Yesterday every government school in Victoria had a pupil-free day in order to launch the Ultranet to staff and teach them how to use it. I am one of the Ultranet trainers at my school. Although we are currently using the features of Google Apps heavily in our school and are quite happy with the capabilities, we wanted to train our staff yesterday in the ultranet so that we can have a detailed discussion about how we might use it. The phase two rollout of the Ultranet will have student tracking and assessment capabilities that are potentially more advanced than what we are using now, so we wanted the staff to be Ultranet literate by the time this next rollout occurs. At JMSS we are in the lucky position that most staff are highly computer literate and our daily work includes heavy ICT use. The students all have tablet computers that allow them to access any online resources and lesson plans wherever they are and much of our curriculum and staff and student collaboration occurs online.
Unfortunately, as most of us predicted, the system fell over at around 9am when most of the teachers in the state attempted to log in. Although this was a much-needed capacity test for the system, around the state many a "plan B" was unveiled and rolled out to fill the Ultranet gap. In my 'plan B' I had decided to show a couple of the Common Craft videos on Social Networking and Social media, and then discuss what Twitter is and how we could use it as a professional networking tool and to communicate and interact with students.
This session was a big success. The staff were not asked to join twitter, I merely discussed how I use it and what I think it is good for, however as I was talking, most of the staff in the room joined up and starting contributing to the discussion. In fact, JMSS now has such a twitter presence that I think I have created a monster!
Throughout the day I had been following twitter discussions around the Ultranet as I find that twitter is often very useful as a news source and generally quicker than most other communication channels. The beauty of the discussion around the ultranet yesterday on Twitter is that it put me in touch with a whole lot of Victorian educators - something that will help expand my professional online network. For me this was a big plus because part of the way I use twitter is as a way of keeping up with what is going on in education, however it is not easy to find good teachers to follow. I feel like that has been the biggest gift that yesterday gave me.
The other upside for this day was the chance to do some collaborating as a group. Any school who did not have a plan B that was technology and pedagogy focussed really missed an opportunity to get some serious thinking and planning done around what the Ultranet means for Victorian schools and how technology can be better used to enhance teaching and learning. For many schools who have not had the access or the know-how to access technology in their teaching, the Ultranet means big changes and more options. That is something that the media have failed to acknowledge in their reports today about the failure of yesterday's training day. They have also failed to acknowledge the hard work that went in to many school programs for the day, and the learning that came out of it.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Once again I have been slack...
So this is a post that talks about some of the things I have been thinking about over the last month. Probably the most enlightening thing to happen this term has been the Presentation I went to by Andrew Douch who is a leader in innovative teaching practices and creating online resources. Check out his website by clicking on his name. I have been following Andrew for a while but I felt at my old school that creating online resources would not be as useful because the students had virtually no access to computers in the classroom. Due to the fact that at JMSS we have a one to one tablet program, I feel like I can finally do all those things that I ever wanted to in terms of ICT. The fact that we are working in a team teaching, open plan learning space also means that it is even more important to steer away from chalk and talk and to use the classroom times for interaction and creativity and communication.
So I started creating online video-tutorials in order to start taking some of the content out of the classroom and in to the students homework or down time. The Andrew Douch presentation was really just in time for me because it helped to give me a context to what I was doing and to focus in on not only what I wanted to get out of the project but also what was possible to get out of the project. It made me think more critically about how I want the pedagogy of my english classes to run and has really set the agenda for me in terms of future directions for English at this school.
Here is what I'm thinking:
- All the content based "chalk and talk stuff" will now be turned in to video tutorial podcasts to be posted online. This includes topics like "annotating news articles" "how to write a language analysis essay" "writing persuasively" etc.
I have already created 5 different tutorials.
- Students will be expected to watch these tutorials as "pre-learning" ie, before they come to class.
- Classes will be spent with interactive activities, communication, group work, presentations, and creative pursuits - things that students can't do on their own.
- We are also building in more opportunities for one on one conferencing - where students get to bring in what they are working on and get their teacher's help and advice.
- We are also working on creating workshops that students can withdraw in to during work time if they need extra help with certain elements of the content.
All of these strategies will help students to work at their own pace, watch and rewatch presentations if they need to (saving you from answering the same questions over and over from students who were not listening), interact with each other and the teacher in a way that best suits them, ask more questions, get more individual time with the teacher, and be more responsible for their own learning. It also claims back the classroom from the content a bit too.
