Digital Learning at Casebrook
By Shona Kelleher | Posted: Sunday June 12, 2016
There is Plenty of Opportunity For Students to Use Digital Technologies at Casebrook
We are endeavouring to embrace the changes that are going on in technology and in teaching and learning by providing a wide range of opportunities for our students to develop digital technology skills here at Casebrook.
Last Friday the staff were fortunate to participate in a day of workshops run by the NZ Hapara representative, Lenva Shearing. Hapara is our Learning Management System which supports our use of Google Apps for Education by providing visibility of all student online work. We see the use of devices in the classroom as an important extension in the classroom that allows us to create a more accessible, diverse and dynamic learning environment for our students.
As a school, we have made a considerable investment in purchasing a number of Chromebooks for each classroom to help students develop the skills we see as important for our 21st Century learners. We are thrilled with the engagement of the students in driving their own learning and see how eager they are to learn online through new applications, tools and programmes. We are endeavouring to create a more accessible, diverse, and dynamic learning environment for our students that reflects the world they live in.
Within the classroom programme students use Google docs, slides and forms to create and present their work. They open tasks in their Google Drive that have been sent to them by their teachers; they have the ability to draft, redraft and publish their work at the click of a button and send back to the teachers.
Many classes are becoming active bloggers. You will gain a wonderful insight into your child’s day by looking at these blogs and seeing the active learning the students are doing online.
A number of classes are taking up opportunities to connect with other students their own age around New Zealand through different programmes such as NZReadaloud, where we saw our students sharing their learning with peers in both the North and South Island. This type of experience gives our students a voice to share their perspective on things and provides an authentic audience for their thoughts and ideas.
Outside the classroom there is a wide range of extension and enrichment opportunities available:
Digital Fluency: This group is based on students learning how to use technology to enhance their learning such as research skills and understanding the Google Apps. It is anticipated that students teach on by sharing this learning with their class.
Digi Club: This group is an eclectic mix where anything from movie making and learning about using a green screen to programming our resident M-Bot robot.
Coding Club: This group is made up of very keen coders
Digital Music: This is a particularly noisy group where electronic music fills the room.
Stop Motion Animation: This group is where students get to explore a range of stop motion styles such as claymation, paper animation and more.
3D Printer: There are opportunities for students to use this printer across the school.
BYOD
We welcome students to bring in personal devices for their learning. We have a BYOD Bundle deal run through Greater Schools for Canterbury that you may want to participate in. See the details below.
We consider the anytime, anywhere access to class lessons and students own projects a real motivator to being an engaged and excited learner and look forward to our students becoming digital learners of the future.
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