And more newspaper articles!

I would like to thank Shayne, Co-ordinator of Wimmera and Horsham CRT Network, for continuing to send newspaper articles out through email.  I have uploaded all of the September articles to the Skydrive and backtracked through my emails to make sure all the articles are now accessible from the Skydrive.

Use the link below to have a look at our growing collection;

 https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=0D641AD8750D17A5&id=D641AD8750D17A5!1655

You will also notice that I have put articles into their months, hopefully making it easier to find the newest articles or ones you have missed.

If you would like to contribute to this collection, please email Mel at wodongacrt@vit.vic.edu.au

Happy reading!

Mel

Some holiday reading.....

Here is the August edition of the DEECD's Inspire Magazine.  Clicking on the picture will take you to the online version of the magazine.

Alternatively you can download the PDF version on the following link;

http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/inspire/inspireaug2012.pdf

And here is the September edition.  Clicking on the picture will take you to the online version of the magazine.

Alternatively, you can download the PDF version on the link below;

http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/inspire/inspiresep2012.pdf

Happy reading,

Mel

Advanced technology has simple uses!

As a CRT I find technology in schools sometimes out of reach.  As a result I find that I don't tend to incorporate technology into my lessons, I'm simply denied the opportunity to innovate through lack of access.  I am often very happy forgetting these things are even in the room.

The reality is that technology is everywhere and I need to innovate to keep up with the students.

So I bit the bullet 6 weeks ago and bought an iPad.  The majority of schools I work in have iPads so it was a natural progression.  I didn't really know how to use the ipad properly before this time apart from playing a couple of games and listening to stories being read. 

Over the last couple of days I have been taking my iPad into the classroom.  I have always been a believer in celebrating every student's success, no matter how small it is.  I started taking photos of students working and completing activities, and showing it back to them as a whole group, asking students what they were completing, thinking and where they were heading next.

We then had a mother bring in a couple of day old guinea pigs for her child to show the class.  Again I snapped away but this time I printed them up in document size and had the students write about the baby guinea pigs.  We started with a Y chart to get the decribing words flowing in the areas of what they felt like, what they looked like and what they sounded like.  The students got right into this activity and wrote some great adventures for these guinea pigs!

I also used the iPad when I was taking a biscuit 'face' decorating session with 30 odd kids.  I was trying to work out how to introduce the ingredients without having to juggle them on my knee or on the floor when I remembered something Sue King had mentioned at a PD workshop; some visuals used with kids with Autism are photos of the items being used.  So I decided to use this strategy to introduce the activity.  I took photos of all the ingredients and instead of printing them up, I used my ipad to show the students.  

On a different day, another teacher and I had the remaining year 2 students after their year 3 class mates were attending an overnight camp.  These students came from four different classes and I was stuggling to learn all the students names.  We finished the day with icy poles for a small treat and celebration of their wonderfully positive behaviour.  The other teacher was tidying up from lunch and so I stepped in to take on this task.  Earlier in the day I had snapped photos of all the students with their decorated cupcake they had cooked earlier in the day.

With my ipad in hand, I explained to the students that I wouldn't be calling students up by name.  They looked confused at me.  I turned the ipad around and straight away the group yelled the name of the student who's photo was showing.  Blindly I put my hand in the box of icy poles and pulled out one, handing it to the student.

The group of students were now all leaning forward to see who was the next student to receive an icy pole, eyes on the ipad.  I flicked the picture to bring up the next photo and away we went.  A smile would come across every students' face when they saw their photo, they stood and received their icy pole and happily left the group.  There were no complaints about someone getting it before them or even what colour they got and they got to have a look at how other students decorated their cupcakes.

You don't have to be a whiz at these sorts of classroom technology to innovate your teaching style and ability.  Even just doing things in a different way, regardless of how simple, becomes an engaging experience for the students.  It can be as simple as snapping a few photos and having a hand-held screen to show them back on and I assure you that snapping a few photos doesn't need 3 classes and an instructor to learn how to do!

Study of history and racism in the new curriculum

Sarah, the Coordinator of the Clifton Hill CRT Support Network, has put up a very interesting post.

With the new Australian curriculum comes a focus on areas for which some teachers do not feel adequately prepared. One such area is that of the cross-curriculum priority 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures'.  The priority will provide "opportunities for all learners to deepen their knowledge of Australia by engaging with the world's oldest continuous living cultures. 