Of course the downside is that these tutorials take time to create but with any basic screen capture software and good content, the payoff is that you create it once and it is there for years. Each year we can build on the information that is there, rather than recreating the wheel or repeating the same information time and time again. As the years go on, students have a solid bank of tutorials to draw from, something that helps them get the extra reinforcement that they need from their learning experiences.
The beauty of this also is that you know that each teacher is contributing to the creation of resources and that despite who their classroom teacher is, the students all have access to the very best lessons and advice from ALL of the English teachers at the school, something that you cannot say in most places.
It will take away any element of competition from between teachers and classrooms because everyone is working for the good of the whole cohort and not their individual class.
So that is my utopian classroom vision for English at JMSS. I feel that although there is still much to be done, we are well on our way to creating a dynamic, interesting and relevant curriculum that engages kids and meets their needs when and where they need them. Now, back to it!
So I started creating online video-tutorials in order to start taking some of the content out of the classroom and in to the students homework or down time. The Andrew Douch presentation was really just in time for me because it helped to give me a context to what I was doing and to focus in on not only what I wanted to get out of the project but also what was possible to get out of the project. It made me think more critically about how I want the pedagogy of my english classes to run and has really set the agenda for me in terms of future directions for English at this school.
Here is what I'm thinking:
- All the content based "chalk and talk stuff" will now be turned in to video tutorial podcasts to be posted online. This includes topics like "annotating news articles" "how to write a language analysis essay" "writing persuasively" etc.
I have already created 5 different tutorials.
- Students will be expected to watch these tutorials as "pre-learning" ie, before they come to class.
- Classes will be spent with interactive activities, communication, group work, presentations, and creative pursuits - things that students can't do on their own.
- We are also building in more opportunities for one on one conferencing - where students get to bring in what they are working on and get their teacher's help and advice.
- We are also working on creating workshops that students can withdraw in to during work time if they need extra help with certain elements of the content.
All of these strategies will help students to work at their own pace, watch and rewatch presentations if they need to (saving you from answering the same questions over and over from students who were not listening), interact with each other and the teacher in a way that best suits them, ask more questions, get more individual time with the teacher, and be more responsible for their own learning. It also claims back the classroom from the content a bit too.
Of course the downside is that these tutorials take time to create but with any basic screen capture software and good content, the payoff is that you create it once and it is there for years. Each year we can build on the information that is there, rather than recreating the wheel or repeating the same information time and time again. As the years go on, students have a solid bank of tutorials to draw from, something that helps them get the extra reinforcement that they need from their learning experiences.
The beauty of this also is that you know that each teacher is contributing to the creation of resources and that despite who their classroom teacher is, the students all have access to the very best lessons and advice from ALL of the English teachers at the school, something that you cannot say in most places.
It will take away any element of competition from between teachers and classrooms because everyone is working for the good of the whole cohort and not their individual class.
So that is my utopian classroom vision for English at JMSS. I feel that although there is still much to be done, we are well on our way to creating a dynamic, interesting and relevant curriculum that engages kids and meets their needs when and where they need them. Now, back to it!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
New Term-New Beginning
Term 3 started with our official opening. 150 official guests, weeks of planning, the Minister for Education Bronwyn Pike and a bit of a circus really! We had to change our normal timetable to fit around the minister's schedule and the kids had a weird 'third-of-a-period' where they acted like they were doing something so that when the minister came through she could check out the sort of work we do at our school. Very surreal but an affirmation that we are an 'official' school and that everything we have worked hard for is coming together. Many special guest speakers and much food later, the kids finished off their period one classes and the hard work was done!
I feel like this term things are really coming together. I came down with the 'Man-Flu' (given to me by the special man in my life) in the last week of the holidays and I still have a bit of a mannish voice and 'snotty' nose a week and a half later, and it kind of put me behind schedule. Forced me to relax a bit though I guess!
So far this term (and by this term I mean in the last three days) I feel like I have really taken steps towards organising my time at work more efficiently. There is so much to do in a day and I felt a bit like I was playing catch up during first semester rather than taking the bull by the horns and being proactive. I think given the fact that we are in a new school and starting from scratch it has been easy to let some things fall by the wayside and my house leader duties certainly took a back seat to the more pressing issue of curriculum development. Some things that happened at the end of last term really bought the student management procedures to our attention so over the holidays the house leader team had a meeting where we came up with an abridged policies and procedures document for house leaders and classroom teachers to ensure that everyone knows what their responsibilities are in terms of student management and wellbeing. This way we know we have procedures in place so that kids won't slip through the cracks. We are now tracking, reporting, and pre-empting student issues with more rigour and a tighter process.
