I was reviewing the recent traffic to this blog and was noticing visitors from all over the world had stopped by to see what is happening in the way of eLearning at St Andrew’s College. It reinforced to me just how easily technology facilitates engagement and interaction by our students with an authentic and truly global community audience.
The New Zealand Curriculum Document references this specifically:
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: The curriculum has meaning for students, connects with their wider lives, and engages the support of their families, whānau, and communities.
Beyond this, the 5 Key Competencies also promote this:
Successful learners make use of the competencies in combination with all the other resources available to them. These include personal goals, other people, community knowledge and values, cultural tools (language, symbols, and texts), and the knowledge and skills found in different learning areas. As they develop the competencies, successful learners are also motivated to use them, recognising when and how to do so and why.
It is exciting that New Zealand has a forward thinking curriculum with a vision that includes the use of eLearning and how technologies can play a part in the education and future of our students. Again, from the NZ Curriculum Document (p.38):
eLEARNING AND PEDAGOGY:
Information and communication technology (ICT) has a major impact on the world in which young people live. Similarly, e-learning (that is, learning supported by or facilitated by ICT) has considerable potential to support the teaching approaches outlined in the above section.
For instance, e-learning may:
• assist the making of connections by enabling students to enter and explore new learning environments, overcoming barriers of distance and time;
• facilitate shared learning by enabling students to join or create communities of learners that extend well beyond the classroom;
• assist in the creation of supportive learning environments by offering resources that take account of individual, cultural, or developmental differences;
• enhance opportunities to learn by offering students virtual experiences and tools that save them time, allowing them to take their learning further.
As St Andrew’s College continues to move in this direction, most notably with the 1:1 Yr9 2014 Cohort, our teachers will continue to explore new ways in which the guiding principles of the New Zealand Curriculum can be expressed in the teaching and learning within the classroom …. and beyond!
In a forthcoming post I will explore the concept of Digital Citizenship and how we see this expressed at the College.