Powerful Learning: It’s a Digital Thing

in my new role as an ultranet coach I’ve been out and about in schools lately talking to school principals and teachers about their readiness for the ultranet and how they are using ict to connect kids, teachers and their communities. the discussions have been around elearning and planning for this. teachers and schools are very much working towards developing ict integration and therefore are itching to involve staff in professional learning and action learning around ict and what makes powerful 21st century learning. our focus questions below indicate some of the discussions we are having and highlight the data we are gathering to inform our work as coaches. the questions are also a heads up for schools in terms of thinking about….where are we at as school…..how do we want to be perceived…..what can we be doing to build a school that embeds powerful elearning…. 

these questions may help drive some discussions in your work

discussion focus questions eLearning Leadership

• What is the vision and associated goals for eLearning in your school?  How is this vision developed and shared by the key stakeholders in the school community?
• What are your key infrastructure needs if your vision and goals are to be achieved? 

Student eLearning Capability

To what extent are there opportunities for students to creatively use Information Communication technologies? For example:

• Podcast production
• animations
• web design
• web 2.0 applications- wikis, blogs, nings, forums, myspace
• music production and composition (for example Sony Acid or Garageband)
• web design
• digital portfolios
• Online learning communities
• Online learning management systems (for example, Moodle)

Learning, Teaching, Assessment and Reporting

• Who are the groups that are collaborating for the purposes of curriculum planning within the school? Is there an on-line component to this collaboration?
• What opportunities are there for integrating ICT?

ICT Professional Learning (including ePotential)

• What are your perceived needs around ICT professional learning? 
•  Do teachers have individual ICT goals or action plans ?
• What percentage of your budgets is used for ICT professional learning?
• Do you have an ICT professional Learning Strategy?
• What are your professional learning priorities in ICT for the next 12 months? 
•  What significant ICT professional learning has already taken place in your school

Learning Places and Spaces

• How does the school create flexible (virtual and actual) learning environments to maximise the use of and cater for diverse teaching and learning opportunities?

Learning Communities

• How are you managing teaching and learning planning and resources? ie Do you use an intranet, a document server, a Moodle, a learning management system?
• How effectively has the school collaborated with other schools, other education institutions, industry, business, or the wider community in building and delivering programs to assist or support student learning?
• How is ICT used to enable communication and collaboration across the learning community?

stay tuned 

for those who are not sure what the ultranet means visit http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/ultranet/default.htm