Last Friday night the Australian College of Educators recognized the work of the TEACHnology team from the Catholic Education Office at their annual awards dinner. In commending the work they have done with the development and delivery of the TEACHnology course across the Diocese over the last 4 years they also acknowledged the community of learning philosophy evident within the course.
The TEACHnology Team is a group of dedicated and enthusiastic educators who design and deliver quality professional learning for teachers. TEACHnology has been offered to primary and secondary teachers in the Wollongong Catholic Diocese for the last five years.
It is a six-day extended course that embodies all the principles of effective teacher professional learning in that it:
The course involves teachers engaging in workshop activities, reflecting on their current pedagogical practices and incorporating learning technologies in authentic and meaningful ways to enhance learning outcomes for students.
A strong feature of the course involves teachers designing electronic “class pages” using the myinternet suite of learning products. These provide students with an interactive web-based environment full of resources to support their learning experiences.
The culminating experience for participating teachers involves the production of a DVD which requires teachers to demonstrate the changes in their classroom practice as a result of their professional learning and highlight how technology engages their students. These DVDs are becoming extremely useful resources to share quality classroom practice with other teachers.
The design of TEACHnology has posed many challenges for the Team. The course began with developing technology skills where teachers saw technology as an ‘add-on’ – something that you did to keep kids happy or busy. It has evolved into a course that seamlessly incorporates the use of technology into motivating experiences where student learning moves beyond the classroom walls and explores new boundaries involving interactions with other classrooms across the school, Diocese and State.
Journals, calendars, text and image, blogs, Elfs, forums, webpages, ichats ….. have all become part of the vocabulary for TEACHnology teachers and their students.
Incorporating differentiated learning, learning styles, thinking hats and productive pedagogies have all become part of the repertoire of teachers.
The Team has worked as a true team – ‘a learning community’. They have dealt effectively with competing priorities –
What’s more important? Technology or Pedagogy
What will keep teachers interested? Pedagogy or Technology
They have met these challenges and dealt with the competing agendas through:
They have worked together to provide quality learning that is highly valued by teachers and school leaders.
Over the years they have pioneered the TEACHnology Bus Tour, the TEACHnology Expo, and TEACHnology Show and Tell. They have visited and been visited by many teachers and school leaders in other dioceses. They have been the educational arm of a sophisticated elearning infrastructure called CASTnet and recently renamed CEnet that provides connectivity to Catholic schools, teachers and students across 7 dioceses in New South Wales and Queensland.
The Catholic Education Office is currently concluding a relationship with the University of Wollongong where TEACHnology will be accredited as an 8 credit point subject in a masters degree or graduate diploma. It is also a key component of the CEO’s Leadership Framework.
The TEACHnology Team is part of Education Services at the CEO. Education Services is very proud of the Team and acknowledges the quality of service it provides to the schools, teachers and students within the Wollongong Diocese.
Lynda Timpano, Mark Woolley, Cynthia McCammon, Belinda Hughes, Simon Abernethy, Cassie Miranda and Gary Brown.
