Digital Teachers Academy, an institute of certified, passionate and experienced educational specialists with the mission statement to “promote and advance digital training as a transformational and enabling vehicle to the development of education…” opened its doors to educators from different parts of the country to host its first Professional Advancement Training.

The 2-Days training focused on four core areas;
Becoming a 21st Century Digital Educator

Holistic e-Classroom Management and Teaching Ethics

Skills and Methodology required of a Digital Educator

E-Assessment of Students’ Academic Performance

Day 1, 18th June 2020.
The first day saw two facilitators on board;
First was Mrs Adeniyi Olawumi, the Co-founder and Executive Director of the Academy extensively did justice to the topic “Becoming a 21st Century Digital Educator”. In her presentation, she mentioned six competency skills educators need to acquire to be a 21st Century Digital Educator, They are:

Professional Environment: Educators need to develop themselves on regular basis and not rest on their hoarse; also the need to get accustomed to evolving technologies to harness effective communication in the learning process.

Sourcing, creating and sharing digital resources: She suggested different digital tools for developing, selecting, managing and sharing of interactive and educative content materials such as Wakelet, Voice Thread, Elmodo etc.

Managing the use of digital tools in teaching and learning: She stated the importance of inputting Collaborative Learning into the system with the use of digital sites like Trello, Google docs etc. Also, engaging learners to form opinions and reflect about lessons.

Digital tools and strategies to enhance assessment: Educators need to understand the importance and usage of digital tools to carry out formative and summative assessments of learner and develop methods of feedback to determine learners’ strength and weakness.

The use of digital tools to empower learners: Digital Educators should ensure learners have access to ample resources to engage them during the lessons to foster effective learning.

Facilitating learners’ digital competence: Digital Educators should be able to develop educative and interactive content materials, develop assignments or assessments methods that would involve learners to use digital tools.

And the second facilitator for the day was Mr Bakare Hafiz who also doubles as the Co-founder and Program Manager presented the topic “Holistic e-Classroom Management and Teaching Ethics” Classroom Management being a necessity for effective delivery of lesson cannot be overemphasized in virtual learning and he highlighted seven (7) general tips to effective e-classroom management
Set rules
Establish a routine/consistency
Be confident and positive
Be friendly but firm
Include everyone and encourage questions
Praise and reward
Attend to discipline Issues Immediately

Day 2, 19th June 2020.
The two topics for the second day of the Professional Advancement Training was solely facilitated by Mr Adeyemo Faith, a seasoned Counsellor and lecturer from one of the top Universities in United Arab Emirates (UAE).
His first focus was on “Skills and Methodology required of a Digital Educator”. He gave a list of innovative approaches educators have infused into the system that every 21st century teachers should be acquainted with. They are;
Ability to establish a wiki/blog: To encourage collaborative learning, developing a blog sites here articles can be published for learners read, learners can leave comments, questions thus collaborative learning both offline and online is fostered.

Ability to create engaging visuals: It is common knowledge that pictorial contents sticks and is easy to recollect; so educators are encouraged to make use of more visual images in their contents.

Ability to use and create video contents: Just as visuals, videos also leave lasting impressions on viewers.

Ability to use social media for professional development opportunity: Educators are encouraged to belong to professional networks as networking fosters growth and development.

Ability to search the web and collate resources: Digital Educators should be able to carry out suitable search requests to yield useful information from the search engines and collate all resources adequately, making it easier to reference.

Ability to embrace game based learning: Introducing this to make learners comfortable whilst making learning interesting and engaging.

In his second lecture, he addressed the topic “E-Assessment of Students on Academic Performance.” He laid emphasis on the importance of assessments of students in measuring the capacity of learners especially for virtual lessons. He then suggested methods of suitable e-assessments for learners, such as
Quiz learners from the onset of the course
Self-assessment opportunities
Problem solving case studies
Assess students as they play
Introduce scenario based questions

The 2-days Professional Advancement Training was put to a close with a Question and Answer session and appreciation to all participants, school administrators and team members who ensured the maiden program of the Academy was a success!

Download the full resource material here: https://dta.ng/21st-century-digital-educators-handbook-the-go-to-ebook-for-effective-virtual-education/

This Blog post wouldn’t be complete without sharing some of the reviews and testimonies of participants at the training;

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be a part of this training. I still find it difficult to believe I have learnt so much within a period of two days.

Thanks.
I will love to be a part of your next training.
Adepoju Ibukunoluwa

I have actually been thinking on how to create fun to my children online, but this training has given me lots of fun games to have with them, Thanks DTA
Bosede Waheeb

I want to appreciate the organisers of Digital Teachers Academy. I have learnt a lot and will make use of it.
Fumnanya Iniodu

Thanks to the organisers of this seminar. God bless you
Tomogun David Olasoji

Thanks to the organiser of this program. More strengths. We expect more of this from the organizers
Odekunle J Folayemi

I want to thank you and your team for putting together an educative seminar. I had an amazing experience on the two days. I have registered for the virtual home lesson.
You are doing a wonderful job.
Jimoh Rasheed

Thank you to the organisers. I gained a lot, waiting anxiously for d next class
Angela Itegboje

Thank you so much to the program organizers. Your session was truly enlightening. I had my doubts about online teaching but now, I believe it is quite possible.
Christopher Hannah