SuperClubsPLUS @ Mount Waverley PS

2007 SLAV Research Fellowship recipient (along with colleague Jacqueline Griffeth) Lee King has created some outstanding ICT opportunities for her students at Mount Waverley Primary School.

Lee recently introduced the students to SuperClubsPLUS.

SuperClubsPLUS is currently being trialled by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s Knowledge Bank: Next Generation. The trial provides free accessto SuperClubsPLUS for 100,000 year 3 and 4 students and will conclude in December 2010.

Lee explains how she came to be involved in the project. ‘Increasingly, students, parents, teachers and the wider community have become aware of the issues surrounding Cyberbullying and Cybersafety. As a parent and a teacher, I have been active in protecting the children I have contact with from the dangers in an online world. How did I do this? By worrying endlessly and restricting access.

 ‘What a ‘head in the sand’ attitude! After a quick ‘hands up’ survey, I established that in each of the Year 3 and 4 classes, an average of three students had mobile phones. Again, in each of those classes, around half used MSN Messenger and 3 to 4 students used Skype regularly. What was I protecting them from? They were already engaged in online activities!’

 Lee wondered, ‘Were they safe? Did they know that not everyone online is who they say they are? Did they know not to give out personal information? Were they treating others kindly and speaking appropriately? I had read a little about SuperClubsPLUS and liked the sound of it, so I registered our Year 3 and 4 students with the intention that it would be the ICT focus for Term 1, 2009. 

‘SuperClubsPLUS (Australia) is a social network, similar to Facebook and MySpace, however it is for primary school age children and it is extremely safe. It is a ground breaking initiative, providing engaging and stimulating learning experiences centred on ICT, literacy and citizenship.

 ‘Students are kept safe whilst on the site as only those who have been registered by their school and have written permission from their parents will have access. This ensures that the community is only made up of the children it was designed for. Fully trained mediators, all of whom are teachers or Principals with current Police checks and VIT registration, actively mediate all children’s activities. At least one mediator is on duty from 8am to 8pm, monitoring all interaction and protecting the students in real time. Students may access the site out of these hours but will be unable to communicate with others.

 Lee continues, ‘Once registered, students receive a user name and password which is uniquely theirs. They have their own personal online space where they can complete activities to earn their Cybersafety badge, design and build their own home pages, participate in clubs, join discussion forums and achieve their ICT ‘Star Awards’. They are expected to reach a certain degree of awareness of cybersafety issues before they can participate in other parts of the site.’

Cybersafety page (no link as you must be a member to access this.)

Cybersafety page (no link as you must be a member to access this.)

 As Lee explains, the students just loved SuperClubsPLUS. ‘A wonderful thing happened on the way ……. An hour is never long enough in the lab! Only a day after introducing the students to SuperClubs, I found I was receiving many emails from the students. They would begin with ‘How do you …… ?’. Other emails would arrive shortly after, from the same students saying, ‘Don’t worry, I worked it out’.’

 ‘They couldn’t wait for the next lab session so they used their initiative and actually read the instructions! By clicking on the ‘HOW TO’ link, the students are able to learn everything they need to know about building their home pages, inserting widgets, how to send emails and more. They discovered this before I did.

 ‘The students learn by ‘hands-on’ experience. If they forget about the Cybersafety and Cyberbullying issues, they quickly find themselves on the receiving end of an email from the Mediator. Any inappropriate email (no girlfriend/boyfriend stuff either!) is immediately blocked. Serious misdemeanors are dealt with by deregistering the student and cancelling their user name and password. Teachers are always notified via Department email if students have acted inappropriately.’

Lee explains how SuperClubsPLUS fits in with VELS:

 VELS and SuperClubsPlus Australia

 ‘Many aspects of VELS are covered. Students’ achievements and progress are monitored and rewarded with the STAR Awards challenges. They learn a huge range of ICT skills, Literacy, Cybersafety, social skills and global citizenship – ticks many of the Progression Points boxes!!

