About the course

The need of pre-school teacher training becomes obvious when looking at national-scale about the state of pre-school kindergarten teaching in the online environment imposed by the current pandemic. Aside from a real benefit provided by a standardized set of tools for online teaching and an understanding of the principles behind digital interaction with classroom children, teachers need real-life practice, given the intrinsic nature of their job, which involves interacting with children and guiding their learning process towards knowledge and skill acquisition.

The structure of the PR2 Teaching in the Digital Era Course is divided into four units:

• Mathematics
  • Chapter 1 – Theoretical Part: Educators’ Pedagogical, Technical and Teacher-Student-Parent Cooperation competences in online teaching
  • Chapter 2 - How to produce digital resources for Mathematics discipline (tutorials)
• Environmental Education
  • Chapter 1 – Theoretical Part: Educators’ Pedagogical, Technical and Teacher-Student-Parent Cooperation competences in online teaching
  • Chapter 2 - How to produce digital resources for Environmental discipline (tutorials)
• Language and Communication in the children's mother tongue
  • Chapter 1 – Theoretical Part: Educators’ Pedagogical, Technical and Teacher-Student-Parent Cooperation competences in online teaching
  • Chapter 2 - How to produce digital resources for Communication discipline (tutorials)
• English
  • Chapter 1 – Theoretical Part: Educators’ Pedagogical, Technical and Teacher-Student-Parent Cooperation competences in online teaching
  • Chapter 2 - How to produce digital resources for English discipline (tutorials)

By the end of the course, the trainees should be able to:

• become familiar and select from among the equipment and the platforms with software available in the classroom tools and functions suitable for their learners, and the content to be taught
• learn how to use the set of tools provided by their respective schools, especially the smart board and check the efficiency of the webcam and of the sound boxes by doing simulations
• learn about Google Classroom functions and/or Google Classroom educational suite functions to be able to choose what to handle and use in the teaching/learning of their young learners
• practice, individually and in groups, various Google functions including but not limited to: Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Forms, etc,
• become familiar with the use of the Zoom platform for synchronous teaching
• become familiar with other educational platforms compatible with the Google Classroom educational Suite and with Zoom (these may include, but not limited to: BookWidgets, WordWall, Padlet, Kahoot, MozaWeb, Mozaik3D, Vooks, PearDeck)
• how to select the use of these platforms for the design and the customized creation of educational resources adequate to the topics to be taught, according to the national curriculum and the optional topics proposed by the institution
• how to create a digital class register and use it
• how to co-create, in an institutional team or project team, a digital library of resources
• how to use these tools for evaluation
• learn how to use these tools for communication with parents, peers and the school / kindergarten

The course is available in 6 languages (English, Romanian, Lithuanian, Italian, Spanish, Turkish) and it is a free E-learning course.