Thursday February 9 2012

Teacher PD at Bullcreek PEAC

In this session we will explore the Learning Federation Learning Objects with the aim to locate one for each teacher to use in a course this year.

We will look at the sites that other PEAC teachers explored in the PTN session in my previous post.

Another fabulous blog site that I have recently discovered is: http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

I am hoping that we will be able to match appropriate web tools to PEAC courses with the aim of value adding to the course with ICT.

PTN Meeting Friday 9th Dec 2011

PEAC PD 9/12/2011

On Friday we will be exploring several urls’s.
They are
Wix
Technology and Education: Box of Tricks
Web 2: Connect Collaborate Create

Here are some student (preservice teachers) examples
Caitlyn
Melissa
Stacey
Therese

And thinking of iPads? See: Ipads in Education

Enjoy,
Judy

What did we do in 2010?

Where has the year gone?

For the first 8 weeks of the year Judy worked as a Customer Relationship Manager with the Department of Education which is a great way to stay current with support issues for schools.

In Term 1 we worked at Cascade Primary School where Judy worked with a teacher while Rags took her class. From here we traveled to Melbourne where we both attended the Australian Computers in Education Conference. Here we were fortunate to hear world renowned speakers such as Alan November, Sylvia Martinez, Gary Stager, Michelle Salinger and many more. The world is moving at a faster and faster rate so how can teachers already overworked manage to keep up with the latest educational ideas? If you don't have time to attend these conferences then employ us instead and we'll bring all the ideas to your school.

From August to November we traveled in Russia, Greece and Turkey so have a myriad of experiences and photos we can share with your students.

You can see a photo from a Russian class below.



While it may appear we have been away from education for several months this is far from true as Judy has been working online during all her travels as an online tutor for students training to be primary teachers. This is a great way to refresh the knowledge that all teachers need on learning theories, assessment, curriculum and technologies that promote learning.

We are open to travel anywhere in 2011 so if your school teachers needs some individualised professional development then we are the people to talk to. See you in 2011!

Margaret River

After our long stay in the north west we decided to spend a week in the south west relaxing and catching up with family. Judy had an invite to visit Margaret River Primary School to see the innovative work being done there with ICT. This we did on Wednesday morning. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing the way the computers were integrated into the classrooms and talking to the teachers.
The school focuses on inquiry learning and computers are arranged in classes, as many as 6 or 8 per class. It appeared that teachers spent a lot of out of school time preparing materials. One teacher has a class blog, DolphinKids and we really enjoyed her demonstration of it. We could see the kids were proud of their work too.
In the library, some kids were watching a demonstration on the IWB and others were working on individual tasks on computers.
Open source software such as Scratch, Gimp and one I hadn't heard of before, Inkscape were being used. Laminated task sheets were available so students could work through tutorials and tasks at their own rate.
We also saw non ICT work such as a fabulous vegie garden and heard how, with parent help students had made gokarts which they were going to race off against each other the next day. We did call past to see this the following day but the weather was windy and raining so we didn't stay long.

Remote communities

We spent over 3 months in the north west after leaving Geraldton, visiting and working with our friends in Marble bar and Nullagine again. From here we went further north but were too busy enjoying ourselves taking in the sights to contact any schools. We had a great time traveling the Gibb River Road and seeing places like Kununurra.

On our way home we were contacted by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation and asked if we would like to assist in the deployment of laptops known as XO's to students in remote areas. OLPC is an international charity originating in the USA founded by Nicholas Negroponte with the objective to supply basic ICT equipment to disadvantaged children throughout the world with the aim of improving literacy. In Australia the disadvantage is isolation, it just happens that these communities are mainly indigenous. Northern Queensland and the Northern Territory were the first to receive the laptops, now WA is being targeted.

Our deployment would be to the communities of Wiluna and Nullagine. What a coincidence that we should be asked to return to Nullagine! After a fast turn around we set off again into the heat.

• At Wiluna, the Principal requested teachers attend an after school session for an hour which became a 2 hour session because of the interest and engagement displayed by the staff. During this time XO’s were explored by the staff and their relevance and how they can enhance the curriculum was discussed. Teachers left the session motivated to use them the following day. XO’s were presented by group and followed up by us leading the students through an exploration of various XO activities. On the following days we supported the teachers’ use of the XO’s within the curriculum.
• Nullagine was a most successful deployment. The Principal, Mitchell Drage, made us welcome, closed the school at lunch time so that we could PD the staff, and he participated fully in the session. The XO’s were presented at a formal assembly the next day and we spent time with each learning group leading them through the basic operation and sample activities. Sessions from then on involved the teacher, setting the lesson with us in the room assisting. The Principal requested that we stay on for another 2 days at the schools expense to set up 14 desktops and 3 laptops to the school network, PD the staff on the use of the electronic whiteboards, and to set up the school reporting system. This we did, enabling us to further assist and reinforce the use of the XO’s in the classroom during this time.

As we were so close to Marble Bar and wanted to revisit friends here we offered our services to the school and spent an enjoyable couple of days setting up laptops, setting up reports and supporting teachers. Since our last visit they had purchased laptops for student use and we were able to get these set up ready for students to use on their return from camp.

John Willcock College - City of Geraldton

I spent 2 weeks from the 18th to the 29th May 2009 at John Willcock. John Willcock College is a purpose-designed middle school for students in Years 8 and 9. It is the WA government's trial school for a one to one Apple notebook for each student.

My contact, Phil, the Associate Principal in charge of ICT, had organised my time with teachers. They came either individually or in Learning Area pairs and we discussed what they had been doing in ICT in their classes. With limited time the teachers identified an area they wished to know more about and we focussed on that.

I found pretty quickly I needed to be able to support teachers in the use of StudyWiz - the college's e-learning tool. Andrew, the Apple tech support, gave me a crash course in it so after some sxploring of my own I was able to support teachers to use the many facets of this program to enhance their student's learning.

Teachers and I looked at software such as Garageband, IMovie, IPhoto and Studywiz with the intent of motivating students and enhancing their learning.

Some teachers were keen to explore the Learning Federation resources which have come a long way since they introduced several years ago and another teacher wanted to find out how to better utilise MacquarieNet Online Reference Library. It was great to see some teachers who were prepared to give up some of their DOTT time to have a second or third session with me.

During the second week I was able to fit in some time to set up the school's electronic whiteboard and train the Teacher Assistants to use this with students with special needs or to be able to support the class teacher's use.

I enjoyed my fortnight and learnt lots as I worked with some enthusiastic teachers.
Thanks for the opportunity Phil.

East Fremantle Primary School

In order to keep this blog as a record of the work we've done I'm adding this session but well after the event!

I went to East Fremantle with the task of presenting a session to help teachers build teachers confidence with their NFT's and go through the CD/DVD burning process. Before going I went to my friend Sandy's and made sure I knew the CD/DVD burning process on a NFT and checked out the departments written information on them from the Intranet. I put together a presentation that encompassed using the Portal and as requested creating mailing lists but we never reached this section. I put the presentation on Google Docs so it was easily accessible to the teachers but this itself proved problematic. I posted the link to a box on Wallwisher, only to discover when I tried it at the school (luckily I arrived early) that it didn't run on IE6 which apparently is still the browser being used in DET schools.

Luckily I also had the presentation on my USB thumbdrive and was able to email teachers prior to the start with the link to the online presentation.

The session went well and those teachers who attended enjoyed exploring features of their NFT's that enabled them to use them more confidently. The session ended with teachers burning to CD and we had some fun here as the various models of NFT did this differently but all had success and were able to back up information on their NFT.