Australian Virtual Learning Showcase – Day 1

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.