What I really love about this school is the way that the responsibility for student health and wellbeing is shared amongst our staff equally. Rather than having a top heavy process or one where two people are responsible for 200 kids, every staff member is a tutor who is responsible for the welfare of 10-13 kids and they are the first port-of-call for any issues. Escalated issues are then referred to the house leaders. I have scheduled time in my week where I do admin activities - following up student work and doing my attendance reports and chasing kids and this makes me feel more organised and also makes me use my time for efficiently. Instead of sitting around looking at an overwhelming pile of work and not knowing where to start, I now have a super detailed timetable and schedule and the time that isn't devoted to house stuff and meetings is devoted to curriculum development. I think this way I will be more efficient.
I have also put in to place some extra elements of the curriculum this term that will make it easier for me to track my students. Due to the fact that we have a one to one computer program, all of our curriculum documents are online and the students can access all their work from home or school. They have a Personal Learning Site of their own and they post all of their class work online. This stops us from having to collect and mark workbooks and we can access the work from home or school to check it. I have also added an extra column to the lesson plans titled "What should I be able to explain by the end of the lesson." The students are given 10mins at the end of each lesson to put up a blog post online that reflects on what they learnt in the lesson and explains the dot points under the "what should I be able to explain" column. I think it is a nice way for the students and staff to measure the student's level of understanding of the themes and ideas of the class. It will help us determine which areas of the content are problem areas for students and how we can cater our extra support sessions in class. In order to systematically track the kids I have timetabled in an extra period as part of our English meeting time where we can sit together and look at our students work and plan and chat about their progress.
I am excited by the curriculum we are creating and I guess it is all a bit of an experiment at this stage because it is something that I have not tried before. It is all about trying to get the balance of the classroom right when the classroom is an open space full of students. The aim is that with the digital resources online, teachers will be more free to run "just in time" workshops with students and extra support sessions in areas of need. That is the next layer I need to embed into the curriculum. Right now I should probably get off the computer and get back to finishing off these digital resources.
I feel like this term things are really coming together. I came down with the 'Man-Flu' (given to me by the special man in my life) in the last week of the holidays and I still have a bit of a mannish voice and 'snotty' nose a week and a half later, and it kind of put me behind schedule. Forced me to relax a bit though I guess!
So far this term (and by this term I mean in the last three days) I feel like I have really taken steps towards organising my time at work more efficiently. There is so much to do in a day and I felt a bit like I was playing catch up during first semester rather than taking the bull by the horns and being proactive. I think given the fact that we are in a new school and starting from scratch it has been easy to let some things fall by the wayside and my house leader duties certainly took a back seat to the more pressing issue of curriculum development. Some things that happened at the end of last term really bought the student management procedures to our attention so over the holidays the house leader team had a meeting where we came up with an abridged policies and procedures document for house leaders and classroom teachers to ensure that everyone knows what their responsibilities are in terms of student management and wellbeing. This way we know we have procedures in place so that kids won't slip through the cracks. We are now tracking, reporting, and pre-empting student issues with more rigour and a tighter process.
What I really love about this school is the way that the responsibility for student health and wellbeing is shared amongst our staff equally. Rather than having a top heavy process or one where two people are responsible for 200 kids, every staff member is a tutor who is responsible for the welfare of 10-13 kids and they are the first port-of-call for any issues. Escalated issues are then referred to the house leaders. I have scheduled time in my week where I do admin activities - following up student work and doing my attendance reports and chasing kids and this makes me feel more organised and also makes me use my time for efficiently. Instead of sitting around looking at an overwhelming pile of work and not knowing where to start, I now have a super detailed timetable and schedule and the time that isn't devoted to house stuff and meetings is devoted to curriculum development. I think this way I will be more efficient.
I have also put in to place some extra elements of the curriculum this term that will make it easier for me to track my students. Due to the fact that we have a one to one computer program, all of our curriculum documents are online and the students can access all their work from home or school. They have a Personal Learning Site of their own and they post all of their class work online. This stops us from having to collect and mark workbooks and we can access the work from home or school to check it. I have also added an extra column to the lesson plans titled "What should I be able to explain by the end of the lesson." The students are given 10mins at the end of each lesson to put up a blog post online that reflects on what they learnt in the lesson and explains the dot points under the "what should I be able to explain" column. I think it is a nice way for the students and staff to measure the student's level of understanding of the themes and ideas of the class. It will help us determine which areas of the content are problem areas for students and how we can cater our extra support sessions in class. In order to systematically track the kids I have timetabled in an extra period as part of our English meeting time where we can sit together and look at our students work and plan and chat about their progress.
