PLN Plus March 2014

In March the State Library of Victoria will begin a new kind of PLN program, PLN Plus.

PLN Plus is designed for teacher librarians and educators who want to find out how to effect change in their schools and learning communities. The program will run for four weeks and will involve a group project where participants work with like minded people on a passion project – what is the one thing you would change if you could? It could be a practical endeavour like getting your school blogging, or look beyond to setting up TeachMeet-style programs and community building.

Each week participants will be introduced to relevant new tools and online environments and also have the opportunity to engage with inspiring educators and librarians who have made change happen in their schools and broader communities. We will also discuss theories and research that inform the concept of networked learning and key trends in education looking to the future.

You can register to take part in this course, but numbers are limited. For more information visit the State Library of Victoria website, PLN Plus page.

Bamboo Dirt: I need a digital research tool to …

Whenever we are faced with learning new skills or new methods we tend to focus on the tools. However, when we shift our focus from  the tools to what can be done with them, real transformation occurs. Mastery and success become possible; it’s the same whether you are learning to paint with oils or teach research skills at a 1:1 netbook/iPad/BYOD school.

Bamboo Dirt is an online registry created to help educators make that shift. Its focus is on research tools and the Bamboo Dirt search function is organised around the idea of purpose.

Bamboo Dirt’s home page offers lots of browsing categories based around tasks. Categories include:

  • visualise data
  • organise research materials
  • manage tasks
  • manage bibliographic information
  • communicate with colleagues
  • author an interactive work
  •  build and share collections

Users can also search or browse by keyword, tags, recommended resources, and new resources. Each result has a short description plus information on cost, licensing and platforms.

You can make the site even better by joining and contributing. Registration is free and members can:
  • add resources
  • review them
  • comment/describe how you have used a tool
  • recommend good resources and those appropriate for beginners
  • submit tips and tricks to help others understand the value of the tool
This service is an ongoing collaborative effort between Bamboo Partner Institutions (UC Berkeley, UChicago, UW Madison), Bamboo affiliates (University of Alabama, NINES), and individuals dedicated to helping connect people with digital resources. It’s a welcome addition to any educator’s  research toolkit.

 

Upload your future!

Bianca van Meeuwen, the ICT Outreach Officer for the Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology has kindly sent the following information:

On 9 November 2010 Swinburne University of Technology will host Girls in IT, an Upload Your Future event.

We would like to invite all girls aged 14-19 years old to join the fun!

The day will include interactive programming and design workshops, inspirational female industry speakers, an opportunity to hear from current female ICT students, plus complimentary lunch and a show bag!

Multi-Touch iPod nano give away to one lucky participant!

Register to attend

The sessions are free of charge | Spaces are limited | Schools are welcome to register

Complimentary daily Metcard for each participant. Register to attend by 1 November 2010 to receive a daily Metcard for your students.

We look forward to seeing you and your students at Girls in IT!

Please find your Upload Your Future invitation Upload Your Future Invite.

What a fantastic event. Pity things like this weren’t around when I was a student!

iBoard player

The iBoard player is a terrific interactive teaching resource. With resources for Prep to 2, there is lots of fun and learning to be had.

Resources include:

  • Numeracy
  • Literacy
  • New Literacy (Texts)
  • Science
  • History
  • Geography
  • ICT
  • Religion

A day in the country
A day in the country

This year 1 example above comes with the following information from the website:

Ask pupils to position the characters and construct sentences about their position or movement.
Using the whole scene, you could challenge pupils to make a wider range of statements than those given… “the bird is flying above the girl”, “the owl is on top of the big bear’s head.”
Ask pupils to position the characters and construct sentences about their position or movement. Using the whole scene, you could challenge pupils to make a wider range of statements than those given… “the bird is flying above the girl”, “the owl is on top of the big bear’s head.”
The iBoard player looks like a useful tool for learning for younger students.

21st Century teaching tools

Ollie Bray, a National Advisor for Emerging Technologies in Learning at LTS (Learning and Teaching Scotland) has produced a useful presentation.

Looking at tools for 21st Century learning and teaching, Bray asks questions such as how do we ensure students who have access to unlimited information develop emotional literacy and social maturity?

There are some new tools featured as well as ideas for Personal Learning Networks. Worth a look.

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

iPod touch for learning

One of the most useful handheld devices for learning is the iPod touch. Australian iPod touch guru Jenny Ashby shows how the tool can be used in the classroom:

iPod touch 1

Jenny’s recent presentation “iPod iLearn” goes into more depth about how to set up, implement and use iPods in the classroom. Although Primary in focus, there is plenty for Secondary teachers to take from this presentation:

View more documents from jjash.

