The Wannik Strategy was referred to at the Half Regional Briefing. Follow this link for more information.
Archive for 2008
Half Regional Principal Briefing
In Uncategorized on June 11, 2008 at 6:09 amHalf Regional Principal Briefings were held in Geelong on Wednesday 11th June and Warrnambool on Thursday 12th June. Principals are reminded to complete the ‘Survey Monkey’ Survey about these sessions using the link below.
Regional Director Grant Rau’s powerpoint presentation is attached to this blog.
We used the video Learning to Change to set the scene. Share this with your staff as a discussion starter…
If this You Tube video is blocked at your school try the following link
Learning to Change, Changing to Learn
A mind map and action plan were presented and Ultranet coaches will be using to these to support planning discussions with principals and eLearning teams. Schools will be asked to choose a focus for Ultranet readiness and develop an action plan with the help of the coach.
Ultranet Readiness Mind Map Ultranet Readiness Action Plan Blank Ultranet Readiness Action Plan Sample
Secondary schools who wish to apply for the National Digital Revolution Funding should check the website
Ultranet coaches are able to assist with the preparation of Digital Revolution Funding applications. Schools wishing to apply for Round 2 funding in July will need to have an eLearning Plan and an ICT Roadmap completed.
take our new survey
In Uncategorized on May 1, 2008 at 12:32 amTry the new Poll Daddy survey… please! It’ll give us ideas on how you might use these in your schools.
pop quiz
In Uncategorized on May 1, 2008 at 12:00 amliteracy specialist meeting
In Uncategorized on April 28, 2008 at 5:21 amthis evening we looked at blogs.
Web 2.0
In Uncategorized on April 28, 2008 at 1:41 amfound this intersting webblog http://www.webware.com/8300-1_109-2.html
lots of web 2.0 tools to explore in the webware100 page
nth geelong network meeting: skilled stadium
In Uncategorized on March 4, 2008 at 11:06 pmMy apologies for my tardiness in attending to the blog following our meeting.
One of the major issues we discussed was around equity of access to ICT (particularly internet access) for families who were either geographically or economically challenged. This is a genuine concern for many of the schools in our network, and it seems the only solutions will come from within our own network – rather than relying on DEECD generally to supply a solution for us. I would welcome comments (in this forum, comments are able to be added by clicking the ‘comment’ balloon above), suggestions and ideas on how this access could be achieved. A number of things come to mind on initial thinking: groups such as PCs for Kids could be contacted to provide families with free (or extremely cheap) PCs (this overcomes the first hurdle of getting a computer into the household); secondly the school could act as a liaison for families wishing to group together geographically to share internet connections; additionally many of the phone companies your parents may already be using now provide free (or extremely cheap) internet connections as part of their phone packages, so pointing parents to some of these may be helpful to them (the following companies may be useful starting points - Virgin, Dodo - there are many others offering good deals encourage families to look beyond the obvious companies and they may find they can actually save money by changing to a new phone carrier and bundling broadband access into the deal).
We discussed starting points also… or more accurately trying to ‘discriminate’ between the multitude of offerings out in the world of web 2.0. There is a ridiculously large amount of ’stuff’ out there – much of it really useful in an educational sense, and much of it designed simply to waste time and/or to be diverting. I believe the only really useful way to decide what has educational value is to ‘play’ ourselves (a great starting point is - go2web2.0 - a constantly updating list of web 2.0 tools to have a go at). We need to consider that ‘playing around with’ (trialling) and discussing a variety of web 2.0 tools with our colleagues is an extremely useful way to consider the padagogical benefits of different applications. My general guidelines when considering which tools to use in your classrooms or staffrooms would be to ask: is this tool likely to increase students capacity to think in new or different ways?; is it able to be monitored/administered by the teacher?; is it likely to develop or inhibit creativity (or creative thinking)?; does it extend the boundaries of the classroom from 50 minutes to 24/7 access?… are there other things to consider – add your comments via the ‘comment’ balloon above.
Personally, the tools I find of most value in a classroom setting are: BLOGS (I use WordPress - this is the platform this blog is built on, but there are many others, Blogger is a nice simple tool, EduBlogs is designed for use in schools, as the name suggests); WIKIS (i have previously used PB Wiki as a platform both for collaborative curriculum design across a year level, and as a tool for developing knowledge around particular issues in a classroom setting; WikiSpaces is another really useful wiki platform); COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENT AUTHORING (a shared space for larges groups, eg, a class or curriculum team, to collaborate on the one document, which is constantly updated with the latest additions/deletions; the best tool for this is Google Docs, sign up and have a go).
The best thing about all of these tools is that they are free – created by the internet community for the benefit of all… probably the kind of collaborative, community minded approach it would be nice to develop in our students.
Colac Network Meeting: Lorne
In Uncategorized on February 22, 2008 at 4:17 amSimon, Wendy and I would like to thank you for your interest this morning; the questions/suggestions that came out of the session were useful in helping us all to think about the potential benefits of moving online, as well as some of the issues we are going to face as the UltraNet moves closer to reality.
I have placed the video from this morning on the videos page of this blog – use the links above, or click here. If you’d like a downloadable version of the video you can find it parked in my driveway account - here (click the ‘download’ button and it’ll download it to your hard-drive).
You will also find this morning’s presentation (including the video file) here. This is a conversion from Apple’s Keynote (which I used this morning) to Microsoft’s Powerpoint, so you may need to ‘tweek’ it by moving a few things around on the pages before you present it to staff (but, hey it’s all good practice for this new collaborative world we are entering!).
The link to the eLearning Planning materials is over here. You will need your edumail password to gain access to these resources.
On the Department’s website toolkit page you will find general permission forms for online use, etc.
Check out the other videos, presentations, links, etc on the blog… many of them have great value, particularly as discussion starters for staff meetings/PLTs, etc.
This Wikipedia entry features a detailed description of what a ‘blog’ is. At the bottom of the page on every Wikipedia entry is a list of ‘External Links’ – you will generally find a host of useful links to sites related to the topic at hand. You may notice that this blog is made using WordPress as the blogging tool, I find WordPress blogs easy to use, and quite powerful. They also provide plenty of customisation in terms of actual appearance. There are a number of educationally focussed blogging tools (many of which use WordPress Multi-User as their base), such as: EduBlogs, and Global Teacher (Global Teacher is a site set up specifically for Victorian teachers to blog).
This Wikipedia entry describes how a ‘wiki’ works – links again are at the bottom of the page. A wiki can be used as a simple, but effective collaborative online learning management system for curricular groups within your schools – I have previously used PB Wikias a tool for developing a curriculum wiki.
If the resources in this post are useful to you, or you have any other ideas/suggestions on useful web-based tools, then please leave a comment for us so that we know you’ve stopped by (use the comment bubble above the post).
Hello world!
In Uncategorized on January 30, 2008 at 9:40 pmWelcome to Barwon South Western Region’s Ultranet Readiness blog. Here you will find resources, ideas, etc to help you, your students and your colleagues to prepare for working and learning in a connected world. This resource, like all things on the web, is available to you 24/7… it is interactive, our hope is that you will contribute to the discussions by commenting on posts and pages you find interesting.A blog such as this is also easy to produce by either individuals or groups: we have used wordpress to build this site, but there are dozens of similar tools available to you (just Google blogging tools).
