A great informative session at Finlayson Park School Thursday 22 May.

Valay Raman, from Finlayson Park shared a little of their ICT journey, and spoke about the Computers in Homes project for low income families, available to apply for. He also spoke about 21 steps to BYOD.

Valay: ‘Thank you to those that attended the meeting at Finlayson Park School. Remember we are the people who need to lead 21st century learning through ICT.  Here is the link to 21 steps to BYOD and raising student achievement by creating an environment of 365 learning.
You will find them in the right-hand-side blue box, here:
http://www.microsoft.com/nz/21steps/.
 Hope it is helpful to you.’
Valay Raman
Assistant Principal
Finlayson Park School

Megan Clune, from Puhinui spoke on Google docs and Teacher Dashboard with a slide show presentation.

Megan: ‘Here is the link to access the slideshow from this afternoon's meeting:
http://goo.gl/hJiiFR
I have added a couple of notes about teacher dashboard and a resources page with some informative links.  If you have any other links to share, please add them to the resources table.

If you would like to use slideshow or any part of it, please go to 'file' 'make a copy' and then you will be able to add you own flare without changing this shared one.
Hope this afternoon was useful in some way!’
Megan Clune
Lead Teacher
Puhinui School

We hope to see you again at our next cluster meeting in Week 8:
Thursday 26 June at Rosehill Intermediate.
Regards
Steve
Steve Pedersen
ICT Coordinator, Puhinui School

We had a great meeting at Mangere East School on 3rd April last term. Apologies for the change in date necessitated by the NZEI meetings.

Thanks to Anthony Noble-Campbell and his staff for hosting us, providing a yummy afternoon tea, showing us through their new ‘Phoenix’ block, and sharing part of their ICT/Learning story with us.

The new Phoenix block incorporates the latest in educational thinking - that children learning in different ways in a varied, comfortable physical environment, with provision for easy interacting and use of mobile devices. Double storied, each storey has 5 teaching/learning spaces opening out into a large shared space, separated from the shared space by only floor to ceiling glass walls. This enables a range of learning/teaching styles within a regular class setting as well as various sized shared sessions in the larger area. There were also a number of group withdrawal rooms, again separated from each classroom by glass walls, for transparency.

Furniture included soft bean bags, soft stools around discussion tables, chairs with armrests for using a device or note-taking, and cushions, as well as regular tables and chairs. Looks like it will be unexciting learning space.

We also discussed a number of other issues including google docs and cloud computing.

Our next meeting is week 3, Thursday May 22 at Finlayson School, 85 John Walker Drive, Manurewa at 3.30 for a cuppa and starting at 3.45pm.

Please come prepared to input - an app, an issue or problem, something ICT related that is going well at your school, etc
We have managed to get a good knowledgeable speaker on Teacher Dashboard and Google Apps for Education for our next meeting this Thursday.

She has had experience administrating and using Google Apps and Teacher Dashboard in the classroom. It will be worthwhile seeing this presentation if your school has just started, or is planning to start using Google Apps and Teacher Dashboard, or were wondering what Teacher Dashboard is all about.

Could you please respond urgently with answers to these questions:

Is your school starting to use, or considering using Google Apps for Education?

Do you use Teacher Dashboard, or are considering using it, or are you just interested in finding out what it is and how it works?

See you there :)

Flatbush School

31 October 2013

Thanks for hosting

Martin Hughes

Google Apps
Microsoft 365
Chrome

Some of the challenges teachers face

• hard to plan, collaborate and co-construct
• hard to use ICT effectively
• hard to find stuff - on servers, email...
• callenged by variations in location, device, software etc
• overwhelmed by the technology

Some of the challenges students face

• sometimes ICT encourages the behaviours we DON'T want or value
• hard to access at school
• easy to access at home
• hard to find stuff
• challenged by variations in location

We should meet the learner where they are at!

We should be doing less better.

3 forms of resource in schools

• time
• money
• good will / motivation

ICT can either grow these resources or burn them all, at a terrifying rate!

Cloud Computing

Makes things more secure and easier to access

Chrome - Advantages

• less confusion
• can sign in - gmail, chrome (data follows into any computer)
• Settings - where downloads, download to; set pages for start up;

Google

• more secure than the server
• things can be in multiple locations

Need to effectively teach students digital citizenship

Google Apps

• Mail
• Drive
• online 'Finder'
• able to give feedback - 
• saves as you go.  Cannot lose your work.
• collaborate on a document
• editing Word docs - go to word, file, new, save as, 
• Calendar

Only 3 things to sign into - mail, chrome, google app

Mark Treadwell "Whatever!" 2007 - S Shape curve

If you want to go quickly go alone. If you want to go far go together. - African Proverb

We need to go far.... and quickly - teachers

Quick Office - for iPads to open Word docs.

