Holistic and Integral Education: Elements of a New System

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Elements of a New System

Still trying to get my head around the ways in which ICT might support students, teachers and administrators as we begin to implement the new State Curriculum Framework for years 11/12...

The timing is 'interesting' because at my school (Hobart College) are currently rebuilding our network (15 servers, 400+ PCs, 1200 users) so I'm thinking from the ground up... mind you it all has to be in place within a month!

The new curriculum is about "engaging with all students in the learning that will empower them to create and realise purposeful futures." I have been looking at some docs (PowerPoint and a Table) from last year outlining the Learning Elements that make up part of the Framework. Note that these 'elements' are not implemented in isolation. The Framework emphasises an "holistic view of learners and learning."

Anyway... so far I have developed some maps trying to clarify some of the relationships between ICT and the new curriculum from different perspectives... Personal and Learning Spaces (basic and expanded) looking at the relationships between our existing portal infrastructure, student personal spaces on the internet, and www services; and Access and Publishing (basic and expanded) looking at how students (and teachers) access ICT and some of the information flows.

I have also started to list applications that might have a higher profile within the new curriculum such as:

MS Photo Story, MS Producer, MS Movie Maker - for storying, student voice and presentations
Windows Media Encoder - for podcasting, help files
CMAP - for concept/mind mapping
Skype - for national/global communication/collaboration
Vensim - for modelling systems, simulations, futures

We are currently installing MS Live Communications Server to gain more communication/collaboration functionality out of MS Office and MS SharePoint.

Lots to think about... and we still have the other 100+ apps to deploy... fortunately we have a skilled and efficient Computer Services team! Thanks guys :-)

Labels: curriculum, ICT tools