EDTalks site attracts international attention

EDTalks site attracts international attention

A new series of online videos, “EDTalks”, launched to provide teachers with best practice interviews from leading educators, is attracting international attention.

New Zealand not-for-profit educational research and development organisation CORE Education had identified that online video would become a mainstream tool this year. Project Co-ordinator Jedd Bartlett says there has undoubtedly been significant growth in video available through sites including YouTube and Teachertube.

“We thought that CORE Education was in a unique position to collect, collate and make media available because of our access to experts, educators and their efforts and opinions through our various contracts across the sector,” Jedd says.

And so the EDTalks site (http://edtalks.org) was launched, featuring a regularly supplemented collection of “core conversations” with New Zealand and international educators.

“Our site visit figures show there’s been over 11000 unique visitors since the site went live in September. And the vast majority of site visitors are from the United States, followed by Australia and then New Zealand,” Jedd says.

CORE Education aims to develop innovative, empowering, creative and effective learning environments and to push the boundaries of educational possibilities. EDTalks is part of CORE’s contribution to school’s professional learning and development and is a freely accessible database.

The intention is to steadily develop this database with high quality video content to:
· Support schools’ professional learning and development programmes
· Provide individuals with stimulating and thought-provoking discussions
· Inform educators about new developments, theories and research, and
· Share successful experiences and strategies from other educators

While most EDtalks play for between five and seven minutes, the website also includes a channel for extended conversations. These extended sessions include three recent CORE breakfast sessions featuring Jennifer Garvey Berger from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) talking about leadership, the CORE UK team outlining their projects and Dr Rose Hipkins from NZCER exploring the relationship between inquiry learning and key competencies.

“We’re amazed at how it’s taken off. We’ll update our videos constantly as we meet new experts in the course of our work both in New Zealand and internationally. Then educators will know that there’s always something new to see and hear about on the EDTalks website.”

ENDS

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