So over the holidays I have been thinking of how on earth I can encourage collaboration between teachers at our school and between teachers at our school and other teachers at other schools.  Our school is small and traditionally has had many one person departments, for example I was the only Business Management teacher for many years. So there isn’t a strong culture of teachers working together and collaborating on projects or curriculum although in some areas of the school it is starting to change. So my challenge is to encourage teachers to collaborate more, encourage conversation and dialogue about powerful learning all with the purpose of helping staff to integrate ICT into the curriculum and to develop 21st century teaching and learning. I know, I know easy peasy what am I worried about, right????? NOT!!!

So to help with this I am going to get teachers to set their own professional learning goals next year that I will meet with them to help develop and meet at various times during the year to check their progress. I will also tailor the PD that I run/resources I show them etc, etc to their Professional Learning needs.

So to “encourage” staff I thought that I would use a web2.0 platform to run this Professional Learning Program out of and at the same time to encourage some dialogue and perhaps some collaboration. But which one??? A central blog and get all staff to comment on the blog entries at various times? A wiki and use the discussion page for teachers to post their goals and discuss their progress whilst using the wiki pages for resources etc?? A ning where every staff member has a page where they put their goals and can comment on their goals and others as well as add photos and do blog posts etc? Or each staff memeber having their own blog to reflect on their own learning. Too many choices! Or we could do something inhouse via Moodle or eduKate. Or perhaps another format all together. Anyone with any ideas??

On another note all together I thought I had made a decison about the LMS that we are looking at for next year being eduKate however I had somehow all this time overlooked to little but very important words “per annum”! Yes that right I tought the price was a once off price but no it is a per annum price and when I realised that i nearly fell over!! $6500 per year is fairly steep I think. So what do I get for that? I suppose it pays for the help desk support that you wouldn’t get with Moodle and it pays for upgrades but it doesn’t pay for any training which is additional. Now I am totlaly unsure of which way to go as for that amount per annum we could have an absolutley cracking, gorgeous installation of Moodle with lots of bells and whistles. However we wouldn’t get with Moodle the integration with TASS which we use quite heavily and eduKate links directly into our reporting system which is good.  If anyone has used either sytem and can offer me some advice that would be great!

Anyway now that I have those questions of my chest back to lovely holidays and PJ days having a lovely relax and unwind from a very hectic year!

So in recent days I have been researching the concept of a Learning Management System for my school. It has been an interesting journey! I was first introduced to the concept of a learning management system last year when my Principal asked if I had heard about a program called Moodle which at that time I had not. She mentioned that Northern Beaches Christian College had Moodle running and were doing some pretty good things on a low budget and would I like to go and see it? I said yes and along with another colleague to visit NBCS to see what they were doing with Moodle and ICT intgration. They had some very innovative ideas such as the HSC online and calling the primary version of Moodle for their school P.E.T.E (Primary Education through e learning). They have obviously spent a lot of time with Moodle and getting working and looking good and been working on some quite innovative ideas such the HSC online and beyond borders and blended learning. But we did not see a large amount of evidence of 21st century learning and pedagogical change.

Progress forward 4 months and one of our local schools has done a similar thing to Northern Beaches with a slick Moodle install but no real pedagogical change.

Progress forward another 6months to a visit to a well known private school to view their install of eduKate. Not all teachers were using the LMS but their was evidence of some innovative teaching practises being encouraged however still lacking a true 21st century skills focus.

Progress forward another 2 weeks and a conversation at the most recent blogger’s feast with a university employee who was talking about all the different aspects of Learning Management Systems that they have installed but bemoaning the fact that the pedagogy of teaching at a uni level i.e. lecture/tutorial had not really changed.

Progress to the next day to a visit made to a school that again has a very good Moodle install that they have spent 18 months developing but again acknowledging that they need someone to change they way teachers teach, and in fact they are advertising for a Director of Learning Technologies to answer this need.

So where is this leading me? I have come to the conclusion that the most important thing that transforms teaching and learning is not a learning management system. It is a focus on good pedagogy, project based learning, 21st century skills, higher order thinking and pwoerful learning. It is about using techonology as part of the learning environment. A learning management system does in no way replace or answer any of these thing. It is merely a tool to help organise the resources for a class and perhaps (depending on the type you choose) a method for delivering some web 2.0 type tools to the classroom. So as we go about the process of selecting a LMS for our school I must remeber that it is not the panacea of all ills!