Sartz’s Blog

The end of the term is upon us and as always it has absolutely flown by. I have decided to make this Blog a record of some of the things which I encounter during my time in schools. Hopefully this will serve to jog my memory in the future and may well be of use to someone out there who is interested in the way ICT is used throughout the Swan Hill area. In the future I will be adding to this Blog every week, but for now the rest of this post is my thoughts on what I have encountered during this semester.

So far I have visited 11 of the 23 schools which are in the Swan Hill area. It always amazes me how willing the teachers are to welcome you into their school. As with most things the schools I have visited have been at a range of levels with their skills and access to ICT hardware, but the one common thread which I find in all schools is their willingness to listen and to give new things a go. Although some teachers are wary of taking big steps with ICT, all teachers are willing to try things in bite (or maybe its byte) sized pieces and before they know it they are creating lesson using Interactive Whiteboards, wikis and all manner of other things. “Scotty” in Swan Hill is a prime example, she has gone from being a Blog “Newbie” to running multiple blogs with students from several year levels. I am certain that her blogs (DeScotty & Scotty7D) will be well worth revisiting as the year progresses and she is already making plans of better ways for her year 7 and 12 classes to access this wonderful tool, including a “Heroes” blog in the lead up to the Olympic games.

Many schools have requested assistance with the creation of Intranet and Internet sites and working with these teachers has also been great and I am looking forward to working with these teachers in the future to enhance their classrooms through the use of many other ICT tools including Interactive Whiteboards. IWB’s seem to be the hot topic in schools at the moment with many schools seeking advice and what sort of IWB they should buy and how they might best use them. I have to say that I have really enjoyed using the TeamBoard and was very very impressed with the new Mimio unit which was just great to use. One thing which teachers seem to be struggling with is ideas of how to best use IWB’s, next term I think that this will need to be something which I will focus on and have made a few tentative contacts to start up an IWB group across a few schools.

Most schools that I have visited have now done the ePotential survey and we have designed a walk through for teachers to assist them in making specific ICT goals which they might use in their P&D plans. Most schools have done very well in this survey especially when compared against the rest of the state. It would appear that ICT leadership is one weakness which needs to be addressed (Statewide) and as the year progresses I would hope to find ways to start to address this deficit as well. It has been great to see so many schools who are well equipped with regard to ICT around the area, and the Principals which I have worked with have been wonderful with regard to planning for the ICT needs in the future. Data has also played a big part in this, and I have worked with On Demand Testing, Early Years Numeracy Interviews, AIM, Online POLT, etc in several schools. Getting this stuff into an easy to use format for schools has, at times, been a real challenge and has caused more than a few headaches, but with the help of these schools leadership teams I feel that we have kicked more than a couple of goals on the data front.

I have also had a pretty steep learning curve during this term. It would seem that my time as VCE Manager at Swan Hill College had made me a little “soft” with regard to new technologies. After 7 weeks though I am pleased to say that I am a web 2.0 addict. I obviously have a Blog (Yep your reading it), a wiki (Which have plenty of resources on it including a new and improved Student At Risk Mapping Tool) and have recently arrived in the wide world of podcasts, which has been really blowing me away.

Well thats about it for Term 1 2008. Have a great Easter guys, next term is going to be a big one.

Catch Ya Later

Sartz