Much of what is known on 21^st century skills and education, describes a situation where a broader range of skills is needed to complement the basic literacy, numeracy and scientific skills that are currently taught in our schools. There is a real need to use digital technology to develop innovative skills and competencies that will enable graduates of schools and universities in Cyprus to deal with an emerging economic, environmental, technological, political and social challenges of the current century.

There is a need to advance teaching approaches, assessment strategies and reporting or grading systems. There is a need to accommodate new innovative skills and competencies within an existing educational structure and curriculum. Schools need to Reimagine Learning Habitat with effective integration of Mobile Tech in order to develop higher order level skills and validate appropriate pedagogy’s, curriculum assessment and evaluation strategies and other instructional support.

Furthermore, Cyprus belongs to a global community and we need to develop our students so that they are equipped with the skills, knowledge, creativity and digital competencies to be able to survive in this world of change. The foundation for this change is to begin equipping students with the tools they need regardless of their learning and living differences. The key is to differentiate our instruction and use the most appropriate digital devices that will enable us to cater for all students including those students with special needs and the Gifted and Talented. Using tablets and iPads from middle to high school years becomes a vital part of our instruction.

Tablets and iPads make learning more personalized and focused for each student. For example, we all learn differently and with a few taps here and there each student can have a customizable iPad with material, apps and personalized learning tools to meet their needs, regardless of their learning and living differences. 3D and 4D immersive books and videos that bring learning to life. Augmented and Virtual Reality applications empower students to see beyond what their imagination may conjure. A tactile interaction where a student can have a learning relationship between their own thinking brain and the digital brain – the iPad. It’s an inclusive, differentiated tool that will surpass all other digital devices and empower Cyprus students to be equipped with learning skills and knowledge that will help them be ready for any future global educational change.

This seminar will offer valuable insight to owners, principals/managers, educational curriculum consultants and trainers in Middle and High schools, as well as private institutes approved by the Ministry of Education and Culture. All these schools need to transform and develop their educational practices in order to help students develop the 21^st century skills.

This expert educator professional development workshop aims to provide Middle and High school principals/managers, educational curriculum consultants with the latest state of the art tools, platforms and educational pedagogies that will fully support them to acquire the following types of knowledge, skills and attitude-related objectives:

Knowledge-related objectives

• Understand the importance of DigiPlay for student metacognition.
• Comprehend the learning relationship between the Thinking Brain and the Digital Brain.
• Understand the need to prepare students for change using unique devices that will replace traditional educational tools and methods.
• Be familiar with all types of recourses, tools and apps from IOS, Windows and Android operating systems and technologies.

Skills-related objectives (Be able to)

• Use Mobile Tech devices such as tablets and iPads to develop basic Literacy, Numeracy, Scientific and Engineering skills for learning.
• Integrate the pedagogical aspect of learning with tablets and iPads into the Middle and High School Years Curriculum.
• Set up and personalize the iPad for different students whether they have special needs or are gifted and talented.
• Use high tech devises from various operating systems and technologies to challenge and engage creativity and Innovation in the classroom.
• Engage students for indoor and outdoor learning with tablets and iPads.

Attitude-related objectives

• Choose appropriate pedagogical strategies, learning tools, resources and for personalized, independent and group learning.
• Design and deploy differentiated and inclusive learning plans.
• Equip students to be independent and autonomous but at the same time to share with others their learning experiences through collaboration and communication.
• Be flexible in embracing the diversity of devises tools, recourses and applications during problem solving.

The workshop methodology will aim to support school, with tools that are practical and innovative in order to expand their understanding of using tablets and iPads for teaching and learning from Middle to High School years. Strategies to use appropriate apps and how they can be developed into the curriculum for all aspects of learning. Participants will have the opportunity to create teaching activities using various apps and be able to share their learning and showcase during the workshop.

Multi-media tools including Haiku Deck, Keynote and Power Point will be integrated as well as other mutli-media tools and the effective and applicable use of social media fin order to develop Professional Learning Networks for collaboration, communication and creativity. Participants will be asked to bring their own tablet and/or iPads to the seminar and will be encouraged to interact with other participants.

Furthermore, the workshop methodology aims to support    participants in how to expand their own personal skills and knowledge. This aim will be accomplished by providing robust and well-designed case studies, integrating sample educational demos, presenting and discussing real life scenarios, performing group assignments and demonstrating web enabled tools and recourses. There will be also presentations using PowerPoint slides, videos and various other multimedia tools.

Workshop participants will be guided in a very concise and condensed way, both on the strategic side as on the practical classroom management side. Participants will be asked to bring their own materials into the seminar and will be encouraged to interact with the lecturers and other participants. This workshop will follow a very pragmatic approach that will enable the active participant interaction.

Participants will be encouraged to share with their colleagues the areas of improvements identified in class and the action plan developed in class and identify priorities to be covered by the training. The areas to be considered in order to meet the training objectives identified above are: the school’s strategic segments, priorities and how each segment is serviced, how the school’s value proposition is delivered and possible gaps, areas where customer expectations are not met, areas where customers are over-served, focused propositions to specific segments. 

Two Hours by Nina Jackson:

The scope for school improvement can be identified:

Evaluating ideas about improving the customer service delivery and discussing the details of implementation

• Prioritise ideas and learning strategies.
• Think through how to put these ideas into action learning.
• Establish implementation requirements.

Four hours by Chryso Christodoulou:

Creating different propositions for different segments by incorporating different levels of service

• Recognising different segment needs and the value to the school.
• Creating different levels of service to balance value
• Thinking through the operationalization.

Identifying service areas which do not add value and discussing ways to de-emphasize.

• Develop strategies on how to use appropriate apps and how the can be developed into the curriculum for all aspects of learning.
• Review features of the proposition and the value perceived by the customer – think ways to reduce of eliminating and evaluate the learning impact.

One comprehensive report will be jointly prepared by both consultants to be presented to each participating school.