E - Learning BOP Leaders Meet - 19th June

Over 20 schools from across the Bay were represented by their e-learning leaders at Friday’s e-learning BOP. This network aims to support e-learning leaders so they, in-turn, can better support staff in their schools.

We kick started the day at 9am with two rounds of ‘speed geeking’ (idea stolen from Auckland’s recent unconference, thanks Fiona and Sue)









Sue Brown from Tahatai Coast then joined us via skype. Sue shared her recent experience on-board the North American Apple Bus tour. Her fabulous key-note was titled ‘From the Cave to the Mountain Top’, for 50mins Sue took us under her wing and shared highlights from her trip. A key theme that stuck out for me from Sue’s talk was the importance of not underestimating our students and how we must maximise opportunities for students to show us what they are capable of. Sue also shared how students at Carlsbad High had received international accolade for a film produced by 16 of their students who discovered the horror of the Holocaust. Check out Carlsbad High School Television here: http://www.chstv.com/
Thanks Sue, your exuberance busted out and enveloped the group, even via Skype!



Exploring ‘e-maturity’ models was next on the agenda. See my previous post for more details. We focused on the Digital Schools Self Evaluation Tool and through online questionnaire participation, gained a fair grasp of how this tool might be used back in our schools. The group’s overwhelming response was that the use of a tool like this would be very helpful to individual schools as it would provide evidence of a schools e-learning strengths and weaknesses, giving weight to desired actions.
Data gathered through the use of the Digital Schools Self Evaluation Tool was seen by some as a good foundation from which to gather more personalised information relating to the areas that had been identified as foci for development.
The alignment of focus areas with support initiatives available in New Zealand was seen as vital in adding value to this tool.
Discussions continued around strategies used to raise the e-learning competence of individual teachers, and models of e-learning teacher accreditation used in other countries were explored.

We used our new ‘e-maturity’ knowledge by attempting to gain a snapshot of our region’s strengths and weaknesses. We hoped that this information would help to inform the group of an area for focus. We made use of good old-fashioned ‘stickies’ and invited all e-learning leaders to ‘sticky’ each e-learning area to roughly indicate where they perceived their school was at. The bottom of the bar indicates lots of support was required and the top indicated lots of success in this area. This exercise served its purpose and interestingly enough ‘ICT and the Curriculum ‘came out as one of the areas requiring the most support.





















Tessa Gray rolled up next and as always she delighted the group with her wit and wisdom as we explored ICTPD clusters for 2010. We examined the changes in eligibility and ex-cluster members shared their experiences.
The rest of the day was spent in unconference style. Hot topics that became workshops included:
Learning Management Systems – What, Why and Which?
Web 2.0 – podcasting, blogs and wikis
Open Source vs. Microsoft Office – Would schools be wise to be preparing for open source?
ICTPD – How can we make the grade?


Special thanks to Regan Scarfe and Vicki Coe for their enthusiasm and support in making this day a success.


Further elearning BOP dates for 2009 are:
Friday 28th August
Friday 6th November

Please register your interest by emailing me: rjensen@waikato.ac.nz

To join the e-learning bop listserv, add your email to the 'yahoo group box' located on the right hand banner of this blog.

The E-Learning Pie

E- Learning is formed from a concoction of many factors including infrastructure, pedagogy, curriculum, leadership, vision and professional learning. It seems that certain standards of capability in these areas and striving for their alignment is paramount to the effective whole school integration of ICT.

I worked at an intermediate school last week who had recently formed an e- learning team; their vision was centred on raising the e-learning bar across the school. The team acknowledged that in pockets of the school e-learning was very effective but the variation between what was happening in classrooms was huge.
The use of a tool that would allow the team to ‘helicopter up’ and reflect on their schools e-learning strengths and the areas to develop seemed like a logical place to start.

After exploring many models and frame-works (see below) I decided to use the ‘digital schools self evaluation’ tool.
BECTA
Digital Schools Self Evaluation Tool
Florida STaRChart
ICT Competency Standards for Teachers
Texas Teacher STaR Chart

I favoured the ‘digital schools self evaluation’ as I I felt that this tool was particularly appropriate for primary and intermediate schools. This online tool, currently used in Irish primary schools, comprises of a total of 45 questions focused on the following elements: leadership and vision, ict on the curriculum, ict culture, professional development and resources and infrastructure. Aspects of the questionnaire were modified as we went to suit the NZ context.