Week 3, Term 1 Meeting 2013

Hello all,

We had a great meeting on Thursday 21st February at Puhinui School.

Thanks to Steve for showing us some of your school infrastructure and talking the group through some of your school eLearning foci for 2013.

A major component of our meeting was to decide the scope for our meetings throughout 2013. We want to make sure these meetings are supporting teachers in their eLearning/ICT journeys.

In discussion, we came up with this list of things we would like to have as part of our 2013 meetings:

• sharing from each school (Smackdown format - 2 mins each)
• meetings at a variety of schools
• demonstrations
• pedagogical discussions over ICT issues
• school/classroom tours at venue school
• guests & experts visiting (perhaps 2-3 times per year)
• ideas shared for professional development in eLearning
• Google Docs
• Google Calendar
• Security of devices
• mini workshops (20 mins) at each meeting on agreed topics
• sharing of good online resources, blogs people are reading etc
• iPad app sharing (junior & senior)
• possibly look at running a mini conference!
• collaboration & sharing of classroom based ideas - practical
• examine Core Top 10 Trends & Horizon Report - future focus

If you weren't able to make the meeting, please feel free to contribute any ideas you may have in the comments below this post.

Remember, meetings are held on Thursday afternoons in Week 3 and 8 of each term.

Next meeting: Week 8 (Thursday 28th March) at

Randwick Park School

3:30pm for a 3:45pm start.

 

Have a think about what you might share in the 2 min Smackdown!

 

Hope to see you there!

South Auckland eLearning Cluster Meeting

Rosehill Intermediate School

A small but lively group from the cluster turned up to the last meeting of the year.  A huge thank you to Rosehill Intermediate for hosting and for a fantastic afternoon tea.  From the start there was a lively discussion around the following topics/products/services.

Greg and Mary from TTS shared their wealth of knowledge about all things to do with digital technologies in schools.

 vs 

The suggestion was to set up internal firewalls once we have wireless - not rely Watchdog etc especially once students start bringing their own devices.

Advice and suggestions around BYOB bring your own browser

• see volume purchase programme below
• place apps on iTunes accounts
• app place workload
• work back from the learning outcome, what app would be best to achieve this.
• flip Blooms Taxonomy
• mobile device management - for school apps
• Apple only mdm
• Hosted mdm (expensive)
• purchase shared apps as part of class stationery
• governance pov not allowed to touch others byod.
• insurance
• contents insurance covers it.
• different models eg buying off a trust.
• Starwalker app

Worth reading through and seeing where your school lies within the matrix.  Then compare as you are further along your e-Learning journey

School Facebook Page  - a powerful way for the greater school community to be aware of what is happening in and around school.

The discussion around the Apple Volume Purchase Programme was lively. The importance of supporting app developers was strongly stated and the following points were also raised.

• easy to sign up then...
• 50% discount when you buy 20 + apps.
• apple apps eg pages, keynote, etc, some smaller ones have not opted in.
• every time you use an app 5 x, a message is sent to apple.
• license!!!!
• charge as part of stationery.

The feedback on meetings this term is that this one tomorrow will be our last one for the year as everyone will be too busy later.

So, please try to make it tomorrow to Rosehill Intermediate at 3.30pm for a cuppa, and 3.45pm for a start.

We'll share any Smackdowns that people have to show, plus get an update from Rosehill on their e-learning journey, and continue our discussion about iPads and other devices, volume purchasing for schools, and BYOD and implications etc.

COMMENT: Schools must embrace mobile technology if they are to improve learning outcomes and make the most of their budgets, says Gareth Davies

Tablets will be the next big thing in schools.

The education sector lags behind others in the effective use of data

Consider the data that Facebook or Google have on you.  Now imagine having that richness of data, but all centred on the learner’s educational profile rather than their social profile.  Imagine the insights you could get. Teachers will be able to get an understanding of their students in a way they have never been able to experience before, providing sparks of creativity for the teacher as they look for new and interesting ways to engage the class based on its own unique and individual profile. Technology in education will have a profound impact over the next ten years.  It has always showed promise, but we are now on the cusp of a revolution.

Cloud-based learning

Cloud-based anytime anywhere learning is a brilliant option for schools that have the bandwidth to support 1,300 students when they all log on simultaneously at 9am in the morning.

 What are our thoughts on this, I wonder?

Here is the whole article:

http://www.edexec.co.uk/news/2034/the-future-of-ict-in-schools/