I haven't been very good at keeping up with my blog, but while I was in Christchurch for the ULearn08 Conference in the second week of the school holidays, I got an opportunity during a meeting of the 12 ePrincipals to reflect on some of the things that have been happening in the FarNet Cluster and to reflect on our three goals.
The 3 goals of our FarNet Cluster are:
GOAL ONE: Create a sustainable collaborative elearning environment for FarNet schools around the Virtual Learning Network
GOAL ONE: Create an sustainable online teaching and learning portal through Schoolzone’s MyClasses, MyDesktop, Mymail and MyPortfolio for all nine schools
GOAL ONE: Develop a sustainable group of trained -eteachers within FarNet
GOAL ONE: Create a sustainable collaborative elearning environment for FarNet schools around the Virtual Learning Network
GOAL ONE: Create an sustainable online teaching and learning portal through Schoolzone’s MyClasses, MyDesktop, Mymail and MyPortfolio for all nine schools
GOAL ONE: Develop a sustainable group of trained -eteachers within FarNet
BACKGROUND TO FARNET:
Most of the 9 schools are low decile with high % of Maori students with a mixture of area schools. Developing relationships is very very important to me, hence Russell Bishops’s research on his Te Kotahitanga Project in terms of engagement of Maori students is always high in my pedagogical thinking and working with people.
Students: Some things around the students
In looking at ways of sustaining an online learning environment I am introducing a Tech Angel Leadership Programme – Year 8/9 (area schools) – who will be trained in using VC and the preferred LMS – MySuite and Myclasses and Web 2.0 tools. They will be the support for teachers and students at the 9 schools. This is being targeted as a GATE programme.
In looking at ways of sustaining an online learning environment I am introducing a Tech Angel Leadership Programme – Year 8/9 (area schools) – who will be trained in using VC and the preferred LMS – MySuite and Myclasses and Web 2.0 tools. They will be the support for teachers and students at the 9 schools. This is being targeted as a GATE programme.
Two students attended a residential workshop for Level 3 PE with Lynda Pascoe-Walsh who teaches Level 3 PE online from Roxburgh Area School (OtagoNet) at Wanaka as part of their Level 3 PE course. They skied for 4 days, then spent 4 days working through the Gateway Programme on Mt Hutt Ski Field.
11 students from 2 FarNet schools (Kaitaia College and Northland College) attended a residential course at Telford in the first week of the holidays. This is a great experience for them. Six students have applied for a full-time placement in 2009 at Telford.
Sustaining the capacity of eteachers:
I have been speaking with Principals about targeting a teacher from a specialist area which have small numbers and creating a blended learning with strong emphasis of pedagogy in online learning. Eg Level 3 English – 5 in F2F class, 4 hours per week, 2 hrs F2F with those students working independently for 2 hours, teacher delivering the same course online to the cluster on VLN. This is a proposed model to address the need for each school to provide an eteacher.
Training for 2009 – current eteachers will be encouraged to work on their online environment for 2009 and Eddie is coming up to provide them with a set of web 2.0 tools and lots of the software that the ministry has available for us. Important thing is documenting not only what we are doing now, where we are going but our journey up until now. (whakapapa) So one of the tools we will be insisting our teachers to use is to keep a blog on their work, for self-reflection – and providing an opportunity for fellow colleagues to be able to hold up that non-judgemental mirror up through posting comments.
Research keeps telling us that we are “powering down” our students when they come into our schools, so we will be challenging our eteachers to use online resources like audacity and utube, wikis, ipods for podcasting, cellphones for communication and more student centred learning in their classes.
Where have I been:
Sydney – attended "Leading a Digital School" - August - 3 ePrincipals attended the 4 day conference. It was a valuable opportunity to reflect on what we are achieving in New Zealand. I think we are well ahead of most of the Australian schools.
Sydney – attended "Leading a Digital School" - August - 3 ePrincipals attended the 4 day conference. It was a valuable opportunity to reflect on what we are achieving in New Zealand. I think we are well ahead of most of the Australian schools.
