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Stephen Collis
Northern Beaches Christian School, Terrey Hills, New South Wales
When Steve Collis wanted to teach beginner French students about language, culture and life, he created a safe, password-protected, moderated Web site called Beyond Borders. There, students can send emails to a forum, text chat live, collaborate on central documents (wikis), post voicemails and keep blogs. Created initially to help students practise French, Steve was quick to see its application in other subjects and recruited schools to join online communities for English, German, Italian, Maths, HSIE and Visual Arts students. New technologies were added, including a voicemail system and a 24/7 VoIP server for live audio conferencing.
Beyond Borders has a flexible, devolved structure allowing students and teachers to initiate interaction and collaboration on an improvised basis that suits the rhythm of their particular course. This may be the key to its success; in nine months Beyond Borders has grown to include 33 teachers and over 300 students from around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Japan and China.
Steve uses the same technologies from Beyond Borders for differentiated and personalised learning in his classroom. He has established all-encompassing online course modules accessible from class and at home. This digital architecture allows all students to work at their own pace, an effective solution to the challenge of differentiation. Students and staff are also excited at the prospect of a whole new venture in 2007, where any student with internet access will be able to complete HSC French entirely online, attending Steve's classes via videoconferencing.
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Mark Hennessy
Presbyterian Ladies' College Junior School, Burwood, Victoria
Using Microsoft technologies, Mark Hennessy created a range of open-ended mathematics learning tools, including a curriculum-based directory of over 700 digital learning activities. An example of these is a task where students use tables and borders to create visual metaphors for their own statements about fractions, decimals, or percentages as used in population statistics.
Mark believes that when learners learn to work mathematically, they devise many strategies to arrive at a solution. This can also be said about using computers to facilitate the educational process. Because the activities integrate technology into mathematical learning, students build technology skills even as they use the applications as a broad base for mathematical investigation. And Mark's open-ended learning activities cater to a broad range of student abilities, enabling teachers to gauge student progress. student progress.
As an ICT integration mentor, Mark works closely with primary students and classroom teachers to effectively integrate curriculum initiatives using a range of applications and digital resources. These resources are proving to be invaluable, enabling students to express knowledge, understanding and ideas in their learning. Mark's ICT classes also involve team-teaching situations, which makes for effective professional development scenarios. development.
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Tammy Holmes-Watts
Highfields Primary School, Highfields, Queensland
When Queensland radio station CFM ran a competition to win a trip to Australia Zoo, Tammy Holmes-Watt's Prep class made a PowerPoint presentation and a movie as their entry. Although the class didn't win the competition, the young students' mastery of technology wowed the community.
Tammy uses technologies including digital cameras and microscopes, e-portfolios and the internet to develop integrated learning. She gives students a say in deciding which technology will help their learning for each project - and supports them in using their chosen tools.
Tammy says: 'Technology has also been great for communicating with parents, who watch PowerPoint shows that the children complete daily and take home on CD. Even though they work full time, parents now have a much better understanding of what their children are up to in class, and can share in the highlights.'
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Tobias O'Connor
Mulga Street Primary School, Mount Gambier, South AustraliaWhat happens when you ask primary students to create a public health message about the hazards of bacteria, then let them loose with clay, webcams and animation software? You get some very colourful short films that will make you want to wash your hands - right now.
Tobias O'Connor used a combination of traditional and new teaching methodologies, including using an online environment to build a unit of work about bacteria, based on the science and health curriculum. 'This provides a great scaffold for children,' he says. 'It's so accessible - you can see from their creations they can access resources from any computer at school or home. It beats having thousands of bits of paper all over the place.'
Over the term, students built knowledge about bacteria, logging on to the online learning environment to access learning objects, activities and experiments. Then they worked in groups of four to six to create their films, sharing four webcams between them. Scriptwriting, making clay creatures and props, and getting a grounding in lighting, sound and editing took three weeks. Behind the scenes, students were learning construction, literacy, teamwork and problem solving skills. Then they were ready to roll, some with stomach-churning results.
'I was looking for something that was different, engaging and motivating for students,' Tobias says, 'And it was very successful - you can see from their creations that they understood what they learned.'
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John Pearce
Bellaire Primary School, Highton, VictoriaJohn Pearce uses Microsoft technologies to help his primary school students experiment, collaborate, communicate, create, and solve problems and gain meaning. Using blogs, wikis and other read/write tools, his Grade 3 and 4 students publish their work to the world. The 'comment' function of the blogs allows John to monitor and respond as the projects evolve, adding constructive criticism or active encouragement when necessary. Publishing on the internet for a broader audience has also proven to be a powerful stimulus to improve students' work.
