More than just knowing stuff!

NOW almost a year ago!

September 18, 2009

In a couple of weeks time it will be one whole year since we (WMR Ultranet Coaches) organised and held the NOW Online Conference.  It was a great event and we had some wonderful presenters talking about three main themes – CREATE, COLLABORATE and COMMUNICATE.

NOW 2008

These themes are still strong ones that are being explored in schools and educational forums.  Earlier this evening I was looking through recent tweets on Twitter and came across one from klbeasley and it made me think back to these three themes.

The three Cs

So what has happened over the last 12 months?  How have we moved on and helped our students become creators of new knowledge, communicate their ideas and understandings, and collaborate with others at school and beyond school?

Even though I am no longer an Ultranet Coach, I have seen and heard of some gains within my region, although still feel that there are many competing priorities for schools that often it is difficult to make the big gains.

Now that I am working within one school I have been able to watch some of these themes being explored by our teachers.  Like other schools, we too have had many priorities, one of which is starting everything from scratch.  Being a greenfields school there was a lot to establish – curriculum, policies, vision, uniform, and so on.  However, I am pleased that with time and the right understanding of how ICT can be used to leverage learning, we are moving forward.

Our 5/6s have just recently made links with an International School in Bangkok, whilst our Year 7 have just recently live blogged with Anne Mirtschin’s Year 7s at Hawkesdale P-12. We are hopeful these links will be developed over the next term.

We are still learning and still experimenting with these themes and technologies but it is happening

Entry Filed under: ICT, learning. Tags: Bangkok, collaborate, communicate, create, murcha, Year 5/6, Year 7.