The result was 2hours of quality dialogue. After completing the questions we were provided with a graph of our results. This graph provided evidence that highlighted the schools areas of strengths and areas to develop. More valuable than the graph however was the shared understanding that resulted from the quality dialogue that was necessary to complete this process.



Further discussion continued around priorities for action, which were now crystal clear. Avenues for support were also discussed (this is where we diverted from the Irish context and referred to NZ’s own e-learning resources).
Our next meeting will focus on the development on an action plan.

In summary, the use of this tool was certainly worthwhile in generating dialogue that enabled us to look holistically at e-learning in this school and to gauge where we were as a school on a developmental continuum. This data gave us fresh confidence in planning future development and change.

Has your school made use of any models/frameworks to assess their ‘e-learning’ capability?

In the latest advert for ICTPD 2010, I notice the introduction of a self-review component based on both the Becta and Euronet models.

Some countries that use such models have extended their use to include an accreditation process that schools and in some cases teachers can apply for to demonstrate a certain level of e-learning competence.
See examples:
Queensland - SMART Classrooms
BECTA – ICT Mark
Digital Schools Award

What are your thoughts?

Be In To Win - Up to 55 new clusters up for grabs for 2010!

ICT PD Programme 2010-2012 Overview

Extracts taken directly from thr: Minsity of Education site
For full details see this site.




The Ministry of Education invites proposals from schools for funding to support three year professional development (PD) programmes related to ICT. These will be focused on developing the capability of participating schools so they can take advantage of current and future ICT developments, particularly the proposed roll-out of ultra-fast broadband and upgrades to school networks.

A review of the ICT PD programme has been undertaken. The initial findings from this have led to changes to the eligibility criteria. In this round of applications for the 2010-12 programme there are three categories that schools can apply under. Schools should not submit a proposal to more than one category.

The categories are:

Category A – Clusters of schools that were unsuccessful in the 2008 selection round
Clusters of schools that were unsuccessful in the 2008 selection process (to participate in the 2009-2011 ICT PD programme) are eligible to apply under this category. The schools that compose these clusters should be substantively unchanged from those included in the 2008 proposal (Clusters that have changed significantly since the 2008 selection round should apply under Category C - refer below for further details). One school in the cluster must be designated as the lead school (the contractor). They will take responsibility for administering, reporting and coordinating the programme. All schools in the cluster are expected to be actively involved and committed to successfully achieving the outcomes of programme.
Up to twelve clusters that meet the selection criteria will be funded from this category for three years (2010-2012). Clusters that are unsuccessful in being selected in this category will be automatically considered for selection in Category C.
 
Category B – Individual schools of 80 or more FTTE staff
Individual schools of 80 or more FTTE staff are eligible to apply under this category. These schools will have either not previously participated in the ICT PD programme or have previously participated in the ICT PD programme and completed the programme before the 31st December 2004. Up to fifteen schools that meet the selection criteria will be funded from this category for three years (2010-2012). Schools that are unsuccessful in being selected in this category will have the opportunity to participate in a targeted programme to support the development of their ICT leadership capability in 2010.


Category C – Clusters of schools
Clusters of two or more schools are eligible to apply under this category. Schools that comprise these clusters will have either not previously participated in the ICT PD programme or will have previously participated in the ICT PD programme and completed the programme before the 31st December 2004.
As guidance, schools that have previously participated in the programme (completed before 31st December 2004) should not comprise more than 30% of the total FTTE for the cluster. Clusters consisting solely of independent schools will not be considered. One school in the cluster must be designated the lead school (the contractor) and will be contracted to take responsibility for administering, reporting and coordinating the programme. All schools in the cluster are expected to be actively involved and committed to successfully achieving the outcomes of programme. Up to twenty eight clusters that meet the selection criteria will be funded from this category for three years (2010-2012). Schools that are unsuccessful in being selected in this category will have the opportunity to participate in a targeted programme to support the development of their ICT leadership capability in 2010.