About a year ago, the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) produced an iPod Touch Research Report that includes the recommendations:

On Planning and Implementation

Develop technology projects that focus on the power of visual media and social networking, as they significantly influence literacy, numeracy and life chances for disadvantaged students.

Ensure that innovative projects using emerging technologies provide adequate time for teachers to become familiar with the devices and their functionality, prior to introduction and implementation in the classroom.

Identify clear, precise learning goals that support a culture of learning and skill development in the classroom, as essential for effective implementation of emerging technologies.

On Teaching and Learning

Promote mobile handheld devices, like the iPod Touch, that stimulate learners to want to learn and provide a means to pursue knowledge independently.

Introduce handheld mobile devices like the iPod Touch to support personalised learning and to assist literacy and numeracy in ESL, ‘at risk’ and reluctant learners.

Promote a limited number of handheld devices per class, as opposed to 1:1, to encourage teachers to engage with group work or team work as a successful pedagogy.

Introduce the iPod Touch to classrooms as a tool to stimulate teachers to rethink their pedagogy by considering how to integrate portable devices with learning functionality in curriculum activities.

Develop curriculum plans that involve greater learner autonomy and independence when using handheld mobile devices in the classroom.

Integrate mobile devices with other technologies (such as interactive whiteboards, laptops, Nintendo Wii) for purposeful learning in the classroom, so they are not just add-ons.

On Professional Learning

Provide greater access to well-structured professional learning sessions to promote widespread teacher ICT capacity and confidence.

Promote online collaboration as an effective mode of teacher networking for sharing knowledge and the transfer of good practice.

On Technical Support

Include a budget item for DEECD technical support at the school or cluster level to better support emerging technology projects.

Conduct a technical needs analysis, prior to project start-up, of issues that may impact on successful implementation of innovative projects.

Provide one identified technical conduit within the ITD Branch of DEECD for critical issue liaison involving emerging technology projects.

If you decide to investigate using the iPod touch, or are already using them, then the blog post “50 educational apps for the iPod touch” by U Tech Tips will prove useful.

50 ipod touch

And thanks to @AuntyTech, here is another list of over 170 iPod touch or iPhone apps (beware that some do cost) that keep students connected to the classroom, no matter where they are:

iPod apps

The beauty of iPod touch apps (applications = programs) is that there are many that are free and quite a lot that can be used in educational settings. The iPod touch has the potential to become a revolutionary tool in the classroom.

Who am I? Rowville SC is a SLAV/Connect Web 2.0 winner!

Michele Berner, English teacher and e-learning coach and Katherin Grelis, Teacher Librarian at Rowville Secondary College have developed a winning way with Web 2.0.

As joint winners of this year’s SLAV/Connect Web 2.0 competition, Michele and Katherin have devised an exciting and engaging unit of work using a number of Web 2.0 tools. Michele explains: 

I teach a Year 7 class for English and Information Technology. I wanted a project that would incorporate both English language skills and competencies and would integrate ICT. With the help of Katherin Grelis, a teacher-librarian, we developed a unit that would answer the following questions:

 Who am I?

Class blog: http://7eenglish.globalstudent.org.au  Student blogs are linked from here.

What is the essence of me? Where did I come from? What makes me who I am? Where will I be in the future?

 Rowville SC 1

What happened in history? 

What significant events occurred on the day and year I was born?

Class wiki:  http://starringme.wikispaces.com/

Rowville SC 2 

 During the year, 7E English was introduced to blogs and wikis as an integral part of their coursework. There is a class blog: http://7eenglish.globalstudent.org.au and each student has their own blog linked to the class blog. Students spent some time at the beginning of the year setting up their blogs and learning to post, tag, comment etc. Students have completed a number of writing tasks on their blogs. I found this to be an effective way of developing student prewriting, drafting, writing, editing and evaluation throughout the year.  

 Rowville SC 4

The Web 2.0 competition was a good opportunity to develop student skills in a variety of Web 2.0 tools, to gather photographs and other evidence and produce information that linked to their study of the autobiography genre.  This would therefore make the online history a more complete representation of the student. The class blog has a number of tasks designed to build up a personal picture of the student:  in effect, to  answer  the question of who am I?   Students set up pages on their blog and all their writing was posted there. The table below outlines the tasks students completed.  Each task also used ICT by requiring students to take images, edit them, use a web 2.0 tool, upload and embed, and demonstrate appropriate file management.  

