Author: Keith Aquilina

Currently my professional role is that of Education Officer (Quality Assurance) within the Directorate for Quality & Standards in Education in the Ministry of Education, Malta. After eight years teaching Computing and ICT within a state secondary school, I moved to the Department of eLearning where my role focused on the organisation of national educational events of which the national eLearning awards and conference, Malta Robotics Olympiad and student competitions. In addition to the work within the Department of eLearning, as from 2011 I have taken the role of ICT coordinator within the Directorate for Lifelong Learning where for 5 years, I was involved in the development and organisation of ICT related courses within the directorate’s adult education centres and collaborating entities. In 2012, I completed my Masters studies in Online and Distance Education from the Open University. This blog started off as an online reflective diary for my studies in the Masters in Online and Distance Education with the Open Univeristy. As may be easily deduced, my main interest is in technology, learning and anything in between. Linkedin; mt.linkedin.com/in/keithaquilina/

10.1 Putting knowledge into practice

Learning and Teaching Committee report By Keith Aquilina 09 January 2011 Executive summary The use of web 2.0 tools in education has been on the rise in recent years. Teachers in this institution have been using such tools of which wikis. The issue we will explore in this document is how an institution-wide policy should […]

My need’s analysis grid

Today I have taken some time off from my ECA writing and updated the needs analysis grid which had been developed for core activity 3.4 It has been really interesting seeing how this grid helped me focus on my weaknesses and thus was able to improve in a number of points. Surely I should continue […]

7.2 Professional Learning

The relationship between reflection, action and learning in your own contexts of work (which may include the current context of study on H808). Part 1 Dealtry A – A learning task in an area you know well (low risk) B – A familiar learning task but applying it to a new situation (moderate risk) C […]

9.1 Desktop research – finding, analysing and synthesising information.

Blogs traditionally have been used, even in education, as personal logs (Williams & Jacobs, 2004) for example of own or class activity. This tool may also allow for ”collaborative activity, knowledge sharing, reflection and debate’ (Hiler, 2003). The distinct blogging behaviours outlined by Kerawella et al. (2008) suggest that in their nature, blogs are versatile and […]

8.3x Educational podcast review

This is an initial attemt in reviewing the quality of a podcast in terms of a set of criteria. Podcast 1: Morrison, D. (2005b) ‘Interview with Oleg Liber: personal learning environments’, The Auricle podcasts. Available from: http://www.auricle.org/auriclewp/podcasts/20051215-ple.mp3(accessed 23 December 2010). Sound quality – Sound quality could be improved as the introductory and concluding audio sem […]

7.1 Professional Values

Through the sources reviewed in this activity, more similarities than differences amongst professions have been identified. Such similarities give a good understanding of what the basis of a profession is. Each profession aim at having high standards of practice, focus on their clients, form communities of practice, keep updated through research, development and training and […]

Unit 6 – collaborative activity…and much more

It’s interesting to see how groups got on different journeys aimed at reaching the same destination. Groups have chosen quiet a variety of tools, some keeping it simple, whilst others tried to convey their message through different media.I I’d be interested to know (and confirm) whether such choices have been made according to the competences […]

6.2 case studies – priniciples of good elearning practice

Sharing Effective Pedagogical Innovations Here are some points that I extracted from the ‘Sharing Effective Pedagogical Innovations’ case study; Chudler’s Neuroscience for kids shows that through the continuous availability of digital resources, students’ knowledge may increase, but not the attitude towards science. Effective practice as seen in both examples (Chudler and Gibbs) should include a […]

5.5 The CMALT and LSN certification schemes

In my own PDP needs analysis not all the points covered in CMALT and LSN lists are included. This as in my needs analysis I focus on the teaching aspect of my job. In teaching I think that it is a daunting task to cover all points mentioned in the CMALT and LSN lists. So […]