Powerful Learning Practice » PLPprojects

PLP’s Australia Community Gears Up for Culminating with Incredible Projects

Susan Carter Morgan — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:26:36 +0000

Sometimes it’s the unexpected learning that surprises and captures us. For many teachers in the PLP Victoria, Australian community, the journey through PLPConnectU and their project-based learning showed them how powerful collaboration can be.

The teams will be attending their culminating on November 29. Led by Sheryl Nussbaum Beach and Alan Levine, known as CogDog to many of us, the #plpconnectu teams will present their final work and hear from Alan about story-telling. The groups have been collaborating on a range of topics from creativity to digital literacies, and they are excited to meet face-to-face once again after working primarily together online for many months.

“For me, having the courage to communicate via Elluminate and Skype, where we got to see and hear each other was a little more daunting but very rewarding, and I have built some great professional relationships through the project,” said Delia Jenkins, a member of the Environment group who organized a “flash mob” for the students.

Though many teachers were connected through Twitter or their blogs, for others this was the first time for collaboration with teachers from outside their schools. Using tools to connect, the teams planned and carried out their projects and shared their reflections on their own blogs as well as the Australian Global2 blogging platform.

“This has made me realize how powerful a network can be to draw on knowledge, reflect on my learning and other’s learning, pose questions and have discussions with depth and passion. I have made connections and friends, which I know I can draw on in a time of need,” said Mel Cashen from the Creativity group. “I loved how everyone was on the same journey of learning, and it was certainly powerful to be able to discuss what we were learning with our team, other PLPeeps, coaches and experts.”

Though PLP is not about tools, having a chance to use the tools together was a great plus. “The sharing of professional knowledge and experiences and the support from each other was definitely a major plus for me. To actually be able to put into use – in a meaningful way – many web2.0 tools that I had heard about,” Delia said.

Several of the groups were able to tie their learning to the standards of learning. The Animals group, for example, created a presentation, explaining how the curriculum standards fit into their project. And the New Literacies group tackled how reading and writing can be improved through blogging. Their project teaser shows how excited the students were to get started!

For me, the chance to meet and learn with such talented, hardworking folks has been a joy. I have enjoyed our Google Plus and Elluminate chats (even if they were in the middle of the night!) Laughing at their jokes as well as watching them work through deep learning in this collaborative process has paved the way for strong friendships.

Kynan Robinson, a member of the Creativity team, captures the experience well: “The process of learning in the PLP project was a exciting, stimulating, confronting and messy one – much like it is in the rest of life. The greatest part for me was the opportunity to connect with so many inspired educators around the world, which gave me a real opportunity to debate ideas and think deeply about how I teach, why I teach as well as new learning theories. Absolutely fantastic.”

Keep an eye out for the artifacts from this community. Groups were formed by passion, a new approach for a PLP community. The groups worked together to create some incredible projects, and they will be sharing soon.

Australian Virtual Learning Showcase – Day 4

Mary Worrell — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:49:09 +0000

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.

SJC PLP: Our Report

View more documents from Gary Molloy.

Australian Virtual Learning Showcase – Day 3

Mary Worrell — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:32:18 +0000

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

Mary Worrell — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:07:40 +0000

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

Mary Worrell — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:44:26 +0000

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.