Australian Virtual Learning Showcase – Day 4
By Mary Worrell
Welcome to the fourth day of our Australian Virtual Learning Showcase. Earlier this week we hosted a PLPLive event where visitors could speak with PLP’s Australian International Cohort teams and ask questions about the projects they’ve developed and started implementing over the last year. You can check out an archive of the session here.
Digital Citizenship
The team at St. Joseph’s College in Sydney worked over the last year to embed technology into its curriculum rather than use it as an add-on. The college also developed a digital citizenship program for its Year Seven boys, implementing Web 2.0 tools like RSS feeds on digital issues and written blog reflections to immerse the students in the curriculum. In their effort to educate students about Web 2.0 issues, the college’s PLP team members also learned a great deal saying, “Now we can better inform teachers about 21st century learning as an integrated approach to new pedagogies for multimodal learning and teaching, or work to develop intensively designed units of work that are driven by the transformative potential of the Web.”
“The integration of technology will only happen if a teacher decides that they are 100 percent willing to give it a go. Nobody can prescribe a technology integration plan that will work for all. It is important for each teacher to personally experience and evaluate the benefits of all of the technologies, plan how they it best fits and discover how it suits their own teaching styles,” said Anthony Rooskie, a science teacher at St. Joseph’s.”
You can read more about the team’s experiences implementing such a program at their school by checking out their presentation.
Australian Virtual Learning Showcase – Day 3
By Mary Worrell
We had a wonderful PLPLive Event where several of the Australian PLP Teams from the International Cohort shared details about their projects. You can check out the archive here.
Welcome to the third day of our virtual learning showcase where Australian teams from the PLP International Cohort are getting the chance to present the projects they’ve spent the last few months developing. This week on the PLPNetwork blog, we are highlighting one or two teams and their projects daily, which includes interesting videos that we encourage you to watch. The teams have worked very hard over the last year and we are excited to see the results of the time and effort they invested in their projects. Please check back daily for updates on the Australian Virtual Learning Showcase.
Mooroopna Secondary College
The team at Mooroopna Secondary College culminated their PLP experience in a video about change. The team’s wiki page features a wealth of links to team members’ blogs and class projects – a great place to gather ideas. You’ll enjoy the great music in this video as well.
Toorak College
The team at Toorak took a fantasy approach to their video “Toorak College’s Adventures in Wonderland.” In detailing the team’s PLP experience one team member wrote:
“I can’t speak for everyone on the team, but for me the experience has been a positive one. I make a comment in our video where I say that I felt like an evangelist in our school prior to PLP, trying to convince others of the need for adoption of new ideas. That was a pretty difficult space to habitat. People have a tendancy to steer clear of evangelists; they represent a maniacal fervour that others find off putting. PLP gave a team of teachers a reason to be involved and a reason to change. From a team perspective, we had members who made huge gains and members who made smaller gains. The sheer fact that our school community has been exposed to and understands to some extent what Wikis and Nings are is monumental in my opinion. We’ve even had Ning discussed at a school assembly and our school publications have included articles that reference the new technologies that have been adopted in our school curriculum. We still have work to do but we are further than we were last year and there are more of us willing to explore what is possible. Pretty darn good outcome in my opinion.”
Australian Virtual Learning Showcase – Day 2
By Mary Worrell
Welcome to the second day of our virtual learning showcase where Australian teams from the PLP International Cohort are getting the chance to present the projects they’ve spent the last few months developing. This week on the PLPNetwork blog, we are highlighting one or two teams and their projects daily, which includes interesting videos that we encourage you to watch. The teams have worked very hard over the last year and we are excited to see the results of the time and effort they invested in their projects. Please check back daily for updates on the Australian Virtual Learning Showcase.
If you’re interested in speaking to some of the teams and learning more about their challenges and successes, don’t miss our public Elluminate session today at 8:00 p.m. eastern daylight time (Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane: Wednesday, July 29th, 10 a.m.)
This Elluminate session is open to the public, so please share this information with fellow educators and anyone you think might be interested in attending.
