Abstract:

Teacher training has been one of the key issues in education since the year dot, and is absolutely crucial nowadays in the perspective of life-long-learning. Teachers – no matter what subject they teach or who their students are – if they have an ambition to be at the front line of innovation they must remain life-long-learners and students as well, which is especially relevant when it comes to applying ICT in classroom.

Lithuania – the country in the centre of Europe with the fastest internet in the world – is a perfect place for teacher training on how to apply ICT in classroom. Public Service Language Centre apart from in-service language teaching to adults and international language projects is a certified teacher training institution organizing in-service teacher training courses for teachers.

During June and August 2020 two International Teacher Training programmes will be offered in a picturesque Lithuanian spa resort Palanga situated on the coast of the Baltic Sea. One of the courses is „Technology and the Classroom 2020“ highlighting a number of techniques and technologies that can help teachers make lessons more student centered and interactive. The focus will be a few simple technologies that can allow teachers to create collaborative and group work based learning. The participants of the course (5 days duration) will learn how to organise blended learning within the classroom, how to build content to add to the blended learning course, how to deal with areas such as assessment and feedback in a digital context. The course tutor is the founder of www.teachertrainingvideos.com and a NILE associate trainer holding 3 major educational awards with the established informal title of „technology guru“.

„Student-Centered Digital Classroom 2020“ course is predominately for teachers who are currently only using a limited number of technology resources in their teaching and learning or only have a basic knowledge. The programme aims to help the teachers with limited knowledge of technology take a more principled approach. The techniques will be especially relevant to anyone thinking of blending their learning. The participants of the course (5 days duration) will learn how to make a slideshow demonstrating their ideas on how the pedagogy can be rethought in the 21st century using Adobe Spark Video, how to make great instructional videos, how to promote collaborative speaking tasks using Google Docs, Voice Typing, Soundation and inserting audio in Google Slides, etc. The course tutor is an internationally recognized independent languages consultant from the UK who works with a range of organisations such as Network for Languages, ALL, The British Council, the BBC, Skype, Microsoft and The Guardian.

Teacher training courses in Lithuania even though being ambitiously intensive are thoughtfully blended with cultural and leisure activities, which due to their venue serve as a perfect opportunity for Erasmus+ mobility course combining training, socializing, relaxation and networking possibilities.

Keywords:

ICT, technologies, blended learning, internet, digital classroom, networking, teacher training.