 ‘The Domains in italics are dependent on the focus of the content:

Interdisciplinary Learning

  • Thinking Processes 
  • Communication 
  • Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

Discipline-based Learning Domains

  • English
  • The Arts
  • Humanities
  • LOTE
  • Science  

Physical, Personal and Social Learning Domains

  • Personal Learning
  • Interpersonal Development
  • Health and Physical Education 
  • Civics and Citizenship

  Personal and Social Learning

‘The students have the opportunity to join learning projects and events such as: discussions on global issues; a writing club with a popular author; a Hot Seat with an Olympic hopeful athlete, an artist or an astronomer; an interview with Anne Frank or Tutankhamen or a Maths fun day. There’s something for every child as they follow their own interests and work at their own pace and level.

‘Out of the mouths of babes ……

“Thank you for getting us on to Super Clubs, it is so cool so thank you I love it.
Thank you.” TG, Year 3

“Superclubs is awesome.”  LM, Year 4

“I LOVE Superclubs. Mum and dad want to have a go.” GK, Year 5.

‘It is not just the kids who love SuperClubs!!!! Here are some comments from teachers involved:

 “It is so easy – this week for  my computer literacy group – they have to send me an email to tell me three things they have loved doing so far this year in class.  Took me about 5 seconds to think of the activity, takes no time for me to show them anything because they all know what they are doing, and is so easy for me to assess!!!!!!”

“I love it as much as they do!!!”

“Thanks for hooking us up with it!!!  I was trying to stay a step ahead of the kids – not possible – some of them are so far ahead of me I will never catch them!!!!  Which is a good thing as they are obviously so happy with what they are doing and being asked to do.”

Congratulations to Lee and the staff at Mount Waverley Primary School for being an enthusiastic part of the SuperClubsPLUS trial that will benefit all Victorian primary educators. SuperClubsPLUS is supported by the Telstra Foundation.

Press play

After pondering the future of libraries, including school libraries for a while now and thinking about 21st Century Learning after hearing Professor Stephen Heppell speak at the State Library of Victoria in November 2008, it’s probably time to address the concept of gaming in schools, libraries and school libraries.

Are you still reading? You haven’t fainted? Great! Library staff of all makes and models have always been exellent at managing change and the takeup of Web 2.0 over the past year or so has proven that to be true.

Gaming in schools does seem to inspire strong reactions in some people, however the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s Knowledge Bank: Next Generation team are currently leading action research with selected teachers in Victoria to identify potential technologies that may support learning and teaching. This project is supported by The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, The Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development (Multimedia Victoria) and The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

In term 2, 2009, these technologies include gaming consoles such as Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360. Being a DEECD project, there are strict guidelines and record keeping so all research can be validated. This is a major step for the DEECD in acknowledging the educational potential of gaming and backing up ideas with action research. Bright ideas will keep you up to date with developments and outcomes of the project.

Some of you may have heard Derek Robertson speak when he was in Australia in November 2008. Derek heads up the Consolarium, which is a part of Learning and Teaching Scotland. The Consolarium highlights the positive outcomes of using gaming in schools and gives excellent examples of particular games and how they have been used by teachers. The Consolarium blog has been in action since September 2007, which seems like a long time in the world of technology. Derek has lots of examples on the Consolarium blog of excellent uses of games in schools.

In late 2008, an Australian study focussing on interactive entertainment was published. Some remarkable statistics were uncovered such as:

  • 88% of households own a device for playing games
  • The average game player is 30 years old
  • Female gamers made up 46% of the gaming population.

If these facts have raised your interest about the possibilities of using games in an educational context, the good people of the State Library of Victoria are offering a chance to find out what gaming is all about at an evening of interactive play and mini-tournaments. Discover a range of video games and consoles, and meet game experts from Dissecta. It will be held on Tuesday 7 April (school holidays so no worries about going out on a school night) from 6-7.30pm at the State Library, in Experimedia. The session is free, but bookings are required. Please click this link to book in.

Hope to see you there!

More Elluminate resources

As well as being an excellent ‘lecture capture system’, the DEECD’s Elluminate website  hosts a number of very interesting presentations that have been saved for access at a later date.

