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

Our very first online conference is fast approaching. The WMR Ultranet Team has been sponsored by the Knowledge Bank, DEECD to host an online conference.

The purpose of our conference is to support our teachers and leaders in the Western Metropolitan Region, as well as others from around the state and globe. Our three key themes are Create, Collaborate and Communicate. Our program is designed around these themes with a look at tools such as wikis and blogs, digital stories, mobile technologies, and strategies around thinking, cyber-safety, budgeting and resourcing for effective eLearning.

We have some wonderful presenters lined up with Kym Nadebaum as our keynote presenter. Kym’s session “The Song Remains the Same” is sure to raise as many ICT questions as it answers. Other presenters include Anne Mirtschin, Stephen Palmer, Tony Richards, Peter Davis, Trudy Brentnall, Louise Bowe, Rob Pyers, Colin Schot and Martin Mielimaka and the Ultranet Team.

Our online presentations run between October 7th and 9th. To support these sessions we have also planned hands on workshops between October 21st and 30th. So I guess, it is a hybrid – virtual and f2f.

A full program can be seen on our Ning and on our wiki. You can also join our Ning and create your own profile.

A poster can be seen here – now-conference-poster.

Hope others can make it too