E-Learning Options

I had a busy day attending Options meetings with senior students and their families at Waitara this afternoon and then again at Opunake.
Two quite different formats. Waitara was set up like a 'trade fair' with subject areas set up around the hall for people to visit and discuss what was on offer. There was a good turn out and I had lots of interesting conversations with students and their parents who wanted to know more about elearning opportunities.
Opunake was more of a presentation from the front style with time for families to discuss further afterwards. Though you did manage to say things only once instead over and over again to different people, I think I didn't have the depth of conversation and inquiry as earlier.
I had some interesting requests for options that I had to go back and find out about: Drama, Business Studies, Computer Programming and even Religious Education.

I think we are getting to a point in the VC network that schools are beginning to look at the VLN as a supermarket of option choices. They are looking for just the right 'off the shelf' course to enrol in. In some ways it is good that there are so many choices out there (though enrolment restrictions can mean you can't always get in or have to wait to hear if you can enrol). But I also think that schools and clusters need to collaborate in more constructive ways to provide tailored learning for our students. The difficulty in this I guess is coordinating student need, teacher availability & schools resourcing to fulfill this beyond what they are already contributing.

It was good to hear directly from students about what they were interested in and helping them look for pathways to lead them there. It was a good opportunity to promote VC elearning as something quite different from what many parents & some students saw as 'Correspondence'. As a result I am looking at setting up some opportunities for students & parents to observe a VC lesson first hand by hooking into a VC lesson in progress.

(Ceri - eTeacher - Art History)