I am excited by the curriculum we are creating and I guess it is all a bit of an experiment at this stage because it is something that I have not tried before. It is all about trying to get the balance of the classroom right when the classroom is an open space full of students. The aim is that with the digital resources online, teachers will be more free to run "just in time" workshops with students and extra support sessions in areas of need. That is the next layer I need to embed into the curriculum. Right now I should probably get off the computer and get back to finishing off these digital resources.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Yong Zhao - 21st Century Learning Skills Workshop
One of the other leading teachers and I went to a workshop in the city yesterday run through the innovations and excellence branch with renowned academic and educator Yong Zhao. I think that the point of the day was for this particular branch to work out what their next project would be and we were there to help them workshop ideas. Yong Zhao had some interesting things to say. I have been to plenty of sessions on 21st century learning in the last 5 or so years but some of the things he was saying were a little more left of centre. He was asking us to think about what knowledge we think is of most worth in this age of technology and information and suggesting that now that we are in a globalised world, and distance no longer defines us, what determines how well an adult will succeed in this global market is what you can give them that makes them worth more than the others who would cost less to pay. Companies will hire people from any where in the world if their labour is cheaper than somewhere else so it is not necessarily about qualifications any more but about what students have to offer.
Zhao believes that what matters in this global economy is
- diversity of talents
- creativity - not skills
- entrepreneurship
- passion
He believes we can encourage this in students through personalised learning - and by that I mean not the watered-down version that we have been attempting to do here for the last 10 years, but actual, personalised learning based on developing the students strengths and helping them reach their own personal life and career goals through resources and learning styles. No standardised, national curriculum with tests to check whether students have met pre-determined benchmark levels.
Interesting stuff that is so far removed from the current moves of education towards standardised, centralised testing and reporting.
This certainly raises questions and also provoked some ideas for me. I have been working these holidays on creating electronic "video" documents that work through the steps of language analysis in a way that covers the sorts of information I would normally chalk and talk. I will be providing students with these sorts of resources, and paper based resources and the learning from these documents can occur whenever and whereever they see fit. This means that during class-times I can run work-shops on the things that the students are struggling with and spent time with individual students working on their own particular concerns.
I am hoping that as the year progresses the english curriculum becomes more and more interactive and student focussed and self-paced like I always hoped it could be.
I will leave this post with a couple of questions posed by Yong Zhao:
What knowledge is of most worth? _Herbert Spencer 1859
Which human jobs should be replaced in schools?
What matters?
What strength does our school have that makes us different or unique?
How to we spread innovation?
What is the cost of high test scores? What do you lose?
How often do we trust out students?
Zhao believes that what matters in this global economy is
- diversity of talents
- creativity - not skills
- entrepreneurship
- passion
He believes we can encourage this in students through personalised learning - and by that I mean not the watered-down version that we have been attempting to do here for the last 10 years, but actual, personalised learning based on developing the students strengths and helping them reach their own personal life and career goals through resources and learning styles. No standardised, national curriculum with tests to check whether students have met pre-determined benchmark levels.
Interesting stuff that is so far removed from the current moves of education towards standardised, centralised testing and reporting.
This certainly raises questions and also provoked some ideas for me. I have been working these holidays on creating electronic "video" documents that work through the steps of language analysis in a way that covers the sorts of information I would normally chalk and talk. I will be providing students with these sorts of resources, and paper based resources and the learning from these documents can occur whenever and whereever they see fit. This means that during class-times I can run work-shops on the things that the students are struggling with and spent time with individual students working on their own particular concerns.
I am hoping that as the year progresses the english curriculum becomes more and more interactive and student focussed and self-paced like I always hoped it could be.
I will leave this post with a couple of questions posed by Yong Zhao:
What knowledge is of most worth? _Herbert Spencer 1859
Which human jobs should be replaced in schools?
What matters?
What strength does our school have that makes us different or unique?
How to we spread innovation?
What is the cost of high test scores? What do you lose?
How often do we trust out students?
Monday, June 28, 2010
Post 101 - getting lost
Apparently this is my 101st Blog at this site - it has only taken me 6 years to get there! I often feel like I get lost. Not that I lose my way really, but that I have an incredible ability to block out anything that I don't want to or have time to deal with. I can be focused on the next task at hand to the detriment of the whole picture sometimes. It happened in my first long term relationship- I blocked out the fact that I no longer wanted to be in the relationship in favour of addressing only the things in my life that were easy to deal with. I learnt the hard way then that that was not something that is sustainable. No matter what you decide to block out, inevitably it is still there when you come back to it- and may, in fact, have become worse.
