online teaching, as well as positive effects on students and teachers. Teachers of Romanian, English, History, Geography, Chemistry, Physics, or primary school teachers, all seemed to share the same challenges and difficulties while also identifying similar ways in which teaching through technology had had a positive impact on both teachers and students.
As seen in the screenshots illustrated above, even before taking part in the ICT course teachers had already been familiarized with a series of online or digital tools such as Quizlet, Liveworksheets, Mentimeter, Kahoot or Padlet. As a result, the teachers agreed that this new teaching reality had determined them to improve their digital skills and had stimulated their creativity in lesson planning and designing new, attractive teaching methods. Even so, the challenges had not been completely absent. Apart from the technical difficulties, teachers had found that both teaching and evaluation had become problematic in spite of their best efforts to keep up with all the changes in education.
Finally, teachers were asked to complete an online questionnaire, in which they could offer more details about their experience in remote teaching, as well as their interests for their future professional development.
A first question focused on identifying the areas in which each teacher had previously exercised their digital skills. The results show that technology is a major part of almost every area of teaching. Apart from the "online interactive lessons" which applied to all participants to the survey, "lesson planning" was also a popular answer with over 80% of the teachers using technology as part of their daily lesson planning. "Evaluation", "Creating teaching materials", "Professional Development" and "Class activity" were also selected by the majority of teachers.
Another question was centered around identifying the online tools teachers had already been familar with. Platforms like Google Classroom, YouTube or didactic.ro had already been used by the majority of respondents, while Zoom, Whatsapp or Messenger had also been quite popular among teachers with 60% of them using them in class. Other tools such as Kahoot, Genially, Padlet, Canva, Windows Movie Maker, although being flexible enough to offer support for any school subject and in any educational context, had been far less popular with the respondents, proving that teachers had still not been equipped with a generous ICT portfolio.
When asked what categories of digital tools they would find most useful to master in the educational process, over 60% of the teachers answered "Apps used for evaluation" and more than 50% were interested in "Apps for encouraging communication among students" and "Apps for creating lessons". Other preferred categories were "Apps for feedback" or "Apps to create mind maps and posters", with 30 to 40% of the teachers showing interest in these. However, another 40% of the respondents admitted not being familiar with any of these instruments, but expressed their curiosity in finding out more about them.
Correlated with their opinions regarding the types of activities they see suitable for improving students' performance (see the image below), it is clear that the teachers involved in the survey consider technology and digital instruments an essential part in today's teaching. All these reflect not only their personal experience as educators in the digital age, but also their dedication to becoming better teachers, more adapted to the current reality.
All in all, what the focus group demonstrated was that there was a great need of digital training among teachers at William Shakespeare High School and that the teachers selected to participate in the course provided in the Erasmus + project "Bilingual Approach: New Digital Dimensions" were the best candidates for enhancing the digital dimension of our school through their motivation to integrate technology in their lessons.