 An instruction booklet was provided to students which outlined all the tasks and the websites they were required to access. A copy of this booklet,  the unit planner and other  relevant files can be downloaded from the class blog.  

 These are the tasks the students completed for the project. They created pages on their blogs where each task was posted.  

Who am I? 3 poems: About me, I am….. My bedroom Billboard. Bring in a headshot photo of you and create a billboard using http://bighugelabs.com/billboard.phpWordle –  Describe your personality – one word for each letter of the alphabet. Make it into a wordle. 
My Interests Explain in detail your favourite things in life and why you consider them to be your favourite. Photos of  interests Collage – bring  10-15 personal items (eg photos, medals, trophies and scan them on the photocopier to create a collage of you. Save it as .jpeg image and post on the page 
This is me Open ended sentences. Using the site, Glogster, create a glog – multimedia poster which incorporates different elements of your personality and character. It can include music, photos, text, video. When you look at the finished Glog,  what should emerge is “You”. 
My Memories Provide three memories for each of the following sections. Memories of long ago. Memories that make you laugh. Memories that make you cry. Memories that are warm. Memories that are precious.  
After filling in the blanks for Task 1, pick one from each category and write a 4-5 sentences describing each one.
Create a Memory wall using the program Wallwisher: http://www.wallwisher.com/ 
My Family 6 photographs – family /pets. For each photograph, write 5-10 lines explaining the importance of  your family member or pet to you.  Photocube 3d:  http://www.photocube3d.com/  
My Future Letter to YOURSELF and tell yourself things that will happen in the future to yourself. Here are the topics you are to write about…:•  Something to look forward to…•  Something to watch out about…•  Something/someone to avoid…•  Something to work hard at…•  Someone to be especially nice to…•  Someone to really listen to…•  Somewhere to be sure not to go… 
What happened on the day I was born What happened on the day I was born? What events occurred in the year of my birth? What happened on the day I was born? On the wiki site:  http://starringme.wikispaces.com/, each of you have a page where you will type your findings. Your page is: the date of your birthday (No two students have the same birthday in the class so you will be responsible for locating the appropriate information for this date in history). 

  1. Join the wiki using the username and password provided.
  2. Using any of the sites below, find 5 things that happened on the day you were born.   It might be something in history, in music, in film, in sport.
  3. When you find something interesting, follow the link and read the information. 
  4. Edit your page.
  5. Write a brief summary (5 -8 lines) on the event that happened and save your page
  Task: QuizUsing any of the events from the wiki, you are going to generate a quiz which includes 10 questions based on the information collected in the Wiki. Look at each of the dates on the Wiki, find something that interests you and create a question from the information. Also provide the answer to your question. 

Step 1:  Planning: Create a three column table in WORD.             

Question Answer Wiki page  information comes from

 

Step 2:  Create the quiz.  See class blog for further instructions

Step 3:  Put your name as the author of the quiz

Step 4:  Obtain the embed code for your quiz.

Step 5: Embed the quiz on your WIKI page

 

Link to the quiz generator

http://classtools.net/main_area/template_loader.php/?quiz

 

Instructions on how to use the Quiz generator

Skills Developed

Students should develop skills in the following:

  • Interpret, analyse and evaluate information on  a student’s life (past, present and future) with the assistance of technology
  • Read and follow multistep directions to  complete a complex task
  • improve technical skills by using web 2.0 tools to  publish elements of their life
  • evaluate their own work.
  • create appropriate graphic organizers to provide a structure for information
  • apply the writing process to write effectively in various forms and types of writing
  • Locate and use multiple resources to acquire relevant information
  • evaluate reliability of information
  • record relevant information using a variety of note-taking and organizational strategies

 Rowville SC 3

 Implementing the project

The project was completed in English and IT classes for a period of 4 weeks. Year 7 students are not the best at following instructions on handouts so it was often hectic and students were completing different activities in the booklet as they worked at their own pace. As students completed some of the ICT tasks, they assisted other students which worked well. 

 Continuing use of the unit

During Semester 1, Yr 7 English study Autobiography.  In 2010, English teachers will be able to use the Who am I / Starring Me unit to study this genre whilst the ICT and Web 2.0 skills that accompany each task can be taught during the class’ Information Technology classes.  

 The  project will also form part of  our ICT showcase; demonstrating to teachers  how to integrate ICT into a unit of work and how to use blogs as a daily part of the class activities.

