ICTeD Services

Resources for ICTEV Williamstown Study Tour

Very much looking forward to hosting a session of teachers today at my school.

Workshop notes and some resources are attached here.

Tour Notes Download Williamstown PS ICTEV Study Tour

What's ICT? What's eLearning? Download What's ICT? edit

Student ICT Code of Conduct Download ICT CoC 2011 New

My PD Offerings for October, 2011

For VITTA

Reinvent your Teaching with Challenge Based Learning!

Find out how Challenge Based Learning can invigorate teaching and learning of Primary and Middle Years classes! It is an approach that is highly engaging, embraces authentic learning and is great for students and teachers to use 21st century learning skills. Find out about the theory and seeclassroom examples.
A comprehensive set of online resources will be available as will membership of a network to support this learning.

DATE: Thursday, October 20, 2011

TIME: 4:30 - 6:30pm

VENUE: The ICT Teaching & Learning Centre, Williamstown Primary School,
Corner of Parker and Electra Streets, Williamstown.
Ample parking available outside school, check signage.
Nearest railway station, Williamstown Beach.

MacBooks, online resources and afternoon tea included

PRICE: Non-members $100 Members $80

To Register http://www.vitta.org.au/events/event/reinvent-your-teaching-with-challenge-based-learning

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For VITTA

What's New in iLife '11?

Just got a new MacBook, maybe through the DEECD Notebooks for Teachers and Principals program? You will notice that it comes with the new version of
iLife.

This will be a hands-on session as much as possible. A comprehensive set of online resources will be available as will membership of a network to
support this learning.

. So what's new in iLife '11?
. What are the changes?
. What are the implications of this upgrade for the classroom>
. Exploring what's new in iPhoto?
. Exploring what's new in iTunes?
. Exploring what's new in GarageBand?
. What about iWeb & IDVD?
. Exploring what's new in iMovie?
. What are some great things you can do in the classroom with iLife '11
. Where to after this session?

DATE: Thursday, October 27, 2011

TIME: 4:30 - 6:30pm

VENUE: The ICT Teaching & Learning Centre, Williamstown Primary School,
Corner of Parker and Electra Streets, Williamstown.
Ample parking available outside school, check signage.
Nearest railway station, Williamstown Beach.

MacBooks, online resources and afternoon tea included

PRICE: Non-members $100 Members $80

 To Register http://www.vitta.org.au/events/event/whats-new-in-ilife-11

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For ICTEV

Western Region Study Tour

Thursday, October 27, 2011 - 09:00 - 15:30

Visit three schools during the day [Williamstown PS, Altona PS & Seabrook PS]

Synopsis of Williamstown component

9.00 am
Williamstown Primary School - Host: Mark Richardson,
Whole School ICT/eLearning planning at Williamstown Primary School.

Mark Richardson, ICT Coordinator at Williamstown PS, will introduce you to the ways that the school organises its curriculum around its notebook/netbook trolleys and interactive whiteboards. Find out how these devices are used in English, Mathematics and Integrated Studies and learn how you can plan activities like these for yourself. Examples of planning and activities will be shown and you will be able to talk to teachers about their work.
Topics covered will be:
• The importance of whole school ICT / eLearning planning;
• How to plan great ICT / eLearning lessons;
• The organisational and technical support that is needed;
• Using Bloom's Digital Taxonomy as a planning tool;
• Making the most of all the software on PCs and Macs;
• Using Interactive Whiteboards to enhance classroom management, teaching and learning.
Mark will also demonstrate some of the great Web 2.0 tools to use in the primary classroom, discuss the assessment of student work in ICT / eLearning lessons, explain how a Learning Management System can enhance your lessons and conclude with describing how PD can be integrated into these activities.

Member Cost: $160.00 Non-member Cost: $190.00

Register here http://ictev.vic.edu.au/pd/2011/10/27/western-region-study-tour-integrating-ict-your-primary-school-program

Hope to see you at one or all of these events

Teaching Takeover: A new model for junior school ICT lessons

Tomorrow start my ICT teaching for this term with Grades 1 and Grade 2. I'm really looking forward to it, as are the students I think. With 3o new computers in our ICT Teaching and Learning Centre , we have been able to roll out the old computers into those grades. So for the first time ever, Grade 1s and 2s students have reasonable access to computers in their classrooms as well as access to weekly lessons in the ICT Teaching and Learning Centre. Lessons started last term with me taking lessons with these classes and with the teacher present, [demonstration lessons]. This model will continue this term but tweeked as part of this Teaching Takeover model. The lessons are based on the school's ICT /eLearning Scope and Sequence.