At the moment I feel like I have dropped a few balls. Work for me is hectic but fantastic and I am focussing a lot of my energy on getting the job done. I come home at night, after 10 or 11 hours out of the house and I am tired and just want to sit on the couch like a vegetable. This bothers me though. It seems sometimes like I am living to work and not working to live and there needs to be more balance. A lot of the time I can't be bothered cooking dinner let alone preparing a packed lunch for school the next day and as a result we have been eating badly. I have put on over 5 kilos since the wedding a year ago and I really don't like it. I need to somehow find a balance between work and health and 'me' time because it is only going to get worse if I don't do something about it now.
I am trying to get back on track. I have organised to go swimming one night after work with a workmate. Another two nights a week I am supposed to go walking with another one of my colleagues. So it is just the diet really. I sat down, on this, the first day of my holidays, and planned out what I will eat for lunches and for snacks because these have been my biggest issue. I have made a shopping list and am currently trying to work up the motivation to get off the couch and go out and purchase said goods. I want to make the holidays my kick-start to a healthier lifestyle rather than a eat-fest which is what it can be if I don't watch it.
I also think that professionally I need to make this year at work about more than just surviving. I am already looking around for the next challenge but I think I really need to make sure that I am doing everything at work to the best of my ability before I start piling more work on myself. I have been thinking about doing a masters next year, partly just to give myself some concerted time to think and reflect on what I am doing and how I can improve. I seem to never make enough time for that these days. Maybe this blog is part of the answer. I will be having a chat these holidays with my boss about what he thinks I should do in terms of post-grad study and am doing some soul-searching myself about what is motivating me and what I want to get out of the next few years. I want to stop letting life pass me by and make some concerted decisions about where to next.
At the moment I feel like I have dropped a few balls. Work for me is hectic but fantastic and I am focussing a lot of my energy on getting the job done. I come home at night, after 10 or 11 hours out of the house and I am tired and just want to sit on the couch like a vegetable. This bothers me though. It seems sometimes like I am living to work and not working to live and there needs to be more balance. A lot of the time I can't be bothered cooking dinner let alone preparing a packed lunch for school the next day and as a result we have been eating badly. I have put on over 5 kilos since the wedding a year ago and I really don't like it. I need to somehow find a balance between work and health and 'me' time because it is only going to get worse if I don't do something about it now.
I am trying to get back on track. I have organised to go swimming one night after work with a workmate. Another two nights a week I am supposed to go walking with another one of my colleagues. So it is just the diet really. I sat down, on this, the first day of my holidays, and planned out what I will eat for lunches and for snacks because these have been my biggest issue. I have made a shopping list and am currently trying to work up the motivation to get off the couch and go out and purchase said goods. I want to make the holidays my kick-start to a healthier lifestyle rather than a eat-fest which is what it can be if I don't watch it.
I also think that professionally I need to make this year at work about more than just surviving. I am already looking around for the next challenge but I think I really need to make sure that I am doing everything at work to the best of my ability before I start piling more work on myself. I have been thinking about doing a masters next year, partly just to give myself some concerted time to think and reflect on what I am doing and how I can improve. I seem to never make enough time for that these days. Maybe this blog is part of the answer. I will be having a chat these holidays with my boss about what he thinks I should do in terms of post-grad study and am doing some soul-searching myself about what is motivating me and what I want to get out of the next few years. I want to stop letting life pass me by and make some concerted decisions about where to next.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
What do I want to know about English in an open plan learning space?
I have been asked to think about what I want to know about my English classes and what data I would like to collect regarding English in an open plan learning environment.
These are the things that I would like to know short term.
-What the students like about English
-How they think it could be better
-Do they feel we cater to their needs?
-Do they feel like they are cared about?
-What do they want to learn?
-Do they think we use the spaces effectively?
-How is English at JMSS different from at their old school?
I think I would also like to do a study that would tell us if we are adding value to the students over their time in English at JMSS. At this stage we don't have any real data about their potential and our potential to help them realise their own.
Just some quick thoughts. I think I will need to ponder this further.
These are the things that I would like to know short term.
-What the students like about English
-How they think it could be better
-Do they feel we cater to their needs?
-Do they feel like they are cared about?
-What do they want to learn?
-Do they think we use the spaces effectively?
-How is English at JMSS different from at their old school?
