The ACOT project identifies six design principles for the 21st century high school:
How can you apply these principles in your school?
The Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership’s (AITSL) Essential Guide to Professional Learning series examines the research behind key themes of the Professional Learning Charter.
This latest issue expands on the importance of innovation and adaptability in professional learning.
How will you know when your school’s professional learning culture is innovative?
A smartphone in the car or train, a tablet at meetings, a laptop when I am at home or in the office – all have their pros and cons.
In a post-PC world, which mobile device is the best option, and can they completely replace your laptop computer?
Dave is an Assistant Principal at a local K-6 Public School.
Dave’s site provides lot’s of useful information and links to resources for teachers who are integrating technology in the curriculum.
Google has announced huge reductions in the costs of their paid Drive storage plans.
Google offers 15Gb of storage for free – if you want 100 Gb of online storage the cost has dropped from $US4.99 per month to $US1.99 per month. (Google Apps files don’t count towards your storage).
Doctopus is a Google Apps add-on that can now be used to create shared class folders.
Watch the video below to learn how to use Doctopus with your classes….
See also: Doctopus overview >>>
Google have announced the inclusion of 3rd party Add-ons to Docs and Sheets, bringing additional functionality (or just some missing features) to the Google Office suite.
You will notice a new ‘Add-ons’ menu item has been added to your Docs and Sheets menu bar:
With this new Add-ons feature comes a brand new store with dozens of options from which to choose.
Watch the Google video below for a brief overview…
Microsoft have rebranded their SkyDrive and Web Apps, replacing them with OneDrive and Office Online respectively.
How does the new Microsoft service compare to Dropbox, Google Drive and Box?
Have you activated the new version of Google Sheets yet?
There are plenty of new features in the latest update, including Filter views, enhanced function help, new functions, advanced conditional formatting, coloured sheet tabs and new find-and-replace features
Watch this short video to learn more…
Students can use Flipsnack (online) to create flipping books from any PDF document.
Includes a step-by-step introductory video, and examples created by students at the Singapore American School.
NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli wants the controversial My School website scrapped, arguing it is a waste of money that could be better spent on improving teacher quality.
Mr Piccoli said the publishing of NAPLAN results on My School was directly responsible for putting students under unnecessary and inappropriate stress.
Mr Piccoli said it was the publication of the results, not the tests themselves, that was damaging and the website was “of no real value”. “The bottom line is My School has negative impacts, it is used as a marketing tool for schools and the money spent on My School could be better used,” he said.
As with any other school planning, school ICT planning should start by considering student learning outcomes, then work towards the development of Teacher Professional Learning programs and ICT infrastructure that support these outcomes.
Too often schools start their ICT ‘planning’ with the mapping and installation of ICT infrastructure, then try to shoe-horn their curriculum needs into this (possibly ill-fitting and restrictive) infrastructure. And then tack some PD on at the end!
Is your school ICT Plan focused on technology or learning outcomes?
‘School administrators, who are rightfully risk-averse, often decree that no public posting of student work is allowed in schools – access to any student work must be limited to only those approved and with passwords.
Teachers, afraid of potential headaches due to students posting something inappropriate, or becoming involved in cyber-bullying, also get nervous about allowing students to publish freely online.
But, when you look at all the benefits that publishing to the web can bring to student learning, the answer is most definitely yes.’ (EduBlogs)
Have you been keeping up to date with the latest Moodle features?
These videos provide a concise overview of all the latest additions to the Moodle platform.
Edublogs has announced a new service called CampusPress – a web publishing environment for entire schools, districts or Universities, providing unlimited sites, users, traffic, and storage.
All hosted and accessed using cloud technologies.
A class or faculty web site is an integral part of a modern learning environment. Your class site can be a sub-section of a broader school site, or can be a stand-alone site.
Either way, a class web site can provide students with a gateway to online resources specifically related to class activities, projects, units of work and collaborative discussions, while keeping the school community informed about learning projects and other activities.
Chromebooks depend on an active Internet connection for many functions.
Here is collection of Chromebook apps in the Google Web Store that don’t require an Internet connection.
KidRex is a fun and safe search tool for younger students.
KidRex searches emphasise kid-related webpages from across the entire web and is powered by Google.
Google’s filter checks keywords, phrases, and URLs to eliminate most inappropriate material.
The world of ICT has changed dramatically over the past couple of years – and the change is continuing unabated. Even accelerating. What was ‘new and innovative’ only 2 years ago, is now very much mainstream.
Is your school remodelling the learning environment to take advantage of new technologies? Are you moving from an old ‘locked in labs’ ICT model to a new ‘anytime anywhere’ model?
Create a classroom movie studio with an iPad and a Green Screen…
Here are some ideas for exploring how ‘green screen’ technology can be integrated into some engaging educational projects.
Rooty Hill HS, serving a culturally diverse, working-class community, welcomed its largest-ever Year 12 cohort this year. The school has above-average attendance rates and its NAPLAN results are close to or better than those of statistically similar schools.
A Grattan Institute report, released on Friday, says strong leadership, effective and collaborative teaching, data-driven analysis, positive culture and parental and community engagement are the five key strategies for turning around poor-performing schools.
Web search can be a useful tool for students, and a bit of instruction in how to search for academic sources will help your students become critical thinkers and independent learners.
With the materials on this site, you can help your students become skilled searchers- whether they’re just starting out with search, or ready for more advanced training.
The techno wizards of the education world preach the revolutionary powers of devices like iPads and laptops in our classrooms.
Technophobes must embrace 21st century learning, they will tell you, because today’s students are digital natives.
But for those who were born digital, bringing technology into the classroom represents less of a revolution than a bridging of the last remaining gap in their device-saturated lives.
While NSW primary school students were asked to bring hand sanitiser, tissues and paper towel at the start of this year, public high school students were expected to turn up with their own iPad or laptop.
For the first time, the Department of Education and Communities has a formal Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy after schools held trials last year in preparation for the end of the federally funded free laptop program.
At most public high schools students in Years 8 and 9 who missed out on a government laptop are now required to bring an iPad, a tablet or a laptop that must be compatible with school’s existing Wi-Fi network.
Drop by Miss Sporn’s Year 2/3 class at Craigburn PS (SA) and catch up on class activities, or leave a message. Visit the class >>>
From the blog….
We are a Year 2 & 3 class at Craigburn Primary School, Flagstaff Hill in South Australia. There are around 500 students in our Reception – Year 7 school.
There are 27 children in our class and our teacher’s name is Lisa Sporn. We are in the Year 2 and 3 Unit with 3 other classes and LOVE to work with all of the classes.
Our Buddy Class is Miss Hollitt’s Year 6/7 class. Our buddies are very special to us.
We LOVE using our class blog to share our learning with the families in our class and school, as well as our global friends.
Ben Wildeboer walks us through the process he has setup in his science classes for the distribution and assessment of his students lab reports, using Google Docs and associated utilities for creating student folders and distributing content to those folders.
Check out Hapara’s Teacher Dashboard for Google Apps for Education – gives you a real-time view of student activity across Docs, Sites, Blogger, Picasa, Gmail and Calendars.
A class web page can be used to share links to web sites and other resources that support your class activities – but how do you find sites that are suitable for your students’ reading level?
Try filtering your Google search results based on the reading level of the pages in the results….
Are you considering BYOT options for your school? This site, from Corpus Christi Middle School in Western Australia, provides documentation, pre-requisites, and other information for parents and students.
