MT4T: A Mobile Learning Support for Southeast Asian Teachers
Taking full advantage of the many uses of mobile technologies in education, SEAMEO INNOTECH is set to launch initially in six Southeast Asian countries a resource kit utilizing smart phones and tablets to promote the development of 21st century skills. The resource kit was designed to bridge the digital divide between students and teachers who are referred to by author Marc Prensky as “digital natives” and “digital immigrants,” respectively.
The project focuses on training teachers to utilize mobile technologies for their personal and professional growth, and, at the same time, helping promote the development of higher order thinking skills (HOTS) in themselves and among their students.
Composed of a web portal and a set of eBooks, the resource kit is part of SEAMEO INNOTECH’s project on Mobile Technology for Teachers, or MT4T, which supports the competency on facilitating 21st century teaching and learning specified in SEAMEO INNOTECH’s Competency Framework for Southeast Asian Teachers in the 21st Century.
Beginning October 2014, SEAMEO INNOTECH will conduct orientation sessions for primary and secondary teachers on the use of the MT4T resource kit in Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Meanwhile, a national launch of the project will be held at SEAMEO INNOTECH in Quezon City, Philippines on 24 October 2014.
Participants in the launch in each country include representatives from the Department/Ministry of Education, and teachers from primary and secondary schools. The Philippine launch is expected to be attended by representatives from the education sector, both private and public schools; officials from the central and field offices of the Department of Education; and from partner agencies/institutions.
An initial set of seven eBooks were developed for the project that (1) cover topics about popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Edmodo; (2) provide examples, best practices, guides and tips on how to make full use of mobile devices in education; (3) provide hundreds of annotated resources related to 21st century resources and tools, as well as HOTS; and (4) give background information about the MT4T project, the technical conceptual framework of the teacher resource kit, and the key MT4T concepts and themes.
SEAMEO INNOTECH partnered with Vibe Technologies to develop a unique eReader that will be used for the eBooks. The eReader may be installed for three kinds of mobile operating systems—iOS, Android, and Windows, and may be downloaded from the MT4T portal that would be launched soon.
(Editor’s note: The MT4T Portal may be accessed here: http://www.seameo-innotech.org/mt4t/)
Mobile Technology for Teachers brochure may be downloaded here.
