• A webcast across the Diocese on Wednesday 18 February from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.  We will broadcast the presentation live through the library
• Professor Heppell will be visiting the Blacktown South Catholic Schools to work with us at St. Michael’s and Nagle the next day. Further details of both events will be coming soon

Of course, the most common question at this point is who is Stephen Heppell?

Rather than try and give a mediocre description, I will instead offer some links to help you explore more of his work and his thinking.

• Stephen Heppell’s website and a bit of a biography
• His YouTube channel. Below is a video from it entitled Schools of the Future:

• Stephen Heppell’s longer Keynote Presentation from the 2008 K12 Online Conference, entitled It Simply Isn’t the 20th Century Any More, Is It?  So Why Would We Teach As Though it Was?

Photo credit: Ewan McIntosh

This term’s professional learning includes initial training in the use of the Activboard Interactive Whiteboard, as well as a visit to St. Bernadette’s, Castle Hill (the only school in the Diocese to have total IWB implementation in all classrooms) to see IWBs in action and find out more about the learning and change processes that have surrounded their bold initiative.

While this professional learning will specifically target Years 1, 4 and 4/5K, there will be professional learning for all staff through the Diocesan rollout of CENet, which comes to St. Michael’s this term.  Ian Hanson from CEO’s Learning Technologies team will introduce us to this learning tool which we hope to use immediately as a medium for professional learning and sharing between our learning teams in working to implement our strategic goals for 2007.

Learning 2.0 also continues this term; if you still want to get started, you can.  There are six afternoons this term where the library will be open and support available for you to complete this discovery program.  For those who have already started, Activities 5 and 6 and now ready to complete.

The LTFG Coffee Club also returns this term to continue the discussion on learning and how technology supports it.  This term we will continue the conversation on technology’s place in our teaching and learning with the goal of revising our Learning Technology Policy and producing a new Learning Technology Development Plan for the coming years.

So there’s a massive amount on, and I encourage you to involve yourself as much as you can.  Click on the link below to view this term’s Learning Technology Professional Learning Schedule.

Term 3 Learning Technology Professional Learning

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.

The Technology Tuesday and Coffee Club dates for Term 1 have now been pencilled in.

Firstly, Technology Tuesday this year has a move and thus a new name. Multimedia Monday (because there’s now an exec meeting on Tuesdays) will run this term on:

• Week 5 (26 Feb)
• Week 6 (5 Mar)
• Week 7 (12 Mar)

After that, Coffee Club will make its return for 2007. Staying true to its focus on learning rather than technical skills, Coffee Club will give us time to engage as a group in the iNet Online Conference -

Experiences for the deep learner: School is boring and disengaging. How do we meet the challenge of inspiring learners?

Coffee Club will coincide with the running of the conference and will therefore run on Monday afternoons in:

• Week 8 (19 Mar)
• Week 9 (26 Mar)

We hope to see you there once again in the library straight after school. If you have a suggestion of something you’d like covered at a Multimedia Monday session, post it to us in a comment right now!