I think I would also like to do a study that would tell us if we are adding value to the students over their time in English at JMSS. At this stage we don't have any real data about their potential and our potential to help them realise their own.
Just some quick thoughts. I think I will need to ponder this further.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Another new beginning
Here is my new blog resolution: to blog at least once a week about what is going on and about things I am reading and connections I am making. I feel like a lot of the time I get bogged down in the fact that there is always something that needs doing in this job and these "guilt bag" items are the things that I prioritise over everything else. For the remainder of this year I am going to try to make blogging a priority.
I am reconnecting with the education community digitally, at least this is my aim. I have just set up a twitter account and have added a whole lot of educational sites - let me know if there are good ones I should add.
Today I went to Ultranet training - I was quite excited because this is my first glimpse of what the ultranet can do since my old school was a trial school many years ago. I am pleasantly surprised by its functionality. Coming from a school using Google Apps (which I find intuitive and clever and functional) I was more than a little concerned that the Ultranet was going to be a cruel and dysfunctional joke of an online network that was miles behind what we are already using. I am pleased to say that this is not so. The ultranet appears to have much of the functionality of Google Apps, but what it lacks is the ease of navigation of Google Apps, and the high end functionality. We will certainly not be replacing everything we do with the Ultranet once it goes live, because the systems we have in place are suiting our needs perfectly and doing much of what the ultranet will, but I can see that for the majority of schools who do not have a system in place at all, it will be a revolution in the way that they do things and in the way that they communicate with each other and with students.
One of the things that I have loved the most about coming to this new school is the technology. Due to the fact that every student has a tablet computer, the sky is the limit in terms of what you can reasonably expect them to do in a class. I found that at my old school access to technology was limited and intermittent, and it made you reticent to do anything because it wouldn't work anyway (and I am one of the believers! imagine how the technophobes felt!) At this school, with the combined strength of tablets and google apps - we are doing everything! Curriculum online, groups set up for student communication, sites for student parliament, curriculum, student groups etc. Google docs created and shared in class, google forms used to survey students and collect data in real time for a variety of purposes.
When technology is working for you and not against you it is the most liberating feeling as an educator. I feel like everything I ever wanted to do in a classroom in terms of communication and collaboration is possible here and there are very few drawbacks.
So this is what the Ultranet Pd made me think about.
I am going to try to do some professional reading as well and post on here my thoughts. At the moment I am investigating starting my Masters next year too so stay tuned! I think that I really need to wake my brain up and start learning again in a variety of forums and that is what I'm going to try to do!
I am reconnecting with the education community digitally, at least this is my aim. I have just set up a twitter account and have added a whole lot of educational sites - let me know if there are good ones I should add.
Today I went to Ultranet training - I was quite excited because this is my first glimpse of what the ultranet can do since my old school was a trial school many years ago. I am pleasantly surprised by its functionality. Coming from a school using Google Apps (which I find intuitive and clever and functional) I was more than a little concerned that the Ultranet was going to be a cruel and dysfunctional joke of an online network that was miles behind what we are already using. I am pleased to say that this is not so. The ultranet appears to have much of the functionality of Google Apps, but what it lacks is the ease of navigation of Google Apps, and the high end functionality. We will certainly not be replacing everything we do with the Ultranet once it goes live, because the systems we have in place are suiting our needs perfectly and doing much of what the ultranet will, but I can see that for the majority of schools who do not have a system in place at all, it will be a revolution in the way that they do things and in the way that they communicate with each other and with students.
One of the things that I have loved the most about coming to this new school is the technology. Due to the fact that every student has a tablet computer, the sky is the limit in terms of what you can reasonably expect them to do in a class. I found that at my old school access to technology was limited and intermittent, and it made you reticent to do anything because it wouldn't work anyway (and I am one of the believers! imagine how the technophobes felt!) At this school, with the combined strength of tablets and google apps - we are doing everything! Curriculum online, groups set up for student communication, sites for student parliament, curriculum, student groups etc. Google docs created and shared in class, google forms used to survey students and collect data in real time for a variety of purposes.
When technology is working for you and not against you it is the most liberating feeling as an educator. I feel like everything I ever wanted to do in a classroom in terms of communication and collaboration is possible here and there are very few drawbacks.
So this is what the Ultranet Pd made me think about.
I am going to try to do some professional reading as well and post on here my thoughts. At the moment I am investigating starting my Masters next year too so stay tuned! I think that I really need to wake my brain up and start learning again in a variety of forums and that is what I'm going to try to do!
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