Here is an example of the Grade 2 Scope & Sequence.

The first sequence of lessons for Grade 2 comes from Online & Networked Resources, Developing Competency using Purple Mash, a website that the school has a subscription.

The model is this. I take a lesson with the whole class and the classroom teacher [as a demonstration lesson]. Students can practice these skills taught in their classroom during the week. When students return to the ICT Teaching and Learning Centre a week later, they complete a second lesson, which is revision and extension. This second lesson is taken by the classroom teacher. I am in the room as a mentor / coach and can assist with the technology and pedagogy.
Plan for the first sequence of lessons.

Using Purple Mash - Lesson One

Revision of previous content:
• Revision of login process, correct holding and usage of mouse and sitting posture.
• Revision of safety rules
• Revision of the Dock and the Desktop

New content:
• Brief introduction to the Internet. What is it? How do we get there?
• Introduction to Safari as a Web Browser
• Introduction to School Intranet
• Purple Mash Login and password
• Sandpit time with what’s on the home page [ 5 minutes]

• Activity One: The Purple Mash Home Page
    How do we print?
    How do we save?

• Activity Two Creative Tools 2 Design and Make
    Purple Mash at home

• Activity Three Games > Simple City > Cafe

Using Purple Mash - Lesson Two

Revision of previous content:
• Revision of Purple Mash login process

New content:
• Activity Four [to be negotiated with classroom teacher]

• Activity Five [to be negotiated with classroom teacher]

I really looking forward to teaching / mentoring in this model. I will write late on it's success or otherwise.

Some of the cohort last term in ICT !

A School's eLearning Planning - The Magazine Article

I've been asked by an Educational Technology Solutions magazine to write an article on the eLearning Planning of my school. Nice to have my stuff on this picked up by them on Google. See http://www.ictedservices.com/eLearning_Planning.html. It will be interesting writing the 1500 words, as it will have to summarize the journey the school has gone through over the past 18 months. I will need to contact the Victorian Department of Education & Early Childhood Development, [DEECD], re: the availability of the eLearning Planning Guide & Matrix to a wider audience. And then write the article. Also need to check out some back issues of ETS & their style guide!

Working Title: How to write a great eLearning plan for your school….and why your school needs one!!

Breakout: Now all this expenditure [on ICT in schools] we would want to be able to demonstrate that we there are improvements to student achievements and learning. But can we if fact, do this? Or is this great amount of expenditure just being spent with little monitoring?

Resources:

DEECD Resources for eLearning Planning for Leaders

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/studentlearning/elearning/planning/default.htm

Williamstown Primary School eLearning Plan 2008-2009

http://www.williamstownps.vic.edu.au/docs/eLearning%20plan.pdf

The DEECD ePotential Continuum

http://epotential.education.vic.gov.au/continuum.php

Postscript: looks as though it has been accepted, with a publication date of early next year!

ICT Scope & Sequence for Primary / Elementary Schools /3

Developing a sustainable, useful and practical ICT Scope & Sequence for my school has required a lot of thinking & development. The direction of the  school' s ICT Scope & Sequence has come from its eLearning plan 2008-2011. [See http://www.ictedservices.com/eLearning_Planning.html and my blogpost of 18.02.2009 for what has happened before in this process.]

To make a plan that will be used by all teachers, enhance current curriculum planning, reflect the Victorian Essential Learning Standards for ICT, lead to useful assessment tools and be manageable has been a challenge.

However, I think we have now developed a useful model. This has used the planning documents of the Grade 3/4 Professional Learning Team [PLT] as a starting point.  I have used their current documentation for term 2, 2009 [which finishes in three weeks]. After meetings in the last week with both the Grade 3/4 and Grade 5/6 PLTs, they have both agreed to try the model next term.

So this is the model [no rocket science here], but I think an improvement on many of the ICT Scope & Sequence documents I have read, which imply that:

1. The teacher, teaches only ICT and is obsessed by checklists and spreadsheets [and is armed with a clipboard 24/7, monitoring and recording every time a student right clicks to get a contextual menu etc.]

2. The teacher has the post doctoral qualification necessary to understand the terminology of the Scope & Sequence document.