Tony Bates – Lecturer from the University of British Columbia – Canada - delivered a symposium in Wellington which was organised by the Wellington Loop schools. He spoke about the blended learning – 35,000 students in BC doing at least one of their subjects online in schools. Tony spoke about this blend and it was inspiring to hear that their research clearly shows: Results were much the same; Retention on courses much the same; Satisfaction of courses from teacher, student and community was hugely increased.
So this has given me more information to now take back to the Principals and to support my proposal.
Both conferences were very thought provoking and we waved our VLN and elearning flag at both of those conferences.
What have I been working on:
Using my VC unit at home to avoid travelling. My record so far is 6 VCs in one day – as opposed to being able to visit only one school in a day. Something Conor (ePrincipal of Volcanics) shared in one of our Principal Mentor leadership meetings was that it was important that I became the face of FarNet. One of my goals has been to spend more time to become that face of FarNet by making more F2F visits in my schools and using the VC for follow up.
Using my VC unit at home to avoid travelling. My record so far is 6 VCs in one day – as opposed to being able to visit only one school in a day. Something Conor (ePrincipal of Volcanics) shared in one of our Principal Mentor leadership meetings was that it was important that I became the face of FarNet. One of my goals has been to spend more time to become that face of FarNet by making more F2F visits in my schools and using the VC for follow up.
eMentor - Sue Winter
I feel well supported by Sue as our Principal Mentor with our regular meetings which always have a focus on our leadership and we have been able to share lots of our experiences. Sue has also visited me in my cluster and shadowed me for a couple of days. The feedback was excellent.
Study with Canterbury University
I have enrolled in two online courses with Canterbury University, which has challenged my thinking on pedagogy in elearning. Both these two lecturers, Derek Wenmoth and Nicki Dabner through their courses are exceptionally good examples of elearning courses. As part of this study, I have been facilitating the learning between two schools from opposite ends of the country, one decile 4 – 100% European students and one decile 1 – 100% Maori. 30 students – VC supports the learning, but the learning is collaborative and scaffolding on each other’s learning. I really see my role as facilitator of this class and not the teacher.
We had a powhiri online, and it was a little difficult to work out who was the manuhiri (visitors) and who was the turangawaewae (home group), so we had a short mihi delivered from Northland College.
We had a powhiri online, and it was a little difficult to work out who was the manuhiri (visitors) and who was the turangawaewae (home group), so we had a short mihi delivered from Northland College.
My online class
I teach a Level 1/2 accounting class. I have had students from Invercargill, Dunedin, Stratford and Northland College. My teaching role has changed from an instructional teaching role to more of a tutorial role in Term 3 and I have placed more emphasis on the online learning environment and textbooks and workbooks they have.
My Principals:
I have been trying to meet with each Principal during Term 3 to discuss their schoolwide goals and how I can assist them through support of FarNet, rather than adding another task for them. The results from an online survey has given us some good baseline data to work from.
My Principals:
I have been trying to meet with each Principal during Term 3 to discuss their schoolwide goals and how I can assist them through support of FarNet, rather than adding another task for them. The results from an online survey has given us some good baseline data to work from.
Other:
I have been working with 2 new VC capable schools – one kura and one Christian school. It was great to be able to call on the expertise of Anton Coltham (ePrincipal of Welcom) to speak with one of the schools who were talking about developing moodle.
I have been working with 2 new VC capable schools – one kura and one Christian school. It was great to be able to call on the expertise of Anton Coltham (ePrincipal of Welcom) to speak with one of the schools who were talking about developing moodle.
Enterprise Northland and E4E
I have been working with Dave Templetom from Enterprise Northland on developing an online course for YES in 2009 as a trial – with Rachel Roberts (ePrincipal of Tarnet) and working with Enterprise Northland in the use of VC for PD and meetings. Dave has a VC set in their Whangarei offices. Meeting last week of term had 15 F2F and 20 remotely.
Have been trying to attend the future choices/option evenings and facilitating online interviews between eteachers/estudents and their parents.
Ka Hikitia Strategy
In terms of the Ka Hikitia Strategy, I am still refining the proposal to present to the Ministry and I have been working with Eddie about the enrolment forms on the VLN for 2009 to reflect things like student ethnicity so we can gather data around student ethnicity. We are looking at how the VLN could have more of a presence of demonstrating the success of our Maori students studying through the VLN – like photos or case studies.
