LMS as a tool for organisation, networking and engagement.
The Following is a Reflection by the Kareti Cluster for their ICTPD Milestone 5, April 2011
What was important for us?
Throughout the current reporting period we have had an online focus. To continue using our LMS as a tool for Organisation, Networking and Engagement of our College community.
Why was this important?
Past feedback from our communities indicated that they felt there was a lack of communication throughout the College day / week / term. We needed to engage our community in what the College was doing to get their input and support.
The tool chosen for this was the Learning Management Systems employed by the two Colleges.
What did we do?
We chose three focus points for our development.
1. Organisational
To use the LMS as an Organisational Tool to develop course resources, calendars and learning objects in such a way that our students can access this material 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This increase in access allows students to learn at their own pace as well as giving teachers the opportunity to provide material to suit a wider range of learning styles and enhance differentiated learning. 1, 3, 6
Our teachers have each continued to develop their own online classrooms, these classrooms reflect the teacher and assist in the delivery of course content.5
Assignments and homework tasks are also delivered through the online space allowing those learners who are absent to keep up with the work assigned.
2. Networking
The networking Focus was simple, to connect Students, Teachers and Families / Whanau in a single location. This created a supportive and inclusive environment and allows students to make connections with the community.6
This goal is under development. We are distributing our newsletter electronically via the LMS and each week the Principal adds a short blog style post to the Colleges News Centre (Found Here: http://www.taieri.school.nz/NewsCentre/) informing the online community about what is happening in the College.
3. Engaging
As our students develop into 21st Century Learners they can better engage with learning for longer periods of time delivered in a wide range of media3,4,5,6.
From the BECTA report “The Impact of Technology: Value-added classroom practice” 2010
· ICT makes possible new forms of classroom practice. This is apparent in three particular respects: (1) the reconfiguration of space such that new patterns of mobility, flexible working and activity management can occur, (2) new ways in which class activities can be triggered, orchestrated and monitored, (3) new experiences associated with the virtualisation of established and routine practices – such as using multiple documents in parallel or manipulating spatial representations.
· ICT creates the possibility of a wide variety of learning practices. Overarching this variety are three central activities which are significantly enriched by the increasingly ubiquitous availability of technologies: (1) exposition which is animated by the opportunity to invoke rich shared images, video and plans, (2) independent research which is extended by the availability of internet search opportunities, and (3) construction which is made possible by ready-to-hand ICT-based tools.
The use of LMS allows us to provide rich interactive content to our students.
What are our next steps?
Our next steps are to further develop our online portal to contain more information on our College community, future steps include adding daily notices for sporting and cultural events being added so that parents can be informed of their young person’s commitments.
Taieri College have also just signed on to a new ministry interoperability initiative to initiate a Parent Portal using MUSAC and Ultranet this will allow parents to access Demographic, Attendance and Assessment data on the website in real time.
We will be scoping with staff their preferred learning pathway for engaging with Best Practice Pedagogy.5,6
Taieri College have produced a Passport of Pedagogy which we will be working through as “The Taieri Way”. This will be linked to classroom practice and informed by current research.
References:
1. BECTA “The learner and their context – Interim Report: Benefits of ICT use outside formal education” (2008)
2. Hammond, Pope, Reynolds, Ingram “Engagement and ICT: A Study supported by a small grant from BECTA” British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (2009)
3. Jewitt, Hadjithoma-Garstka, Clark, Banaji, Selwyn “School Use of learning platforms and associated technologies” University of London BECTA (March 2010)
4. Chris Davies and Jenny Good, “Increasingly Autonomous: Learners using technology in the context of their family lives and beyond”, University of Oxford (2009)
5. Ministry of Education. “The New Zealand Curriculum” NZ MOE (2007)
6. Alton-Lee “Quality Teaching for Diverse Student in Schooling: Best evidence Synthesis” NZ MOE (2003)
7. BECTA report “The Impact of Technology: Value-added classroom practice” 2010