3. In reality, the teacher will be overwhelmed and will use every excuse possible to ignore the document.

So what is our school's ICT Scope & Sequence process [ based on the 3/4 & 5/6 PLT planning documents]

1. We get each PLTs Annual Planner [an A3 sheet and highlight any references to ICT in any subject/ domain]

2. We then get each PLTs Term Planners [A number of A4 pages of the activities to teach each VELS domain & dimension made at the end of the previous term]. Here is a Download Term 2 34 2009 of the ICT related parts on the Term 2/2009 3/4 PLT Planner. Highlighted parts relate to the explicit teaching of ICT.

3. I've created an ICT Scope & Sequence proforma / document for the 3/4 PLT with the following features:

• The extent of the school's ICT program P-6

• The applications / Web 2.0 Tools that need to be taught in the 3/4 Scope & Sequence for this term, related to the activities that have been highlighted.

• A matrix placing the activities to be taught [from the PLT planning documents] under the 3 dimensions for ICT for the 3/4 PLT [ICT for Visualising Thinking, ICT for Creating & ICT for Communicating]

• The one ICT activity is highlighted in each ICT dimension

• A three stage assessment rubric has been made for each highlighted activity

• A list of ICT skills that require specific teaching is extracted from this matrix

• These ICT skills are listed on another matrix, as to who will teach them, [ The ICT teacher, the Librarian or the classroom teachers]

• A list of the Professional Learning requirements on those staff who will teach those explicit ICT skills are then listed. There are a number of modes of delivery for this, i.e. external provider, demonstration lesson, mentoring, peer teaching, or professional learning session in a PLT meeting.

Documents:
Download ICT Scope & Sequence 3_4 T2_2009  Scope & Sequence model
PowerPoint Activity about Australia Planner #1 #2

As usual for my blogposts, I will report back later........

ICT Scope & Sequence for Primary / Elementary Schools /2

I wrote a number of blogposts last year about coordinating the development of my school's eLearning plan and one of its targets which was the development of a school scope and sequence charts in ICT. These charts would be lists of ICT skills and activities for students K-6. These would show development of skills not only between year levels, but also be the means to monitor some progress by students during a year. The scope and sequence charts were to relate ICT skills to learning activities and be the basis for school written progression points in ICT. The scope and sequence charts were also to indicate which teachers were responsible for teaching and assessing what. A progress report on this was made at the VITTA Conference in November, 2008. You can read about what happened up to this stage on my website. After I spoke at the conference I got back the ICT scope and sequence ideas from each professional learning team [PLT] at my school. Despite common input at a curriculum day, the range of responses by PLTs  to wtiting these charts was wide ranging. Some responses were in my opinion, not a useful way to go! They included things such as skills charts, not related to learning activities, gripes about resource allocation and copying and pasting for the VELS ICT standards. I really felt we weren't getting anywhere. However, one team came up with what I think will be a great model for writing ICT scope and sequence charts in future. Their process was that they went back to the previous term's planners, thought about what they wanted students to know and then developed some flow charts. I've started to put these on to Gliffy. Here are the first two. [ I'll add the rest over the next week.] There is a planner for using PowerPoint in an Animals unit of work and another on using spreadsheets to make graphs [Maths]. They also wrote mindmaps on Desktop Publishing [text documents], Student webmail, homework skills and 2D and 3D shapes, Congratulations to that PLT for doing such a great job.

Developing a School ICT Scope & Sequence /1

Last Friday was my school's Curriculum Day [a pupil free day for teacher professional development]. The first session was to start the next part of the school's eLearning plan. I firstly presented a progress report on our agreed targets for the first half [2008 -2009] of our four year eLearning plan. This was very pleasing with most of our strategies being at least started, but with also a number completed. See the color coded attached PowerPoint.   Download elearning_plan_progress_blog.ppt
As for the ICT scope and sequence, which this was going to be the product of each professional learning team [PLT], the librarian and myself [as ICT coordinator], there were two critical things we needed consensus on. Firstly, there needed to be an agreed format and secondly, it had to be user friendly, not a large checklist, but more to indicate the progression of ICT skills in the context which engage students and enhance teaching & learning. This became the agreed position of my colleagues after my presentation, [see below to download my presentation]. It was agreed that the rubric format best served this purpose. PLTs began work on their individual scope & sequence charts, and while not finished on the day, they are a work in progress for completion over the next weeks.   Download ict_s_s.pdf