What a fabulous unit of work Michele and Katherin have developed. There is plenty for all of us to take from the tools they have incorporated and the way in which ICT has been embedded into the unit of work. The beauty of blogs and wikis is that they can be tweaked and updated year to year without having to reinvent the wheel entirely. As new tools become available, they too can be incorporated into the unit.

Congratulations to Michele and Katherin for their SLAV/Connect Web 2.0 competition success. It is obvious that it is well deserved.

Mount Waverley Primary School Film Festival

Lee King, Mount Waverley Primary School’s ICT Coordinator/Specialist has developed an innovative and exciting approach to ICT in her school. Lee writes:

Mt Waverley Primary Film Festival a.k.a. ‘The Moscars’

 The journey ……

 New School Buildings

 It is well recognized that school design has a powerful impact on both student outcomes and innovative teaching. Throughout 2008 and 2009, Mt Waverley Primary School has been going through an extensive rebuilding and renovation project as part of the Victorian Government’s 10-year plan to transform Victorian schools.

MWPS1

 

MWPS2

Our new buildings have been designed with the aim of giving students a contemporary education so they are equipped with the skills they will need to be successful and productive members of a 21st Century workforce and society. The design of the learning areas was influenced by the need to be flexible and supportive of different learning styles. For example, the ‘great spaces’ outside the learning areas support collaborative approaches to teaching and learning as well as providing physical space for an interdisciplinary curriculum and self-directed learning. The students are able to ‘spill out’ into areas that allow for a greater degree of independence, individual learning and reflection.

Year 6 Production – The Trees and The Stars

 With the new learning areas came the recognition that our traditional Year 6 Production was no longer ‘cutting the mustard’.

 Rehearsals took place in core learning time

  • Only a small group of students were truly engaged in the activities
  • Bored students were a behavioural issue
  • Large chunks of time were taken up with a narrow band of discipline-based domains
  • As educators, we were not adequately preparing our students for a 21st Century world.

 As the ICT Specialist/Coordinator, I had been keen to introduce the Year 6 students to ‘Claymation Animation’ and after various discussions with the Year 6 teachers and the Leadership team, the idea of a ‘Film Festival Night’ was born. This would replace ‘The Production’.

 Convincing the teachers was relatively easy. Convincing the students was an entirely different matter.

 These students had yet to experience the trials and tribulations of The Production. They had been part of the audiences since Prep and were looking forward to being the ‘Stars’. They didn’t realize that most of them would end up being ‘Trees’. And, that they would spend many hours rehearsing to be trees!

 There were tears and the school was on the receiving end of a petition and letters and phone calls of complaints from some of the parents.

 Outcomes:

These were the changes we were teaching towards. They included attitudinal as well as academic outcomes:

  •  draw on students’ multiple intelligences
  • provide opportunities for students who are not typically good at school with a chance to see themselves as capable members of the class
  • build on their story telling skills
  • be involved in cooperative and collaborative learning
  • be engaged in problem solving, higher order thinking, critical and creative thinking
  • plan and reflect
 
  • provide opportunities for personalized learning that supported different learning styles and levels
  • Increase students’ control of their own learning
  • be involved in a multi-disciplinary project where ICT is interwoven with other VELS Domains.

 Creating an animation involves music, visual arts, script writing, story development, physics, spatial awareness, ICT, problem solving, personal and interpersonal development – all key skills necessary for the 21st century.

 The Australian Centre for the Moving Image

 The staff decided to take on a team teaching approach. This would include our Art and Music Specialists, our two Assistant Principals, Year 6 class teachers and myself (ICT). As none of the staff had had experience with stop motion animation, we all attended a professional development day at ACMI to assist us to support the students in producing their own stop-motion animations. We believed we needed to experience what we were asking our students to do.

 We worked as cooperative learning groups (much as the students were going to do) to explore basic stop-motion animation, production processes and skills completing a short stop-motion animation.

 Areas covered in the training included:  

  •    storyboarding
  •    scripting
  •    character
  •    set design and construction
  •    camera 
  •    editing
  •    music   

mwPS3

 We thoroughly enjoyed the day, however, we were made aware of what a steep learning curve we were facing.

 Community Partnerships

 First and foremost – going over to the ‘white side’……

 It was clear that Mac computers offer the Applications needed to create and edit the animations. Garageband would also enable the students to compose their own music, add voiceovers and layer these to make a cohesive and fluent sound track.

