Yes, I understand it’s the last week of term and we already have enough on our minds (I myself finished stuffing the last of the portfolios into envelopes late on Sunday evening), but it seems people everywhere are offering technology-based professional learning during the holidays.

For those who are interested in simple, no more than one day out of my break PD, the following options are on offer:

Learning with Web 2.0 is being offered by the Catholic Education Commission NSW at St. Mary’s Cathedral College, Sydney on Monday 2 July. It’s a great opportunity for dioceses to share what they’re doing, while contributing to the shared wisdom at the same time. Learn about everything from blogs, to social bookmarking (e.g. our fantastic del.icio.us pages), to podcasting, to Second Life – all in an educational context. Admission is free, but donations will be taken to support an Educational Technology project in East Timor. I plan to go, so I hope others can join in and form a little St. Michael’s group. Online registration needs to be done now.

CEO Holiday Programs are also on again. These include:

• Introduction to your Mac
• Photostory in the classroom
• Podcasting in the classroom
• Building shared resources in CENet
• Learning Technologies Q&A
• Telling the story with video
• Creating web dilemmas
• Working with images
• Exploring Web 2.0

These are running on the 5 and 6 July. Some are half, while others are full day courses. Go to the Professional Learning page on Staffnet and search for “holiday”.

For those who want to take things a little more seriously, there are two conferences on offer, but it would be cutting it extremely fine to register (at least for the first one): The NSW Computer Education Group has its annual conference in Newcastle on Sunday 1 and Monday 2 July.

The NSWCEG are also co-sponsoring with the Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL) the two-day workshop 21st Century Leadership and ICT at the Mercure Hotel, Rosehill on 12 and 13 July.

It’s been one of the most awaited events in the St. Michael’s calendar for 2007.  If this blog is to believed, it’s even been the talk between the world’s most powerful men!  Finally, our interactive whiteboards are now mounted on the wall.  6 down, 2 more to go (hopefully tomorrow we’ll have a date for next week when 1H and 1B will be finished), but the whole process has been quite exciting, and perhaps a little stressful and tiring (from some peoples’ perspectives, at least).

Thanks to Mark and his team at Coastelec for your great work on the installations.  The rooms look fantastic and the result is very professional.

Now, all the lucky teachers are asking is “when can we start playing?”  Well, USB cables, extra sound connectors and powerboards should be in tomorrow, so the question really is “when do you want to start?”  We will be scheduling some initial training, and perhaps even some visits to see the boards in action in other IWB-established schools.

Photo Collage by Dundoo

Yesterday saw 6S present their robotics projects, competing against each other for the priviledge of representing St. Michael’s at the Diocesan Robodance Challenge in a fortnight’s time at Bede Polding College. This morning they shared their work with CEO staff who have been leading the robotics pilot in several schools this year including St. Michael’s.

The buzz inside the library yesterday was phenomenal. Given Andrew’s work in supporting the project, 6E came along to watch as well, and were immediately hooked. Also impressed with the students’ achievements were the many 6S parents who attended, as well as staff from Nagle College.

As an “outsider” myself to this project, it was not difficult to see the rich learning that had taken place. The technology skills, the implementation of the design and make process, the evaluation and self-assessment, the teamwork, visualisation, critical thinking and problem solving all came together yesterday in displays that have the made the students (and will make the school) very proud.

The learning hasn’t stopped, however. The students are still seeing how they can improve before they take their robots to the final. Technical glitches still popped up on the day that they want to iron out. Nathan will provide them with extra time and support on Friday, as will Nicole Sprainger from CEO who is going to visit again to provide assitance with preparing the music backing tracks. Then, if we can find time, we’re going to try and get 6S to take the video Andrew recorded yesterday, edit it, and prepare it for uploading for sharing on the Internet.

The results so far and the achievements the students have made have been phenomenal. Congratulations to them, and to the whole support team - Angela, Andrew, Nathan and the pilot project team at CEO. As far as pilots go, this one can definitely be chalked up as a resounding success!

June 12/13 have been set as the dates for installation of our new interactive whiteboards in Year 4, Year 1 and 4/5K.

There will be some inconvenience as classes are shuffled to different rooms during installation, but it will be worth it.

A timetable will be drawn up this week, but it will be Year 4 (and hopefully 4/5K) on Tuesday, and Year 1 on Wednesday so as to best fit the PE/Music timetable (making some rooms conveniently vacant).

Our Year 4, Year 1 and 4/5K teachers are counting down the days!