Education - by state
How your state is helping local schools
Partners in Learning: Victoria
The Victorian PiL initiative, Creating e-Learning Leaders (CeLL), started in 2004
with the aim of improving teachers’ confidence and skills in the integration of
ICT into planning, curriculum and pedagogy. Twenty-eight schools and clusters across
the nine Victorian education regions were selected to become local or regional centres
of ICT expertise and innovation, and to support whole-school change. The CeLL initiative
ended in June 2007. An external evaluation framed the parameters for the next initiative:
Catalyst, Changing Practice, an action research project involving nine schools.
Catalyst schools are expected to be a resource within their own region, to be called
upon for purposes such as demonstrating ICT innovative practice, supporting other
schools to maximise the ICT potential in teaching and learning, and to deliver professional
learning such as workshops and seminars in the second year of the program.
Partners in Learning Victoria has trained nearly 39,000 Victorian teachers over
the past five years, which Represents 12% of State-employed teachers across the
State.
Microsoft investment in Victoria
- PiL has rewarded ten Victorian
Innovative Teachers by supporting their projects and enabling them to attend
workshops and international conferences, which often take place overseas
- Victoria is home to one of the world’s 12
Mentor Schools, Silverton Primary School, and one of the 30
Pathfinder Schools, Dallas Primary School
- Alongside South Australia and Queensland, PiL Victoria has partnered
with the DEECD in a digital pedagogy project, developing 1-to-1 classroom support
resources for teachers – available both online and in print.
- PiL Victoria has facilitated the participation of four local
schools in the National Innovative Schools program.
- In a joint project with Queensland and Victoria, PiL SA is investing
in creation of digital pedagogy that will drive 1:1 learning programs in schools,
including personal development support and case studies.
- The
Kodu pilot has been deployed in 26 schools, which is assessing the impact of
using Kodu, an Xbox programming language, in the classroom
Evidence
Initiative: IDEAS Lab
This program aims to challenge the way we think about learning and teaching, and
find new ways to take technology into the classroom. It has been formed through
a unique partnership between the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood
Development, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems, the University of Melbourne’s Graduate
School of Education and Hume City Council.
Case Study: Evaluation of Partners in Learning
in Victoria (extracted from the National Evaluation, May 2009) [PDF]
An in-depth analysis of the implementation and results of Victoria Partners in Learning programs. For this project twenty-eight schools and clusters across the nine Victorian education regions were selected to become local or regional centres of ICT expertise and innovation and to support whole-school change.
Videos and Case Studies: Catalyst Schools
The Globalism Research Centre at RMIT has conducted a series of case studies on
schools involved in the Catalyst: Changing Practice project documenting
the unique circumstances and resulting achievements in each school.
