The major points for discussion were a first look at the Needs Analysis for 2009 and the second was the proposed OLE with Aorakinet. The second point I can’t elaborate on too much until things are confirmed, but the Needs Analysis has revealed a healthy number of students wanting to take courses next year. The most interest has been in Level 2 History, Level 3 Geography, Level 3 Classics, Level 3 Graphics, and Level 1 Human Bilogy. These courses have a good chance of going ahead at this early stage. Some interest in Agiculture as well, which is good.

We had some interesting discussion around the teaching of the courses. Cantatech runs differently to all the other eLearning clusters. Each school pays in a certain amount and we find the best teachers no matter where they come from and those schools get the funding to cover staffing. This means we can have two teachers delivering from one school and no one from another. It allows a great deal of flexibility to find teachers, but the downside is that some schools don’t have a delivering teacher. This is a shame as teaching in this environment is great professional development and something that can be shared with all staff.

I personally think we should encourage each school to contribute a teacher as an investment in the professional learning of the staff, but it is great to have the flexibitly to find good teachers – and after all that can only be better for the students.

Principals were supportive of the many new initiatives on the agenda. A few seem concerned with the speed we were going when I mentioned the possiblity of a cross cluster Moodle site. The reality is we would still be moving teachers along slowly in terms of PD. For them there would be little difference initially – just a different front page. It’s the possibilties that it throws up for the future that are so exciting.

Another exciting opportunity in the pipeline is a presentation on the new curriculum from Rachel Bolstad. Video conference equipment enables us to get this to a much wider audience, although room size would probably limit it to HODs and senior management. Hopefully some schools from other clusters could get on too.

The key thing I have realised with this job, and I conveyed to the principals, is that it is not about me. It is about building sustainability and capacity in each school. I have also realised that each school must be approached very differently – some are ready and some are not. It’s a matter of working with each school in a way that works for them.

Must remember to take photos of these events so I can post them. I have gotten out of that habit.

This led to the final point of discussion.  What LMS to go with it. I presented a few options with costings as well. The decision was made to go with Moodle. There are various reasons for this including: cost, philisophy, functionality, felixibiltiy and sustainability. So onward and upwards. Time to get this thing in place and working!

For me it was a bit of a relief when it was over, just because it seems I have been waiting for it for most of the term.  Now we can get things moving.

The planning stage is almost over! (Well, sort of)

At the beginning I used two little video clips that I felt were thought-provoking and relevant to what we would be discussing. One I have put in a previous post. The other I have put below. It is Sir Ken Robinson speaking about creativity and schools. It is very well known, but if you haven’t seen, I strongly recommend you watch it.