 This post is well worth a read!

http://cliftonhillcrtsupportnetwork.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/study-of-history-and-racism-in-new.html

Regards,

Mel.

Feedback Video and Report - ASD and Visual Resources with Sue King 2012

Apart from a couple of problems with the venue we have been working on fixing for a while now, the workshop finished up with a very positive reaction from those who attended!

Comments in our videos are taken directly from feedback forms left by participants so it's easy to see the kind of response that Sue King is able to generate in a Workshop.  As you can see in the video, Sue King has a knack for making a highly educational day something that's also fun.  The bubble blowing and sign language sections proved particularly enjoyable for the participants!

We had a lot of new faces again this time which was great to see!  We hope you all enjoyed and benefitted from our presenter selection and organization of the day.  We also hope all you travellers, some who travelled a very long way, made it home safely!

Estimated Cost per Head value: $225.00 - $355.00 (based on similar commercial PDs)

Cost per head we paid: $61.78

Cost per head for CRTs?   $10.00

Offering this PD would not have been possible without some help. We'd like to thank:

• Sue King for her wonderful presentation.
• The Wodonga South Primary School for the venue.
• The DEECD for the CRT Professional Learning Support Initiative and the funding it provides
• VIT for starting and helping to maintain 24 CRT Networks across Victoria.
• Officeworks Wodonga for their sponsorship of our network
• and everyone who attended for the wonderful atmosphere they provided! 

Please note; For those of you who have requested it, anonymous posting has been enabled!

Regards,

Melinda Lichnovsky-Klock

Wodonga CRT Support Network Coordinator.

The Cycle of Professional Learning.

The upcoming National Professional Standards for Teachers looks a lot more complicated than the current Victorian Standards of Professional Practice for Full Registration.  Much of it though is pretty much the same.

Under standards 6 and 7 there's a new focus, professional networks, which we covered here.

We have been working away industriously to come up with a visual aid to help show how all of this is expected to slot together to create one big cycle of professional learning.

If you havn't driven Prezi before, simply click the arrows to go forward and backwards through the frames or use the left/right arrow keys on the keyboard.  If you click the "more" button you can opt to view the prezi in fullscreen (but autoplay is unsuitable!).  If you are viewing through your iPad you can visit the Prezi Website to download the free Prezi Viewer app.

For those of you not attending tonight's meeting this presentation forms part of the activities we have organized.

We will be suggesting that our members include this in their PD submissions under "Standard 7:  Teachers develop organizational and administrative skills to manage their non-teaching duties effectively" as a starting point for the group reflection.

It will take you 25-45 minutes to go through the presentation depending on how many of the videos you watch in full.  Don't forget to add your reflection time to your Professional Development submission!

In the next few days we will also put together a blog post containing a summary of the discussions and suggestions centering around the National Curriculum and also the classroom uses of Prezi for CRTs.

Regards,

Mel.

Free online PD video - Dawn Colcott.

This is the second time we have posted these videos but we have moved them to a new home!  They now have a permanent page of their own to ensure they remain easy to find!

They have been re-edited since the last time to clear up Audio for laptop users!

In August 2012 the Wodonga CRT Support Network was lucky enough to host Dawn Colcott, VIT's Manager of Professional Learning, as a guest speaker in a specially convened member meeting.

The topic was Registration and Professional Development dealing with the 2012 changes to the registration process and requirements.

From 2011 onwards, September 30 became a significant date in the teaching profession calendar. The time frame has changed for payment of annual fees and renewal of full registration.

Full registration requires all teachers to maintain their professional practice and suitability to be a teacher through the renewal of registration process.

To be able to teach effectively for student learning, a casual relief teacher should have current professional knowledge and practice.

The Institute recognises that CRTs sometimes have less opportunity to know about and engage in professional development activities.

You can find the rest of this presentation here:

http://wodongacrtsupportnetwork.blogspot.com.au/p/rego-and-pd-video-dawn-colcott.html

This is a full 60 minutes of video!

For those of you still looking for a little guidance:

This will be "teacher identified" PD and no Pdi PASS code is offered.

You can start by referencing this against Standard 7:

Teachers develop organizational and administrative skills to manage their non-teaching duties.