ICT Conference In Tauranga - All Welcome

The Waimarino cluster have kindly extended an invitation to schools outside their cluster to attend their annual ICT conference. This years conference theme is Collaborate , Innovate and Educate. This one day mini-conference will be held at Bethlehem College, Tauranga on the 12th June. The day is made up of two keynotes and 2 breakouts.
KEYNOTE PRESENTERS are Tony Ryan: www.tonyryan.com.au
and Sean Lyons from Netsafe.


Registration Forms are available from the
Waimarino Cluster by emailing:
Judi Buckley jbuckley@bellevue.school.nz
Check out the cluster wiki for an insight into the work happening within this ICTPD cluster: http://waimarinowiki.wikispaces.com/

Online Learning Communities – Why Would You?

I was prompted to dig deeper into the use of online learning communities when a colleague asked for assistance with setting up a wiki and commented that she ‘was only going to set it up if her teachers were going to use it’ .
This comment begged the questions:
*Were online learning communities being perceived, by some, as a ‘magic bullet’ for professional learning?
*What components contributed to the success or failure of online learning communities?

As luck would have it, a colleague, Heather Bell from Massey was conducting her thesis on the use of blended learning communities for professional learning. Heather was an invaluable resource for me in obtaining a ‘quick-fix’ understanding of what makes online professional learning communities tick.
The result was the attached power-point which I have since used as a guide in exploring with groups the prospect of setting up an online learning community.
The dialogue generated through these sessions definitely contributes to more rigorous decision making around the use of online learning communities.

Much of the thinking shared could be applied to classroom online learning environments.

Online Plc

Publish at Scribd or explore others: online Education

TOP FINDS

This year part of my role involves working with TEAM solutions, facilitator Fiona Grant.
Fiona is a powerhouse of ideas and resources and many of these ‘top finds’ have come direct from Fiona. Check out her blog here: http://virtualnorth.blogspot.com/

**Ideas to Inspire
Bookmark this site for practical and interesting ideas for ICT integration.
Resources include:
30 Ideas for Inspiring Writing
25 Interesting Ways to Use Wordle in the Classroom
23 Techy Tips for Not So Techy Teachers

Twenty Five Interesting Ways To Use Wordle In

View more presentations from rjensen.

**Ether-pad (similar to skrbl): For real –time collaboration. Etherpad allows multiple people to work on the same document. No login required. Great for collaborative storywriting, drafting work, meeting notes … Check out this etherpad on ways etherpad could be used in the classroom.
Source: http://teachernz.edublogs.org/2009/03/01/etherpad/




















**Kid Rex - Kids Search Engine: This may be a goodie for a classroom homepage. KidRex searches emphasize kid-related webpages from across the entire web and are powered by Google Custom Search and use Google SafeSearch technology.

Teaching as Inquiry - Making a Start

I have been experimenting with the 'Teaching as Inquiry' model that forms part of the ‘Effective Pedagogy’ page of the New Zealand Curriculum.

Yesterday, we used this model as a guide in teacher planning for the effective integration of ICT into literacy programmes.


Using this model helped focus our discussion and in particularly influenced us to:

a)use data and other information to identify student learning needs
i.e. PAT, running records, information from the RT Literacy.

b)make use of evidence from research such as ‘Te Mana’ and ‘to call’ on own knowledge of what teaching and learning strategies make a difference for the students in our classroom

c)make decisions regarding the integration of ICT firmly grounded in the knowledge gleaned from the above

d) consider and discuss how we might measure the impact of our changed actions.


Teachers used the ‘teaching as inquiry’ model to guide their sharing at the after-school staff meeting. When asked to reflect on the impact of using this model, the consensus was that it had been significant in ensuring the needs of our learners and what we know about what works for our learners drove our decisions about how to integrate ICT.

I attempted to record these teachers as these shared but unfortunately the video camera malfunctioned!! Later I recorded my reflections on the process.



Here is a link to a copy of the 'Teaching as Inquiry' template that was used to guide our thinking.


I look forward to the shuffling between the stages that will continue.