eLearning at Heights

You know when the floodgates open it's either going to be good, great or disastrous.

I'm hoping that after this Friday's eLearning session at our Teacher Only Day we will not be so so worried about the disastrous. Though I realise during this session we've planned out - not once have we talked about digital citizenship. Maybe I need to make a cheat sheet for staff...

I am super looking forward to our eLearning workshop.

To get to this point - there was quite a lot of movement and mindsets that needed a bit of shaking and our awesome DP Donella has done this and then some. She's talked with the BOT at their recent Strategic Planning meeting and have given them some things to think about: equitable access, Hapara teacher dashboard, staff PLD among many other things too :)

I'm incredibly stoked because in a short amount of space we have set up an eLearning committee and have developed our ideas and collaborate with each other often. Absolutely love the opportunities this has created.

Imagine if I brought ten people from school for the next educamp!!!

Or if they joined into a Twitter chat!!

Or if they came to ULEARN!!!

I see the huge potential. But I also see the areas of risk and pessimism as I discussed in the last post.

I just hope that we've thought everything through enough so that they can feel safe as well as ask for help when needed.

We'll need to have floaters and monitoring going around while we facilitate the learning.

We've set it up like a classroom. With Dojo points being awarded for participation and mini tasks and assignments. We've used Google Classroom as the base for our eLearning and used Google+ to build our school community to share advice, resources, ideas etc. I've got interactive activities, sit and type activities, viewing and discussing, collaborating and sharing activities as well as a bit of listening too.

I'm pretty damn stoked that we're being allowed to do this. It shouldn't be a case of being allowed - but at this point that's how it feels. I just can't wait til the staff see the possibilities and can learn together on the how and the why.

I'm not quite ready for the sticky questions or the knives in my back - but know that they may come.

We're changing. And not everyone likes change.

I hereby announce that the floodgates may open.