 We were primarily a ‘PC’ school and few of the teachers and students had experience with Mac computers. We leased 15 Macbooks and Gary Bass from Connecting Point, together with Glenda Schubert, our Assistant Principal, ran familiarization workshops with the students. They particularly enjoyed Photo Booth and much laughter could be heard when they viewed some of the grotesque images produced.

……… The Apple Store Chadstone

As part of the Year 6 Film Festival Project, we organised a series of excursions to the Apple Store at Chadstone Shopping Centre.

 The purpose of the excursions was to provide the students with hands-on access to the Mac computers and the expertise of select Mac trainers and Specialists. They had opportunities to create new projects and showcase some of their existing work. The emphasis was on using software to create animations and movies.

mwps4  MWPS5

Needless to say, they were highly engaged and loved the experience.

 Glenda and I took advantage of the One-to-One training offered by Apple and completed extensive training in the editing and production stages of movie making.

 …….. Parents and Friends

 It was soon obvious that we didn’t have enough funds the cost of the equipment needed.

 Parents and Friends to the rescue! They gave us enough to supply:

  • Digital microscope cameras
  • USB back-up devices
  • Lights
  • Additional software
  • A visit by Adam Elliot

 We were extremely lucky that they valued the vision and philosophy behind the project.

 Adam Elliot

 Yes …. THE Adam Elliot!

 We wanted to launch our Film Festival with a ‘big bang’ and decided to approach Adam to speak to our students. Who better to inspire and motivate them? 

 From the beginning, he was keen to be involved. He is passionate about his craft and I believe that his interest in our project arises from his belief that schools should provide for more diverse forms of self-expression.

 The Academy Award winning Animation Writer and Director grew up in Mt Waverley and his 2009 feature film “Mary and Max” is set in Mt Waverley Town. It incorporates many scenes and objects remembered from his childhood.

 He spoke to the students and spent time with each of the animation teams, offering advice and tips and tricks. Many of the students incorporated these into their own animations.

 mwps6  mwps7

One aspect that Adam emphasized was the importance of the story line.

 ‘At first I was embarrassed [on winning the Oscar for Harvie Krumpet in 2004], and then realised that we won because our story was stronger. I truly believe it has nothing to do with budgets or what studio the film came out of. At the end of the day it all comes down to a good story well told’.

 He is a wonderful man – an engaging and inspiring speaker, unassuming and generous with his time and very patient with the endless questions that came his way.

 Adam must have enjoyed his visit to Mt Waverley Primary as he offered to come to our Film Festival night and be a guest speaker! We were delighted as this would add weight and credence to our project.

 Meanwhile …… At The Coalface

 The story was the beginning.

 The teachers used an inquiry approach and immersed the students in examples of claymation animations. Pingu was a favourite!

 Genre workshops followed. These included:

  • Comedy(slapstick, parody/satire, sitcom, mockumentary)
  • Drama & Reality TV
  • Documentary/Current Affairs/News
  • Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

 The students organised their own co-operative learning groups. They identified the genre they would like to use and decided upon a Production Company name. Students designed a company logo and this was attached to a specially designed Mt Waverley Film Festival lanyard.

 Many sessions of script writing, editing and storyboarding followed.

mwps8  mwps9

 Specialist classes in Art involved the making of the clay figures, sets and backdrops.

 Music focussed on the use of Garageband for composing the appropriate music for the sound tracks.

 My own role, as the ICT Specialist, involved training the students in the use of the various software programs such as ‘I Can Animate’, iMovie and Garageband (for voice recording and sound effects) and the final editing process.

 Once the animations were complete, the students designed their own movie posters to advertise our film night.

The Night

It was highly successful and the culmination of a great deal of creative collaboration, skill development and enthusiasm. The students thoroughly enjoyed showcasing their achievements for their friends, family and Adam Elliot. Their interest and enjoyment in the ‘Claymation’ project has indicated overwhelming satisfaction and engagement in the process.

 mwps10

The staff involved will soon be participating in a debriefing to discuss the positives and negatives. There are many aspects that we, as teachers will need to refine for 2010. This has given us a focus for our teaching. E5 here we come! 

Adam Elliot speaking to the audience

Adam Elliot speaking to the audience

Winners of the inaugural Adam Elliot Award
Winners of the inaugural Adam Elliot Award

Congratulations to Lee and all of the teaching staff, students, parents, friends and Adam Elliot on an innovative and engaging project that will no doubt stay in the minds of those involved for a very long time. An amazing project!

