A part of the Powerful Learning Project Upwey High School staff members, Pam Arvanitakis, Marie-Josee Mill and Sue Tapp were able to participate in face to face and online meetings and to benefit from the knowledge of a very interesting and varied local cohort of teachers and experts lead by Sheryl Nussbaum- Beach and Will Richardson from USA and Jenny Luca from Melbourne. The project used web2.0 technology as the basis for the exchange of information and modelled a 21st century style of education by a process of immersion for the participants. This blog is our response to the programme and contains a number of reflections and links to products of the process and our participation. We hope that this is a basis for change in the future and that this blog is something that will mark the beginning of a journey for the educators at our school, not the end. We would like to thank Will, Sheryl and Jenny for their leadership, the various Teacher Experts who provided support, inspiration and encouragement along the way , and the wonderful cohort who really demonstrated the wisdom of the crowd is a much more powerful thing than trying to work alone.
Pam Arvanitakis
Sue Tapp
Marie-Josee Mill
Euan Bradley
As part of our reflection on our year we have produced a number of pieces of media. Here is Pam’s movie produced using U-Lead
If utube is blocked, you can view this video at:
http://learnuhs.ning.com/video/powering-the-learning-at-upwey
At the same time as the project was running,we also received an Emerging Technologies grant and purchased five Macbooks and two flip videos with the intention of using them for Digital Storyteling and a Year 8 TV Station. These projects have been continuing as we participated in the PLP and we are currently creating our first show for students in a New Zealand class after we studied the movie ‘Whale Rider’. The show will be added to this site once it is finished. The movie charts the process.
Final Reflection -Pam Arvanitakis
From her blog
I’m really gearing myself up for this. I’ve carefully avoided writing anything here for a while but the time has come for some much needed reflection and here’s the place to do it. I’m a reflection avoider I have to confess so I’m going to have to wring this out!
Since a small group of us joined the Powerful Learning Practice cohort for advancing the use of Web 2.0 technologies in education, we have made huge personal leaps in this area. My friend and colleague, Sue Tapp, has been an endless source of ideas and support for me as we have both endeavoured to put into place the basic tenets of 21st Century technologies in an educational context.
The opportunites we have had to meet with the folk from the USA, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson has been inspirational and getting together with other Aussie teachers has been fun and very interesting.
I have continued to use blogging as a platform of communication and presentation for my year 7 classes.We have been having fun with visual literacy, movie making, comic life and reflective writing. I have made a wiki for my year 12 class on the George Orwell novel, 1984.My year 11 English students frequently work on their computers using Inspiration, working with callouts, using wikis as a resource and accessing and submitting work on the school website, Daymap.
I often bring in the projector to class and project off my laptop on to the whiteboard to demonstrate a new tool or useful site – something I never did until this year.
While I write in this blog rarely, I have kept up my 365 pics a day challenge assiduously.
I have spent many long hours setting up the blogs for my junior students and puzzling about how they work. It has been an interesting and very satisfying personal journey. Of course we have not experienced significant advances in persuading other members of staff to similarly explore the potential of ICT in education. This has been a particular bugbear to Sue but I’m not so fussed by this disappointment. Looking at the big picture, there are lots of teachers out there doing what we’re doing. You can’t bash people around too much, they start to get surly and oppositional. Conversion will inevitably be sporadic and scattered – but it is happening.
Final Reflection- Marie-Josée Mill
When Sue approached me last year about this project – her enthusiasm was evident and infectious. I have always been interested in the effective use of ICT in the classroom. In fact other than a brief introduction in Uni, most of my knowledge has been self-taught. So when this ‘door’ was opened to the ‘legitimacy’ to explore was opened- I willing set forth.
One thing I did learn was that you have to be willing to ‘experiment’ and hence make mistakes with this medium- judging the usefulness and appropriateness. I was like a child in a lolly shop- what flavour to try first. Felt overwhelmed by the different “tastes” The sessions that we attended were inspirational and the teachers that we met were dedicated to master this “Powerful Learning Practice”.