Original link: https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/launch/meeting.jnlp?sid=2007122&password=M.A9AD613E701B0F85C8382F0CE91F92
Short link: http://tinyurl.com/l4jkr3
Here are our Day 2 projects!
Whitefriars College
The PLP team from Whitefriars College, a boys school in Melbourne, developed a blog that serves as a central location for links to the many other blogs and videos the team developed. The blog is also a place for team members to express the change they’ve experienced over the last year with PLP:
“The spirit of exploration and desire to connect to others has been the crux of the Whitefriars College Powerful Learning Practice team’s learning. We have moved from isolation in our own classrooms, in our faculties, in our school, to becoming part of a personal learning network which supports and nourishes us. Our immersion in Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis, nings, etc. has connected us to people and to new ways of enhancing learning and teaching”
The Whitefriars team has a wealth of information on their blog, including links to many team-produced videos and blogs. We encourage you to visit and take a look around.
Upwey High School
The team from Upwey in Melbourne also developed a blog to serve as a central location for links to class blogs and to detail the PLP experience.
“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.”
Please visit their blog and take a look at the many class blogs developed by students and teachers at Upwey. You can also read more in-depth reflections on PLP by Upwey’s team members:
“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.” – Marie-Josée Mill
Australian Virtual Learning Showcase – Day 1
By Mary Worrell
Welcome to the first day of the Australian Virtual Learning Showcase.
The Australian International Cohort teams have been working on the finishing of their culminating projects . This week on the PLPNetwork blog, we are highlighting one or two teams and their projects daily, which includes interesting videos that we encourage you to watch. The teams have worked very hard over the last year and we are excited to see the results of the time and effort they invested in their projects. Please check back daily for updates on the Australian Virtual Learning Showcase.
We also hope you will join us for an Elluminate session that will take place tomorrow on Tuesday, July 28th at 8 p.m. eastern daylight time or Aussie time (Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane: Wednesday, July 29th, 10 a.m.) where you can learn about each team’s project, including successes and challenges, as well as ask questions of team leaders and members.
This Elluminate session is open to the public, so please share this information with fellow educators and anyone you think might be interested in attending.
Original link: https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/launch/meeting.jnlp?sid=2007122&password=M.A9AD613E701B0F85C8382F0CE91F92
Short link: http://tinyurl.com/l4jkr3
So on to featuring our first projects!
Community of Action
The team at St. John Vianney School in Queensland outlines the progress of the team’s project development so far, including reflections from teachers and an original rap created with students.
“Since the teachers involved in the project were already using blogging and other Web 2.0 tools, we decided to focus on the other teachers at our school and use this as a context for creating rich learning experiences for students. We also tried to focus the context of our project with the other classes on a stewardship theme and the question of – How can we give of our time, treasure and talent to support our community? To engage teachers in professional learning and reflection we provided some tasks for them to complete with their classes but found our project was too ambitious for the time frame so far. We have started to make progress but feel that we are more at the beginning of the school’s journey and the next 6-18 months will lead to great things at the school.”
Please take a moment to view the St. John Vianney team’s presentation, “Time, Treasure, Talent: Our Community of Action.” You can also find links to team members’ blogs and Web sites on the team’s wiki page.
Time, Treasure, Talent: Our Community of Action from Ackygirl on Vimeo.
Serving the 21st Century Student
The team at Parramatta Marist High School in Sydney focused its project efforts on “a professional development plan that assisted staff in becoming engaged in meeting the needs of the 21st century student and then equipping them with the confidence and skills to achieve this change in pedagogy,” according to the team’s leader Gavin Hays.
You will find a wealth of information and transparency about the team’s project development on its wiki page, as well as links to team members’ blogs and Web sites. Below is a video the team developed detailing the challenges it faced in meeting the needs of 21st century students.
Australian Virtual Learning Showcase
Save the date!
The Australian teams of the PLP International Cohort will be presenting their culminating projects through the PLP Network blog. Each day during the week of July 27th through the 31st, we will be posting about a team’s project, including descriptions, informative links and artifacts, as well as a video.