The Wodonga CRT Support Network gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Dawn Colcott and the Victorian Institute of Teaching that made it possible to bring you this online PD opportunity!

This marks the first step towards a fuller utilization of our Youtube channel to bring it more in line with our original intentions behind creating it.  While we have used it mainly for promotional and PD Workshop feedback videos up until now, it has always been our intention to use YouTube to bring PD to Victorian CRTs.

We hope to build it into a solid bank of learning potential for CRTs!

Regards,

Melinda Lichnovsky-Klock
Wodonga CRT Support Network Coordinator.

What do YOU want from Professional Development

...and is what you want necessarily what you need?

We all know what VIT wants.  VIT wants you to have 20 hours of relevant PD per year to maintain your registration (or 100 hours in 5 years of course). That's a no brainer.  Other states and countries have their own requirements. 

We recently started a side project where we invited feedback from a large number of people, both CRTs and others who could provide valid insights into the activity.  This project involved a Network activity and our reflections on why it was necessary.  While this is still in the works it has raised an interesting side-topic that I've been meaning to get around to for a while now.

One comment in particular sums it up neatly:

I know I often see CRTs both sides of the border and tell them about the network, however many don't seem to think much about PD until registration is due.

Mind you, a good half of the replies raise the same issue one way or another and it's something I see quite frequently.  New member joining the Wodonga CRT Support Network because they are pushing against VIT's deadline for PD submissions and their hours have come up short.  Don't get me wrong, this is a natural turn of events and it's a large part of the reason why we are here!  People start looking for solutions to their problem when the problem presents itself and coming up short for PD is going to be a trigger that sets people off searching for solutions.

But what other reasons are there for PD and should you really stop at VIT's (or your own registering body's) required amount? 

There's some really interesting things to look at in the VAGO Report on CRT Arrangements.  Not only what it openly says but also what's there in an implied way.  It's a document mainly intended to identify the value of CRTs to the Victorian Education System, point out flaws in current arrangements and make recommendations on how to go about finding solutions to identified problems.  Today I'm not really worried about it's purpose so much as the sources it used to determine it's findings and the general overview they provide.

I've had a look at similar reports from other states and overseas.  The percentages often change but the basic story frequently remains the same.  By pulling the Report apart into it's implied facts a picture is painted.  Today's point?

"While the overall number of CRTs should be sufficient to meet government school needs, demand is increasing and regional variations in CRT supply and demand make it hard for some schools to hire suitably skilled and experienced CRTs."

 This implies a few very important things but the part I am interested in this time is the distinction that's made.  It's not just CRTs, it's "suitably skilled and experienced CRTs".

The only way they could know this?  By getting feedback from schools which is exactly what they did.  There's more than one reference to "Audited Schools" in the report too.  So by implication we can see how schools think in regards to CRTs.  They don't treat all CRTs with the same outlook.  They are observed, evaluated and given preference for hiring based on their levels of skill and experience.


The next fact to throw into this equation is that VIT requires each teacher to obtain 10 days of practice and 20 hours of professional development per year to remain registered.  

What they never really say is that these requirements ares the bare minimum that you need to obtain to remain a teacher. All fully registered CRTs are hitting this mark to remain registered just like any other Teacher.  It was still considered necessary to make the distinction between CRTs and "suitably skilled and experienced CRTs".

So we know, in black and white that's supported by evidence, that schools understand full well that being registered doesn't provide a level playing field.  The question is, just how much of a slope do they think it's on?  The answer to this question is in the VAGO report too.

Audited schools used less than half of the CRTs on their list regularly and removed poorly performing teachers from their lists.

Schools manage these lists carefully and your performance counts.  The audited schools used less than half of their CRTs regularly.  You need to get yourself in the upper half of that list if you want regular work.

Putting this together?  Your 10 days + 20 hours isn't even a passing grade.  They only use half of the CRT's on their list, they remove some from their list too and so less than 50% of CRTs get work in a manner that schools consider "regular".  

This report gives us a clear-cut reference to say the following;

Just qualifying for registration isn't enough.

VIT only decides whether or not you are allowed to teach.  They don't have any say in whether or not schools are going to pay you to do it.

So this begs the question "is just satisfying VIT's requirements the best way to go about deciding how much PD I should be getting"?

That, of course, is up to you to decide but there's definitely compelling evidence out there that says the answer is "no".

Regards,

Mel.