Virtual Learning Network

Thanks everyone but particularly Hazel and Merryn and all the speakers. It was great to meet everyone and catch with many colleagues. Hope you all trevelled safely home and look foreward to seeing you all online.

Thanks for a great few days of sharing ideas, getting to know people who were just faces online before this and the next push forward in what needs to happen within my school.

The wealth of information shared and gathered is the most valuable thing I have gained from the last 2 days.  Not information in the "I hold the power" sense but knowledge in the 'This works for me - give it a go" sense.  Very powerful.

I am looking forward to the next challenge of rolling out the eLearning framework with our staff - starting with a direct question to my Prinicpal on what his vision for this is and blending it with the one I have after he lets me go on these things.  At least when he asks how much it will cost him this time my response will not be about money but about time and thought.  No money reqired until after that step!

School type: Intermediate

Where you think you are as a school on the framework (best fit): Engaging with some staff well ahead of this.

Links to resources selected with a brief description of how you would use each one

Resources of Interest to explore:

ED talks - I didn't know this was available. I will use it for my own benefit then share it with other staff members.

Voice Thread-  I want to look at ways we can use this to assist ELL students to improve their writing and oral language.

Check this google doc out for lots of random stuff we found out in our exploration.

Cheers from the MusoS216

Sarena

Millie

Maria

Cathy

Celia

School type: large co-ed state secondary school

Where you think you are as a school on the framework (best fit): emerging.  Core group of elearning enthusiasts, early adopters, experimenters (eLearning Committee)driving PD collaboratively as a group, independently of senior leadership but within school's 3 year PD and L plan.  eLearning not integrated with appraisal processes.  Individual teachers range from pre emerging, through to extending /empowering but in a school of 80 teachers probably about a dozen who would sit at higher end of progression. 

Links to resources selected with a brief description of how you would use each one:

http://virtualicteltpd.ning.com/  as member of VPLD I use this for professional sharing and l reflection, to set personal PD and L goals, access to great resources which I also use to facilitate learning with colleagues at school.  Especially raising achievement for Maori and Pasifika.

/discussion/view/686196  Intend to use this to drive more focused whole school approach to builidng elearning capablility.  Begin sharing with eLearning Committee, take to  Learning Committee, HOFs and SLT and start waving my arms and yelling.  

 http://edtalks.org/   Already use these as source of personal 'professional readings' but will make a bigger effort to share more often with wider staff.  Really liked Kathe's story about using google docs to facilitate collaborative professional reading groups and intend to work to set this up in my school.  Would use edtalks as resource too.

School Type: Decile 4, Secondary, Multicultural, 2800 students

Place in the eLearning framework: My school embodies the dimentions of emerging and is working in some dimentions of engaging and working towards others. 

Supporting Resources: To work towards being more fully engaged, my school must raise awareness of, What you can do? and How you might do it? PD must focus on learning with technology and applying appropriate pedagogy. Snapshots of eLearning stories is an ideal tool to be used to facilitate this as they can be accessed by teachers anytime/anyplace, are short and give examples of good practice modeled by teachers. 

School is between emerging and engaging, because we have planned for use of technology and many are using with in the limitaitons of our infrastructure.  We do have wireless, we do have the snup upgrade, we are desperately waiting for UFB as our internet is only slightly faster than dial up on a good day! Some staff are trialling initiatives.  Others are lagging behind, although they are aware of technologies and the need to change their practice.  Some staff crow that they dont need technology to have a damn good lesson and I know that in some cases they are right but they have not made the shift to the new paradigm and I fear for when they suddenly realise they have been left behind because they havent invested time in learning technologies.  We have a facilitator starting in the school to help shift the pedagogical approach of these laggers, but at the same time i think that there has to be an injection of professional development right across New Zealand, expecially when I hear teachers talk at other meetings/courses.

I personally am stuck in the spot between engaging and extending.  Restrictions of the infrastructure are frustrating and inhibiting.  I do have students collaborating on google documents and making youtubes and commenting on other youtubes but they too are frustrated with the slowness of the internet.  My students have started using portfolios but as for uploading videos....dream on.  

About one third of the community do not have landlines at home, so internet is not on their landscape.  I hope that Computers in Homes will help address this shortage of computers in the community.

I work at a community college in Christchurch. Teaching ESOL and computing.

My school fits around the early engaging level. The framework and structure have been set up and introduced, there have been a few false starts and teachers are engaging at their own speed.

Some useful resources.

EDtalks.org - because I like to listen to people talk and explain there ideas etc, beats  always reading.

viddix - never seen before but great to get students to use presenting skills. They could share and critique themselves, especially around body language, facial expression. Be fun!!!

moodle - because we have got it at school and I need to encourage students and their families to interact with the school. Also they beg for more homework etc so it would be useful in extending those motivated students.

This is my blog as part of the VPLD Hui in Chch.

Where am I at in terms of the eLf?

I reckon that I am at the engaging/extending stage in my own practice. But more engaging than extending. Quite suprising / disappointing. I still am way more teacher centred than student centred.

The school is definitely at the emerging/engaging stage. No-on has looked at the eLF, other than me, even though I have sent it off to a number of people. I think it is currently in the "too hard basket".

I would begin with the report "Supporting Future Oriented Teaching and Learning - A NZ Perspective - Report for the MOE June 2012". Start with the teaching and learning.

Would also look at people accessing Edtalks as there is some wonderful stuff there.

Finally, I would encourage people to join the Enabling eLearning group on the VLN, especially members of the senior leadership team and our techie (who is so computer focussed and teaching and learning unfocussed).

My one concern is that I do not want to give people heaps and heaps of reading. I think we need to get passed researching and simply just do it.

School type: Secondary rural school; I teach French in a community where languages are not seen as important and useful. The students I teach are 99% Pakeha from a farming community.

Where you think you are as a school on the framework (best fit): As I only have 1/2 hour to work on this question, I need to prioritise. I know I might not be extremely bad as most of the dimensions of the eLeaning Framework, but i know I am a beginner/ emerger in the dimension "beyond the classroom". As my emerging position has been identified, I am going to concentrate on that today.

Links to resources selected with a brief description of how you would use each one:

I have found the following resources useful:

-the registered teacher criteria

- The registered Teacher Criteria and eLearing Wiki. 

The eLearning Planning Framework obviously

When I look at the eLearning Planning Framework I can see I am at the emerging phase, well actually I am at the pre-emerging phase. I do not use any tools to connect to my students' whanau.

Obviously, I need to put in place a plan in order to grow. I am aiming to get to the Emerging Phase by the end of this year .

What I am going to do?

I have created a Facebook page where I show great resources to my students. Parents do not know about it. I need to make a priority  to let Whanaus know. I will send a newsletter to all the families.

My Year 11 are using a Wiki where they can work independently on their language skills. Again parents do not know about it. I will invite parents for an evening to show them how their students can use the resource.

During the parent evening, I will also show parents that our students are using myPortfolio and how parents can support their learning.