An Interactive SmartBoard in John's classroom lets students share ideas and information including working on collaborative blogs with schools overseas on comparative studies of cultures. Using wikis and the board, students have also composed a story, kicking it off for students in other schools to continue the storyline.
But it doesn't stop there. John's students have turned stories they have published using Microsoft Publisher into animated movie versions using Microsoft Photo Story. In the process, they learnt how to scan and crop hand-drawn illustrations; add narration and transitions and finally create .WMV files. The completed movies are then uploaded and screened on a dedicated blog. John's students have also learnt to use Microsoft PowerPoint to create online quizzes and interactive glossaries. The students have become such enthusiastic advocates of technology that they now teach themselves and each other.
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Marietta Sansom-Gower
Centre for Extended Learning Opportunities, Rosny Park, TasmaniaWhen Marietta Sansom-Gower enquired about online extension programs for mathematically gifted upper primary school students, she was asked to develop one. So she built Infinity Squared, a Web site that now connects 40 highly numerate students across Tasmania.
Marietta says: 'Teachers sometimes feel uncomfortable with mathematical giftedness and this is a fabulous way to make sure these students get the extension they need. Now students from all over Tasmania email each other, send me solutions, talk to me online.'
Infinity Squared has problems for students to solve, discussion forums and links to helpful and interesting Web sites. Marietta encourages students to use diverse technologies to solve the problems - and she's received solutions in the form of bitmaps, Paint and PowerPoint documents, to name a few.
And she's on a mission to get students talking about maths so they can appreciate its beauty. 'The maths classroom doesn't generally involve discussion,' she explains. 'But I encourage it. Maths isn't just about being excellent number crunchers - it has a philosophical and aesthetic side that comes out through discussion. I try to broaden students' understanding of what maths can do and can be.'
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Michael Sisley
Alfred Deakin High School, Deakin, Australian Capital TerritoryWhat do robots, critters with exploding stomachs, and edible aliens have to do with studying English? They were all created by students taking Michael Sisley's mySF, an online science fiction course that uses the power of technology to get year 10 students reading, writing and presenting their ideas.
Michael wanted to spark the interest of male students and create learning options for students unable to attend school. He built a carefully sequenced, thematic online environment where students can explore how sci fi comments on and critiques contemporary society, even though the texts themselves might be set in a far distant future, or a very different planet.
Students have chat sites, podcasts, online journals and a rich library of resources at their fingertips. Michael says: 'First we get them to familiarise themselves with the tools so the novelty wears off and they actually start working. After the introductory unit they can choose their own direction through the course, and that gives them more ownership and involvement - they feel they have more choice.'
At the end of the class students work in teams to construct an alien, a genetically engineered creature or a city of the future, then present their creation to the class. That proved fatal for the edible alien, a sentient being in the form of a cake. By the end of the class it was no more.
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Robyn Thorpe
Woodroffe Primary School, Woodroffe, Northern Territory
Robyn Thorpe's passion for integrating ICT into her classroom teaching was the springboard for mentoring colleagues to do the same, not just in her own school but across the Northern Territory.
Robyn emphasises student-centred cooperative learning and incorporates a broad range of technologies, from video to digital whiteboards, to engage her students and deliver outcomes-based learning. In one class, students created a talking book from a fairy tale using PowerPoint. Completing the project meant mastering technology skills while gaining an understanding of written and visual literacy.
Always willing to share her knowledge and excitement about using ICT in learning, Robyn is very active in sharing tools, techniques and skills with colleagues and is always ready to trial new approaches, for example, e-learning objects. 'I've spent a lot of time helping colleagues use ICT as a management tool, for example, through our anywhere, anytime portal,' she says. 'It's all about thinking smarter, not harder!'
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Terri Van Zetten
St Mary's College, Broome, Western Australia
In an effort to provide even greater opportunities for her students at St Mary's College and enable them to experience learning in an enjoyable, motivational environment, Terri Van Zetten developed the idea of an after-school E-Club where students could explore a range of technologies at their own pace.
Though small to begin with, the Eclub was an immediate success. Each week Terri introduced her students to a new technology. They explored how to create and publish wikis, online blogs and podcasts. And when Terri suggested Year 4 and 5 students make a short movie and enter the VITTA 3in6 2005 film festival, they were keen to get started.
Before the shoot, each student was given a role: screenwriter, camera operator, director and so on. On the day, they had six hours to make their three-minute film, which had to include a secret word given out that morning. Half the time was gone before students realised that if they didn't work together as a team, they wouldn't finish in time. They began to develop skills in constructing models, literacy, communicating ideas and solving problems.
