Victoria - what can we learn from them?

I was doing some surfing today and came across the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development site. It is a site with a specific section designed to provide information about e-Learning and ICT's in schools (obviously within Victoria). I firmly believe that we can learn from many different sources and from other states within Australia. I was pleasantly surprised to see such a focus on this site for the integration of ICT's into the education system. After having a good look around I was interested in 3 different ICT's they are using in various parts of Victoria.

The first was a Vodcast. According to Wikipedia

Video podcast (sometimes shortened to vodcast) is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures. The term is used to distinguish between podcasts which most commonly contain audio files and those referring to the distribution of video where the RSS feed is used as a non-linear TV channel to which consumers can subscribe using a PC, TV, set-top box, media center or mobile multimedia device. Web television series are often distributed as video podcasts.

I see potential with Vodcasts at school when it comes to incorporating music into various other technologies. We do not dispute that students love technology and they also love music and video clips - lets put it all together and produce and watch information that is interesting and engaging for our students. Lets step into their world and teach in their world!

The second was a Kahootz. You can do a general search on You Tube to get more videos like the one below.

Kahootz is an educational Software application that allows students aged 5-18 to create their own 3d content. Sharing it with schools around the world using the Kahootz website.

When students share their creativity with others from around the world they are getting authentic real life feedback that is meaningful and purposeful (hopefully). This can be constructed as a communication devise and bring people from various locations together to interact on a level about a specific subject (community of practice). I have watched in wonder as a teacher has linked his current Australian year 7 class with his year 7 Canadian class (he is on exchange). They are linked up via email pen friendships and are currently organising a suitable time to Skype together. One of the real life activities they have participated in is the production of a powerpoint about their home country. They were required to make the design realistic for the audience and it also incorporated music and voice overlay. They then sent the zipped file over and it was assessed by their peers via a set rubric criteria. Both parties were responsible for doing this for each other. What a great real life activity to participate in.

The third was FUSE. You might say this is a tool mainly used for teachers and therefore why have I written about it? The simple fact is we are pre-service teachers and not only do we need to learn how to engage our students in quality, exciting learning activities but we also need to know how to support each other in maintaining and sharing those quality resources to use with our students.

FUSE enables you to Find, Use and Share quality Education resources.

FUSE is a portal, a repository, a search engine, a workspace and a way of sharing quality education digital resources.

* A package of "How to use FUSE Videos" have been developed. Press here for online tutorials on how to use FUSE.
* Teachers please login here. Once you have logged in, you’ll be able to discover more content and access more site functions and features.
* Press here to access The Learning Federation and other digital learning resources. Use the tabs on the result screen to select the types of resources you wish to use e.g. images, videos, interactives and websites. Use the search bar and filter to further refine your search.

Find The FUSE search will allow teachers to locate quality assured teaching and learning resources. These resources have been brought together from many sources including from the Department, The Learning Federation (TLF) and Victoria’s cultural institutions.

Use FUSE lets you create and use your online resources with your students. FUSE also allows you to upload files to your personal workspace called ‘My Desk’ and to create a “Package”. A range of different file types are available including video, document, PDF, webpage, images and sound files.

Share FUSE enables you to share what you have found, packaged and created. Each learning resource has a unique Learning Resource ID (LRID). By sharing the LRID with others they can access the resource directly through the window on the homepage of FUSE or by placing this directly into the FUSE search bar. You can provide this LRID to your students, parents and other teachers so they can use and access this resource anytime and anywhere.

References:

Wikipedia: retrieved 10th April, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodcast

Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development: retrieved 10th April, 2010 from https://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/pages/Teacher.aspx and http://www.education.vic.gov.au/