We had our first Virtual Campus staff meeting for 2007 today. Online teachers & school VC coordinators met to chew the fat on how our distance learning VC classes are going. Everyone present was very positive that students were making progress in their classes and that although there are unique challenges in teaching a class, that is based in sometimes several locations, that with a positive attitude (including a sense of humour), lots of patience and flexibility and good communication between the schools, learning online can be successful. Discussion focussed around some of the occasional but annoying technical difficulties & the support we had available to deal with it. Little tricks to encourage students to participate more fully in online discussion (& its not just shyness but time lag on the VC that makes the 'flow' of an lesson difficult). There are lots of Minties in the post to Forest View students in Chris's class for their increased participation in VC sessions :-) More PD is available to our online teachers in using their online site to support their classes - teachers just need to call me & fix a time.
While we were having our VC Inglewood took the opportunity to have a photo opportunity during a 'real VC'. Here i am pretending to teach a class with a couple of Inglewood students - the photos were taken at their end for their school prospectus. Good to see VC learning being promoted in our schools.
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