Feature blog – Monivae College

Nicola Crawford and Maree Bell from Monivae College Library & Information Centre have developed a strong Web 2.0 presence in their school. Nicola explains how this came about.

The WILD Library

 Since completing the SLAV Web 2.0 course last year, we became inspired by all the terrific resources out on the World Wide Web. We wanted to share some of these with the rest of our school community, so we created  ‘The WILD Library’   which is the blog of the Monivae College Library and Information Centre. The WILD Library contains lots of Web 2.0 Resources, plus “Good Library Stuff” such as authors, reviews, book requests, competitions and links to other useful information and resources. Students have begun to make contributions to the blog, but as yet it is early days. 

'The Wild Library'

'The Wild Library'

 From little acorns…big trees certainly grow!! From a single Library oriented blog, we now have a nest of blogs to disseminate information to the different areas of the school community.  The WILD Library acts as the primary blog, and from this there are links to all the other Monivae blogs. Some of these are more advanced than others, but all are a work in progress. 

Exciting English

Exciting English

If you have a wander around the various blogs, you will see that the different Domains utilize them in different ways. Some use them as “go to” points when they begin a new topic. For example, “Super SOSE”, “Sensational Science” and “Fortes in Fide” (the Religion @ Monivae Blog) carry web lists for particular projects.  These are used as starting points, or depending upon the scope of the topic can act to limit students to a particular selection of sites. 

Sensational Science

Sensational Science

The “Exciting English” blog has evolved differently. It has pages containing information and resources for teachers. This site is only in its infancy, eventually the aim is to provide resources for all the literature studied at the different year levels in the College. 

Bathurst Island blog

Bathurst Island blog

The Bathurst Island Blog” is run by my colleague Maree Bell. The aim of this blog is to provide information to students and parents about the 2009 Mission Experience to Bathurst Island. During the trip later in the year, it will be used as a travelogue of their adventures. 

Ultimately, our aim is that the Monivae Blogs be the first port of call for staff and students when they are looking for resources or information from the World Wide Web. To date, this is probably quite optimistic, but we continue to encourage people to use and contribute to the blogs.

  When we first dipped our toe into blogging, we never expected that it would blossom into such a wide ranging affair. We now have ten blogs at various stages of development, and we still have plans for others. We have just created an ICT Committee Wiki and our next project is a class blog in collaboration with one of our LOTE teachers.

Ten blogs ranging across a wide range of curriculum areas is certainly a major achievement. Well done to Nicola, Maree and all the staff involved!

Networked Schools – Classrooms Using New Technologies to Connect and Collaborate

Hear how two teachers use a variety of online environments to connect students in rural and remote schools with experienced educators.

Where: Online in Elluminate. You don’t need to leave your desk – the program comes to you.
Sign up at: http://eventactions.com/ea.aspx?ea=Rsvp&guid=2a3a72ee67194e03b3c1138c9645e2a9

When: Thursday 20 August at 4pm

Who:
Gary Schultz is a teacher of 25 years. With a career path through Physical Education, Science, Information Technology and Work Education, to developing Dimboola Memorial Secondary College teachers integration of ICT into classroom practice. Gary was awarded the 2008 Most Outstanding Secondary Teacher of the year for his work in changing the ICT culture of the college. He is currently working at the Horsham Regional Office in the position of Wimmera Virtual School Project Officer.

The Wimmera Virtual School project is a pilot project that encompasses eleven secondary colleges around the Wimmera area in the North West of Victoria. The project is attempting to address disadvantage in rural and remote schools by developing a Blended Learning model of provision. Currently there are eight VCE subjects being provided that include the use of video conferencing, online content, digital recorded content and also face-to-face teaching.

and

Adrian Camm is the Head of Mathematics at McGuire College and has responsibility for senior Mathematics and Physics. He is now taking a leadership role in promoting effective use of emerging technologies across all faculty areas. Adrian is also a member of the Powerful Learning Practice International Cohort where he engages with international educators on 21st century learning.

Adrian has created a VCE Physics Unit 3&4 Virtual Learning Community that links students across the state of Victoria to experienced educators and textbook authors. Come and learn how the initiative created opportunities for students to interact with each other, educators and knowledgeable adults in authentic learning experiences.

For more information see: http://knowledgebank.global2.vic.edu.au/2009/08/03/networked-schools-two-great-stories-from-classrooms-using-new-technologies-to-connect-collaborate/

Thanks to Tamara Carpenter from KnowledgeBank for the above text.