I first introduced the use of the class blog to my students this year- it was varied in the level and subject matter- from year 7 to year 10, in English, French, Humanities and Geography. Of course, the use of student blogs presented some difficulties- computer room availability and willingness to follow-up at home. But I am positive. I have increased my use of our school’s share-point for each class which allows me to upload relevant documents and students can submit work. Recently I have trialled the forum section in class. Some interesting results – students were replying to each other’s post. Each step has had a benefit in my teaching ability- increasing and improving the learning environment. I am hoping to use Google docs for collaborative purposes in class. My current task is organisation- so many resources and so little time.
The path towards the development of a PLP culture at the school is not easy, as Sue discovered but for every disappointment a small step had been taken. More teachers have come onboard and indicated their own involvement and achievements.
Podcast reflection A faculty discussion and a chat about the project
Final Reflection Sue Tapp
The excitement of being involved in the PLP project was enormous for me at the start of the year. I had been blogging and connecting with other educators for 18 months and had established the OZ/NZ Educators network. The online meetings and the Bloggers Feasts were all part of developing a community of like minded educators who could talk freely about their exploration of Web 2.0. The opportunity to give a formal title to what I was doing and to allow some fellow staff who were starting to share the interest the chance to learn and develop a PLN was fantastic and so we started off with a team of five. The first session was like oxygen for me but for others it was confusing and perhaps overwhelming.
Within a week one overcommitted staff member had basically backed out and another was in danger of losing her contract position and so had to withdraw from the group and concentrate on her core teaching. So five had become three and our third member was only able to be involved at a minimal level due to a number of family issues. The remaining two came from one faculty area was good because we had a similar focus , but it was also a problem as we didn’t have the spread we had in the original group.
Issue one- make sure the group is broadly based and fully committed to ensure a more successful result across the whole range of subject areas.Try and have at least five people in the team who want to be challenging themselves and who can speak to a number of faculties.
Pam and I blogged, discussed and planned a number of projects together and tried to include other staff in our activities with varying degrees of success. Marie-Josee started blogging in her classes and really moved into web 2.0 with enormous enthusiasm. We created wikis for our Year 11 classes on a number of texts, we used Inspiration for mind mapping and started discussion forums for our students.
As the year began we were in the middle of a $4 million refurbishment of the school which caused major disruption to all areas of the school and did not end until just before the mid year break. This in itself did not create a climate for learning new skills as teachers struggled to get a basic teaching space and to have available resources to teach as all of the school was affected and staff lost their teaching resources as they were boxed up to be moved around the school. Not a great environment to ask people to undertake more change when they are already struggling to cope.
As well as the physical environment being radically changed, the school has had a major upgrade of the school computer network and this has had a number of problems which made many staff very disheartened and cynical about what they could possibly do with computers in classes. Despite a climate of more funding by the Federal Government for funding of better ICT access for all students, we are still yet to see any effect of this money in the school. Many teaching areas have been left with poor or no access or very outdated computers as we wait for the new machines to arrive and as this is taking so long staff morale is extremely low and this affected our ability to create a sense of enthusiasm among teachers. Thses issues are still current.
Issue 2 Be realistic about how much change is possible in the life of a school.
Raising the profile of the project was difficult in the huge number of other changes happening in the school at the moment. VIT registration changes, the current agreement which changes peoples ability to attend ISE the need for accreitation and curriculum changes have made it difficult for us to get meeting time in the formal compulsory sessions- so we ran our own Sandpit sessions on a non meeting day and worked that way – usually with a small group. As the time for us to report came near we finally were allowed a session with the whole staff and we presented the ning to those who attended and some videos to start discussion. We filmed this session and have plans to keep getting people to see it as a real and active resource centre for their own use.
Issue 3 Patience, Patience Patience
It is only through 1 to 1 conversations by team members that things have been happening. I am so frustrated by the process so much of the time and then suddenly people are asking me about some app or activity. Displaying work of students helps create interest and targetting particular faculties and change instigators in faculties has been good. So yes I have moved down a path that has no going back. Yes I have gained some new people skills . Yes I will keep going and ‘Yes the PLN I have acquired in the last two years has changed everything’ and I mean everything!! I have now organised two groups – one for networking teachers in Australia and New Zealand and a local one for Mac users in my region. I am out there making connections and doing just what I want my students to do. Thanks PLP
Final Reflection Movie – Sue Tapp
Tags: reflection