Barbara Hebar, Osnovna šola Dobje, Dobje
When elementary school teacher meets with the problem “in the same place at the same time” open learning is a perfect solution. I met with this problem at the beginning of the school year, when I planned preparations for a competition in knowledge. We could not find a common time with the students of three different classes to prepare for the competition, which is in the second half of the school year. We have succeeded by working in the Cloud. In Office 365, we have created a website that served us as a kind of online classroom, place for our digital meetings, site of resources and storage of various materials and information. Using the Calendar and Mail, we planned our meetings live and online. Through the site, the students could access monthly to materials, which they then learnt and processed using a variety of programs (Word, PowerPoint, OneNote). Because Office 365 lets you share documents, students have divided their work and established cooperative learning. They made common presentations of contents, glossary of new words, questions for revision… At this form of learning, the teacher’s role is being a mentor. He can guide students at their work by using online comments. Due to cooperative learning, the students are active and responsible members of the group. The vitality to the site added a Chat room, which has particularly revived just before the competition, when the pupils were supportive to each other. Working in the Cloud enables automatic storage and easy access to a variety of materials, which are all in one place. Students can access it anywhere (at home, at school) and with different devices (phone, tablet, PC). If students were working in desktop applications, created materials could be easily moved in sync through the Cloud. Didactic value of the described example of an open learning is primarily independence of time and space. Because of the way of work, the learner is more responsible for his own knowledge and performed part of his duties. At the same time, he develops new skills using ICT. The knowledge and satisfaction of students especially confirms such work.