We also hope you will join us for an Elluminate session that will take place on Tuesday, July 28th at 8 p.m. eastern daylight time (Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane: Wednesday, July 29th, 10 a.m.) where you can learn about each team’s project, including successes and challenges, as well as ask questions of team leaders and members.
This Elluminate session is open to the public, so please share this information with fellow educators and anyone you think might be interested in attending.
Original link: https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/launch/meeting.jnlp?sid=2007122&password=M.A9AD613E701B0F85C8382F0CE91F92
Short link: http://tinyurl.com/l4jkr3
We hope to see you there!
New Jersey cohort wraps things up
By Mary Worrell
Teams from the New Jersey PLP Cohort celebrated the culmination of a year’s worth of professional development last month with a project showcase.
Sarah Mendoza of the Carteret Public Schools team, an English teacher, said she found the PLP experience to be very enriching.
“I can speak for all of us – it was an eye-opener. One of the most memorable moments was when we were discussing effective use of technology in the classroom,” Mendoza said. “People operate under the notion that they know technology, but we realized we really don’t in many cases.
The Carteret team experimented with some of the things they were learning through PLP with a class wiki.
“We received lots of student participation – they weren’t hesitant at all – and they demonstrated higher order thinking skills,” Mendoza said. “They were actually learning and engaging in conversations on their own. We understood that when we let go a little bit of the traditional methods, students engage more in the learning.”
Scott Godshalk of the Quakertown Community School District found the expansion of his professional learning network to be one of the most beneficial perks of his PLP experience.
“Just being exposed to these conversations had the biggest impact on me,” Godshalk said. “I’m used to the conversations being within our four walls.”
The Quakertown team is launching their professional development project with something teachers are familiar – a professional booktalk – before moving into virtual conversations.
“I think a way of summarizing my shift is that I have always been one of those technology people,” Godshalk said. “But through PLP and the initial face-to-face, I had to sit back and say ‘good grief – I don’t know what they’re talking about.’ It has really expanded my thinking.”
The team at Hoptacong experienced a similar shift in their thinking.
“For me, PLP fostered a thought provoking question, namely what impact will Web 2.0 social networking tools have on instruction and learning?” said Joanne Mullane, curriculum supervisor.
Colin Wells said the process gave him “the tools to help broaden the spectrum in which [he] presents content to students.”
And Douglas From can better see the future of education.
“During this past school year, I was exposed to and at times felt bombarded by the massive explosion of how information is being shared in society,” From said. “As an educator, I will need to blend the traditional educational experience with new technology.”
Please visit each team’s wiki page to learn more about their projects.
Union City School District
Read about Union City Board of Education’s team project here.
Springfield Public Schools
Read about the Springfield team’s project here.
Quakertown Community School District
The team at Quakertown combined the familiarity of a professional book club with Web 2.0 professional development and documented their journey every step of the way. Read more about the project here.
Sayreville Public Schools
Read about Team Sayreville’s project here.
Jersey City Public Schools – Curriculum & Instruction
Read about the Curriculum & Instruction team of Jersey City’s project here.
Jersey City Public Schools – Special Education
Read about the Special Education team of Jersey City’s project here.
Pascack Valley Reg. H.S. District
The team at Pascack is developing an ongoing professional development plan that includes a number of Web 2.0 learning and communication elements. Read more about their project here.
Bound Brook School District
Read more about Bound Brook’s project here.
Vineland BOE
Read more about the Vineland BOE’s project here.
Keansburg School District
The team at Keansburg is developing a professional learning community for teachers, and ultimately students. Read more about their project here.
Kean University
Read about Kean University’s project here.
Perth Amboy (Middle Schools)
The team at Perth Amboy Middle developed a virtual learning community for students to communicate with Holocaust survivors and students from other schools that have visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Read more about their project here.
Perth Amboy (High School)
Read about Perth Amboy High’s project here.
Long Branch School District
The team at Long Branch created a professional development wiki for educators to collaborate and share course content and ideas. Read more about their project here.
Carteret Public Schools
Read about the Carteret team’s project here.
Hopatcong Public Schools
The team at Hoptacong is addressing instruction and professional development through their project. Read more about it here.
State Leadership Team
Read about the State Leadership team’s project here.