One of these presentations is Steve Hargadon’s Web 2.0 is the future of education. (You must have Elluminate installed, Victorian educators can download this for free from here. Elluminate lite is also available to other schools free for one year; for the free program click here.) This presentation gives a great outline of Web 2.0 in education and why it is necessary for 21st Century learning.

Steve Hargadon's
Steve Hargadon’s Web 2.0 is the future of education presentation
Access is available to other Web 2.0 presentations, click here for them. Elluminate is a fantastic tool that allows archiving of presentations and so access at a later date for people who couldn’t attend or those who want to revisit the presentation is open and easy.

Elluminate

Elluminate is an online ‘lecture capture’ application that is currently available free of charge to all Victorian educators (State, Independent and Catholic schools are all included) through the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s Knowledge Bank.

Elluminate lets people communicate in real time via their Internet connection. People who schedule an Elluminate session meet in a ‘room’. They are able to speak to each other via a headset with microphone, use the chat function, raise their hand to ask a question, draw on a whiteboard amongst other things. The moderator or person running the session is able to upload powerpoint style slides to give the session a focus. At the end, sessions can be saved and archived for access at a later time.

Once Elluminate is installed via the Knowledge Bank page, users are able to access demonstrations, archived sessions and participate in online training sessions. There are two sessions on how to use Elluminate coming up in the next few weeks; Tuesday 13th January at 3.30pm  and Tuesday 27th January at 3.30pm. To participate in these very useful sessions, click on the date/s above to register. (Please be aware that you will need a headset with microphone and have downloaded Elluminate prior to the session.) Once users are confident using Elluminate, rooms can be booked to run your own online sessions.

A view of an Elluminate room

Elluminate has so many possibilities in regard to educational applications; staff can capture professional development sessions or staff meetings for part-timers or those who are absent. Those schools who find attending professional development sessions difficult due to distance or funding can access Elluminate sessions easily and for free. And archived sessions mean that you can revisit a session at anytime. Elluminate also has uses to work with students in a virtual enviroment. Once you become confident using Elluminate, the rest is up to your imagination. 

For examples of previous Elluminate sessions, click here. A previous Bright Ideas post on Professor Stephen Heppell linked to his Knowledge Bank visit. To access it, click here.

For more information on Elluminate, see the Knowledge Bank Elluminate site or contact:

Tamara Carpenter
Senior Project Officer
Knowledge Bank Online Events
Innovation and Next Practice Division
Office for Policy, Research and Innovation
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development

Ph. 03 9637 3010
carpenter.tamara.c@edumail.vic.gov.au

If you do use Elluminate, please leave a comment to let everyone know what you think of it and how you used it in your school.

Thanks to Tamara for her assistance.

21st Century learning

Continuing on with Professor Stephen Heppell’s talk on 21st Century learning at the State Library of Victoria on Monday 10th November, Stephen outlined the 21st Century as ‘people centric’ where ‘helping people help each other’ is leading to the mass social construction of knowledge. People adding entries and editing Wikipedia, creating content in LibraryThing, YouTube, Flickr and the like (my examples) means that we (and our students) ‘are in a world we haven’t met before’. Stephen says ‘it’s time for schools to run, not follow’.

A recent UK survey by Ipsos asked students how they were currently learning in school. The responses were something like:

  1. Copying from books or the whiteboard (approximately 50% of respondents).
  2. Taking notes from a long teacher talk (approximately 30% of respondents).
  3. Copying from the Internet (approximately 20% of respondents).

When asked how they would like to learn, the responses were:

  1. Learning in groups.
  2. Learn by doing practical things.
  3. Learning with friends.
  4. Learn by using a computer.

When asked what they would like their teachers to be able to do, they responded:

  1. Edit a Wikipedia entry.
  2. Upload a video to YouTube and make a comment.
  3. Subscribe to a podcast.
  4. Manage groups in Flickr (and be able to spell Flickr).
  5. Select a safe online payment site.
  6. Turn mobile phone predictive text on/off.

Certainly food for thought, not only for teachers but also for school administrators. For a recording of Stephen’s session with Victoria’s Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s Knowledge Bank, click here.

To read more about what Stephen has been involved in, his thoughts and projects, please follow these links: