What we do
Team Teachers started in 2007 as a teaching materials exchange and support project for teachers in Japan by Eric Hawkinson. It has sense evolved into a platform for technology support, training, and professional development for teachers, educators, professors, and coaches around the world.
Learn more about the pedological theories, learning design concepts, and online learning best practices.
A collection of resources on the most popular platforms for teaching and learning online such as Google Classroom and MS Teams.
Reviewing and evaluating the latest in learning hardware and software. Curating the best for your needs.
Research and development into the advancement of educational technology and design, with a focus on immersive tech.
Introducing the 3 Words Project
If you could send a message back in time to yourself when you were just starting out as a teacher, and you only could say three words... What would you say? That is what this simple concept is all about and it is my hope that it helps to inspire us as teachers to keep doing the great work we do.
One of the concepts you will have to think deeply about when porting your classroom learning is the timing of learning. Classroom learning happens on a schedule (mostly), and information is delivered at the same time to all of your students. In online and mobile learning environments, information is consumed at the students convenience, and thus conversations and work is happening at different times for different students.
Most teleconferencing or LMS systems have a scheduling function, you may need to set the time and add participants to your class. This is when you also need to make sure you notify your students of the class, send the information needed to find your class, and in some cases give the appropirate access and permissions to join the class. This may need to happen everyweek, even for regulary scheduled classes, depending on your setup, but it is good practice to send our reminders even if this process may be automated for you. Have a backup plan in case there are technical difficulties.
Jump into your meeting join or class link after you make it, you will be only one there, but it will let you know that the room was set up correctly and you have the correct permissions and software installed to access the space. This is a good time to see what kind of permissions are availible to students. For example, try to see if everyone will have mics and cameras on when they join the class, and check to see if you have the ability to mute others or even boot or block participants.
Sound and video issues are rampant in online classes, so properly calibrating your equipment is very important. You will want to test your sound and confirm your camera and microphone are working optimally. It usually helps to set the same device to record and play audio, this cuts down on the possibility of feedback, it helps even more to hear a headset. Also check your camera, make it eye level, and clean up your background of distracting or embarrasing items.
There are many times when you think you got everything working, but when you return the day of your class, something goes wrong. It is just the nature of working with technology. If there is a big issue, you will have time to switch to your back-up plan if you made one, or tell your students that things are running late. Students may also show up early, try to check in with them as they do if possible by having them say hello either on mic or in chat. This will get them to test their audio and remember to mute themselves.
With most of the class on mute and cameras pointing at students, it is important to try to get some simple behaviours going for better communication in your online class. Get your students nodding a lot, giving thumbs up or thumbs down to simple yes or no questions, and waving or raising hands when they want to speak so you can acknowleadge them and they can unmute. Also encourgage students to add comments and thoughts to what you are saying, as well as questions to the chat. Try to pay attention to what is going on in chat, this takes some practice.
After the class has finished, you may want to teave the meeting/class open for a time so students can chat if possible. If this isn't possible, it is good practice to annouce the closing of the online session with a warning or two.
Google's LMS that runs seemlessly with GSuite. As a Certified Google Educator I am sharing the latest in resrouces to help you use these tools around GSuite
A temporary hub of information and tools to help teachers during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.
A collection of training courses in Google products in both English and Japanese
A guide for students to get started with Google Classroom for the first time and starter kit for teachers
Manaba is a cloud-based collaborative learning system developed by the Internet service provider ASAHI Net, Inc. Manaba was developed in 2007 in collaboration with two private universities in Japan. Initially, it was designed to connect students and teachers, enable students to accumulate learning evidence and elevate learning outcomes through mutual review. Known for an intuitive interface, meaningful design focused on learning outcomes, and the flexibility and scalability of a cloud application, manaba has been adopted by approximately 200 educational institutions globally (as of December 31, 2013).
In most cases the support of Manaba falls on the institution that is using it. But the company does have some resources on its site.
This is an English user manual put together by Ritsumeikan University for students. It is the most robust manual in English I have seen yet.
Basic information about the company, the software roadmap, and development notes on the public Wikipedia web pages.
Microsoft's telework platform also used in education. Microsoft Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines persistent workplace chat, video meetings, file storage (including collaboration on files), and application integration.
Microsoft has put togehter a series of training videos to get you started using MS Teams.
Here is a quick tour of MS Teams that will give you a primer on what the interface looks like.
MS Teams is web based but you can install clients for almost every operating system.
We are currently accepting the following types:
- Software Tutorial
- Online Teaching Method
- Online Teaching Experience
- Teaching Tool Introduction
The idea is that these are short, laser focused, positive, helpful, and hopefully useful to others.
The binding philosophy is that we need to be training each other more and less top down, as a 'community of practice' would
Projects come and go, but these are the ones that have stuck around.
A community of technology minded learners. Exploring human potential... together.
Augmented reality enhanced learning environments and mixed reality rapid prototyping.
Learning Futurist
Eric is a learning futurist, tinkering with and designing technologies that may better inform the future of teaching and learning. Eric's projects have included augmented tourism rallies, AR community art exhibitions, mixed reality escape rooms, and other experiments in immersive technology.
25 years as an educator, researcher, developer, author, designer, and digital learning advocate.
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