Terri believes technology inspires her students, giving them confidence in their own abilities and improving learning. And the students finished their film - a spoof of Star Wars using stop-motion animation and a range of media and resources, including Microsoft Windows Movie Maker. It gained a special mention at the festival and won its category.
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Belinda Visser
Middle Swan Primary, Stratton, Western AustraliaDuring a co-operative reading lesson, Belinda Visser's students were reading a text about the Commonwealth Games Goodwill Initiative and were interested in issues affecting children in developing countries. Using an interactive whiteboard, Microsoft Word and the internet, Belinda Visser was able to immediately access information, video and photographs to show how children lived in those countries.
As a result, her students decided they wanted to become actively involved by sponsoring a child in a developing country. Without the technology to access the information right at that moment, the learning, problem solving, collaboration, critical thinking and powerful reflection would never have occurred.
Belinda says: "The interactive whiteboard has made it easy to enhance lessons by integrating a wide range of content, such as pictures, videos, graphs from a spreadsheet, and text from a Microsoft Word file. Then using Microsoft Photo Story 3, Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft PowerPoint, or Microsoft Producer, the students create stories that can be published as an e-book or a movie on the internet."
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Team winners |
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Phil Lockhart
Oombulgurri Remote Community School, The Kimberley, Western Australia
Hugh Soord
Como Secondary College, Como, Western Australia
How do you connect students in the city with peers in an Aboriginal community more
than 2000 kilometres away? Hugh Soord and Phil Lockhart found a way using technology.
Hugh and Phil's cross-curricular project embedded a range of outcomes from Technology & Enterprise, English, The Arts, and Society and Environment - with the aim of promoting cultural understanding and exchange between students at Perth's Como Secondary College and the Kimberley's Oombulgurri Remote Community School.
To kick things off, students at both schools made a video introducing themselves and their community. They then used email, instant messaging and PowerPoint to exchange more information, developing an increasing awareness and appreciation of each other's culture. They were also developing technology, literacy and collaboration skills.
Hugh says, 'The students at Como generally had little or no contact with indigenous culture, and those at Oombulgurri didn't know how multicultural our school is. By using communication and other technologies both groups gained a real insight into the other's culture.'
As their world view increased through this interaction, the Aboriginal students were inspired by their peers at Como to set goals, celebrate success and articulate their aspirations. And with students now planning to animate their stories and host them on their own Web site, the dialogue between these very different communities is just getting started.
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Mark O'Farrell & Danielle Stanway
St Augustine's College, Brookvale, New South Wales
Mark O'Farrell and Danielle Stanway wanted to encourage Year 7 English students to write at an emotional level about significant changes in their life, so they created a unit of work on writing personal narrative stories using Microsoft Photo Story as the technology tool to create the digital story.
Students learned the components of storytelling for visual media, including understanding the visual portrait elements of a story. They were asked to break down the story into three parts - including writing, narration and collecting images - to build a three-minute digital story. Students developed their ideas in groups and used a SmartBoard to storyboard their thoughts as well as draw on peer feedback. When all of the components were completed, the students' visual stories were then turned into movies using Microsoft PhotoStory and Movie Maker. The students were encouraged to create music tracks to help set the mood for their story and to develop the emotional theme.
Mark says the use of technology helped motivate the students to complete the project. And students were completely enthused about the concepts of visual literacy - an important result as getting boys to talk about their thoughts and feelings at an emotional level can be a challenge. This project was also a personal success for Danielle and Mark, as it enabled them to collaborate in an open classroom environment and they saw how using ICT added new and exciting dimensions to their students' work.
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Annie Reid & Helen Willmer
Open Access College, Marden, South Australia
Concerned that their senior distance education students were missing out on the social interaction that other students take for granted, Annie Reid and Helen Willmer built ConXU - a virtual environment where this very diverse student population can get together via discussion forums, chat rooms and photo galleries.
And get together they did. It wasn't long before virtual friendships blossomed and students were organising social events to meet in person. 'We wanted to create a safe place where our students could get to know each other - and it really worked,' Annie says, 'When they finally came face to face they felt they already knew each other - so there wasn't that awkwardness.'
Once Annie and Helen's colleagues saw what could be achieved in an online environment, they were keen to take advantage of digital tools, such as wikis, blogs, memos and discussion forums, to make their teaching more student-centred and interactive and create a blended learning environment.
Annie explains. 'These tools really extend what we were able to do with teleconferencing. Some tools facilitate reflection, some debate, some group production. By integrating them all into a course we can support different and diverse learners - and overcome the tyranny of distance.'
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