News Archive

Dr. Márta Turcsányi-Szabó

Dr. Márta Turcsányi-Szabó, associate professor of Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Informatics, Head of T@T Lab at Department of Media and Educational Informatics is the first and so far the only Hungarian lecturer at Coursera. ELTE as partner in the EIT ICT Labs Budapest Associate Partner Group is proud to use her knowledge also at EIT ICT Labs Master School education.

She recently received the 2014 International e-Learning Award in Mobile Learning at the Dubai conference of IELA. The International E-Learning Association is dedicated to advance the knowledge and practice of e-learning in the classroom and the workplace.

In co-operation with the Institute of Education, University of London the online training entitled „ICT in Primary Education: Transforming children's learning across the curriculum” was developed by the international expert team of UNESCO Institute for IT in Education, where Dr Turcsányi-Szabó was invited to join. The project has a global coverage, and the expert team is comprised of ‘ICT in primary education’ specialists from Chile, Hong Kong, Hungary, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, South Africa, UK and USA. It is a professional development course for teachers, headteachers and policymakers working in the Primary Education sector - the course material consists of best practices, experiences, case studies and interesting examples from various countries. Practice and methodology are both included, presenting the use of ICT in primary schools. Almost 9000 registrations from 172 countries, 44% from developing countries marked this Coursera course.

The succesful Hungarian pilot project „Tabula Cognita - Tablets for learning in classroom” pedagogically coordinated by Dr. Turcsányi-Szabó was also included among the best practices of the course. The aim of the project was to prepare teachers for effective classroom use of tablets.

Primary education is the largest sub-sector of any education system and offers the unique opportunity to contribute to the transformation of societies through education of youth and children. In order for young people to adjust to and compete in the rapidly changing environment of the contemporary world they need to have a repertoire of life skills which includes, among others, communication, analytical and problem-solving skills for creativity, flexibility, mobility and entrepreneurship. Thus, an educational strategy should be oriented on the new lifestyle concept and corresponding skills development alongside with technological innovations – states UNESCO IITE.

All courses offered by Coursera – already on iPhone and Android as well - are "accessible for free". The website provides courses in a variety of areas, including Humanities, Medicine, Biology, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Business, and Computer Science. Each course includes short video lectures on different topics and assignments to be submitted, usually on a weekly basis, and most often 6 to 10 weeks long. Coursera has over 7.1 million users in 641 courses from 108 institutions.

Dr. Márta Turcsányi-Szabó will present next time at the international SM 2015 (SmartMobile) congress in Hungary on 8-9 April, at the most salient regional conference that focuses on mobile technology and startups.

Contact: Andrea Boródi

Continue reading

Scroll up

Co-Funded by the European Union