Aiming for the Sky

At my 7-10 boys' school we have a pretty good relationship with technology. Teachers have had school provided laptops for the past 8 years and we now have a situation of 1-1 across all year groups. We also have a projector and sound system in every general and most specialist classrrooms, most of which are interactive.

The challenge, now that teachers are students are familiar and comfortable with technology, is how to use it for best effect to improve teaching and learning. We have decided to do away with printed textbooks and exercise books in most Key Learning Areas (KLAs), but what now are the best methods to check, edit and mark student work as a means of assessment for learning?

This is where cloud technology becomes a useful tool. I saw the below video on a page about cloud computing, and since I love the show it resonated.

Instead of keeping everything secret on our our individual hard drives or USBs and giving it out like gold or cracked pepper, working  and learning in the cloud allows for collaboration. Making peers and teachers collaborators or viewers of a file takes away the fear that many of us (teachers and students) have about handing in draft, unfinished, or not good enough products.

The College has been granted permission by Sydney CEO to be a pilot school for use of Google Apps and hence they will be one of the cloud technology tools we will be using. Many KLAs have hit the ground running which has increased the interest of other staff members in utilising the technology.

Stay tuned...