ICT and Parents

P & F Meeting - IWB Workshops

Tuesday March 31
Filipa Carvalho and Noburo Hagiwara

"Technology is an increasingly integral means of education in our `changing world' at Kolbe College.

Parents and friends who turned up to the P & F meeting on March 31 were treated to an amazing presentation from two staff members about the use of IWBs and e-beams at Kolbe College. Filipa Carvalho and Noburo Hagiwara demonstrated their classroom delivery techniques with the use of these amazing technologies.

Over the past two years the College has invested significantly in the provision of interactive whiteboards and e-beams for staff willing to move to a new teaching style with our 21st Century Learners. The new Year 7 block opening in Term 2 comes equipped with the best possible ICT available and our students continue to be provided with leading edge technologies and teachers that are at the cutting edge to take advantage of these.

P & F Meeting - ICT Workshops

Wednesday November 4 2008
Introduction

Dynamic, information rich and continuously changing is how UNESCO describes the world that we are preparing our students to enter. What skills and understandings do our students need to participate effectively in this world and how do we facilitate their development?

In fact, these question really aren’t new but what is new is the remarkably different set of skills that our students are now bringing into school. They really are growing up digital and there is an increasing disconnect between the way in which they are learning at home and the way in which they are learning in school.

Hugh Mackay believes that students, especially those in secondary schools, are becoming outraged and angry at what they perceive they have to go through at school. They see school as boring and preventing them from learning in the relational, technology rich way they prefer and which they chose to use outside of school.

This is the background to our conference. The digital world is requiring teachers and administrators to develop new skills and understandings; to build on our knowledge and experience to engage with our students and school communities in new ways.

Kolbe and Tranby are both successful schools and the Conference is an opportunity to build on that success for the future. We hope that this will be an opportunity for us all to develop further insights into the nature of the world that we are all operating in, and for teachers and administrators alike to develop new skills to augment what we are already doing in our offices and classrooms.

With a mixture of keynote speakers and a range of workshops to choose from there should be the opportunity for every participant to learn something new. Furthermore the daily worship, conference dinner and coffee, tea and lunch breaks should help us all to develop richer collegial relationships both within and between our schools.

Best wishes for an engaging, stimulating and rewarding two days.

KOLBE COLLEGE - A school for students with 'Digital Aptitude'

Tuesday 27 October

At the College P&F meeting on Tuesday 4 November at 7.30pm there will be a presentation from a number of staff representing the ICT team of the College. This lively session will outline many of the innovations undertaken by the College as we continue to immerse your children in the digital revolution. The College itself has been very prominent in its visions for “Digital Excellence” and along with the funding from the Rudd Round One Offer, we continue to provide ICT at the cutting edge.

Come along and:
•            play with some of the new technologies;
•            get a handle on what we exactly offer your students;
•            join us online as we outline the benefits of Mathletics;
•            become part of our eboard;

We look forward to inspiring you next Tuesday evening.

RIDSP - "Rockingham Innovative Schools Project"

Tuesday 27 October

The College recently received a grant of $6000 from Editure to invest in a feature digital production showing the involvement of Kolbe College and its feeder primary schools in the use of the Editure suite of products. Commonly known as RIDSP “Rockingham Innovative Schools Project”, the College over a sustained period of time has led the way in the innovative use of the learning portal and its use in education. As recently as this week the final chapter was played out in the RIDSP Maths Task where student work from all Colleges was placed into a commonly shared online class, it was then leveled and the group of teachers participated in a video conference to discuss the difficulties associated with leveling the task as well as refining their own understanding of each others’ interpretation of the process.

Through the use of the ICT as a medium, the teachers gained valuable experiences in this process including:

•            exploring the possibilities of on-line learning communities;
•            increased awareness of the Editure suite of products;
•            improving their personal use of video conferencing;
•            understanding the standards of our incoming students with both Yr 6 and 7 students joining us in 2009;
•            shared collegiality - getting to know more intimately our teachers and correspond with our feeder schools on a personal and professional basis.

TRANBY/KOLBE ICT CONFERENCE 2008

July 21 and 22

At Kolbe Catholic College we are on a quest towards becoming an outstanding school, one capable of providing highly relevant and engaging learning environments for our students while continuing to perform well across a range of measures. To help make this a reality, Kolbe hosted an ICT conference recently aimed at enhancing the professional development of our staff and the staff from Tranby College were invited to join us for the two days.

This conference was conceived as a result of key staff members involved in the Rockingham Innovative Digital Schools (RIDS) Project attending the National Leading a Digital School’s Conference in Maroochydore last year.

Having been inspired by the thinking underpinning this conference, the Principals of Kolbe College and Tranby College, agreed, in principle, to bring the best of what they had experienced at the Maroochydore conference back to their staff.

Leaning forward to go back …… was the theme of our conference. The digital world, like never before, requires teachers and administrators to develop new skills and understandings; it demands that we build on our knowledge and experience to engage with our students and school communities in new ways. With a mixture of keynote speakers and a range of workshops to choose from there was the opportunity for every participant at the conference to learn something new.

Assistant Deputy Principal, Mr Trevor Galbraith, coordinated three keynote speakers and more than 34 presenters who ran a range of workshops over the two days in areas such as Podcasting, iLife, iWorks, the pedagogy of Web 2.0 Tools, Comic Life, Interactive Whiteboards, the Editure suite of products, Mathletics, Clickview and the list goes on!

Trevor was ably assisted by his ICT staff in particular Mr Skye Moroney as the Conference Network Convener, Mr Andrew Cox, School Network Manager and Miss Jody Rubery, Head of Learning Resources, who ensured that the technology and support materials provided gave the participants a first class experience. Students fulfilled the important role of ICT technicians over the two days.

The opening Keynote was delivered by Mr Daniel Ingvarson who provided us with statistics that were hard to ignore. A growing body of research now shows that improvement in student learning occurs regularly in schools where ICT is well integrated. This area has been a focal point for our professional development in 2008.

Mr Paul Fuller was the keynote speaker on day two and his unassuming yet powerful presentation, based on his own journey of integrating the classroom with the digital world, was a highlight of the conference. Working in a small state school, with limited resources, Paul’s pedagogy and enthusiasm left many of the participants marveling at what he has achieved for his students through ICT.