Department Funding for CRT PDs!

Once we started drafting the next advertised blog, we found it was just getting bigger and bigger and it has forced us to change our plans. So over the next few days there will be a number of blogs laying the groundwork to bring you up to speed on some key topics. We feel that you need this information in order to make informed choices about how you want the network to proceed.

1) The funding and how it's divided.

In 2010 the Department of Education started a program where a pool of money was allocated to run Professional Development Seminars specifically for CRTs. Through discussion with the Victorian Institute of Teaching, they decided on an effective way to distribute and utilise the funds. The first step was to allocate these funds to regions based on the number of CRT in that region. This set the amount of funds to run PDs in each region.

Next they decided on who should be responsible for allocating these funds to run PD seminars. They utilised the currently running CRT Support Networks so the region's funding was divided again in equal portions based on the number of CRT Support Networks in that region. The leaders of the CRT Support Networks then became responsible for organising PD seminars.

2) Accessing the funding.

The funding is in the hands of 2 groups. The first is the CRT Network leaders who's job it is to organise the PD and apply for funding and the Vic Dept of Education who decide whether PD meets the criteria for recieving funding.

It's the job of the Network leader to talk to local Principals and find out what training they think local CRTs should have. They then have to look at what the principals say and see which areas might also meet the criteria for funding.

The next step is to contact presenters and get quotes on cost and a content outline for the Seminar. They then negotiate with the presenter on cost and content outline until they think it will be approved by the Department.

An application is then submitted to the Department and it is either approved or denied.

If it's approved, the CRT Support Network leader then goes ahead and books the presenter, sets a date, arranges the Venue, the catering, accodomodation for the presenter if required, etc. They are also in charge of advertising the seminar, taking bookings and getting bums on seats.

3) Recent Developments.

One of the drawbacks of the system is that CRT Support Network leaders are CRTs, not event planners and not management. This means some of us were having a hard time understanding the guidelines and submitting successful applications as well as organising everything else that goes hand in hand with running a seminar. This meant that some network leaders were doing the negotiation, submission of applications and all the other work that goes on with getting a PD to run, multiple times for each seminar that went ahead.

The Department has taken a couple of initiatives in order to correct these problems.

The Department has recently begun adding presenters giving preset content to a list. These presenters are guaranteed to be approved on base cost and the content to be delivered. Because venue, catering, travel and accomodation all add to this cost we don't yet know if it is an automatic approval provided it's reasonable.

However, regional CRT Support Network leaders have been assured that they will not have an application rejected because of travel and accomodation costs provided they are reasonable.

Note that it is not an exclusive list. We can still apply for funding for other Professional Development Seminars.

Secondly, they have begun to offer network leaders some training to deal with these issues and make the application for and running of PDs as quick and painless as possible.

4) Summary.

What this means is that the funding is allocated according to local needs as well as a set of guidelines made by someone 100's of kilometers away. It's a framework that makes sure that state-wide and regional needs are both treated as important. It's not without restriction though.

Although we have funding available we can't just run any PD we want using Department funding. There are guidelines in place because the funding was provided for training in specific areas so that's where it needs to be spent. We can tailor those to the specific needs of our region but we cannot go outside of them.

It also means that it's not a bottomless pit from which to draw funds. We have a specific amount of money to spend and how we spend it is directly related to how many seminars we get. The more we spend on each seminar, the fewer seminars we can run. For our network this means a lot of organization, experimentation and penny-pinching to make sure we get the absolute maximum out of this funding as possible.

Hopefully this gives you some idea of how it all works and what's been going on behind the scenes for the past year.

Mel.

Positive Partnerships Autism PD

The information for the Positive Partnerships PD with Sue King scheduled for Saturday 15 Oct has gone up. View it here:

http://wodongacrtsupportnetworkpd.blogspot.com/

There are a few seats left and we are accepting bookings until 4.00pm Wednesday the 12th of October.

A booking fee of $10.00 for CRT's and $30.00 for other teaching staff applies.

See you there!

Mel.

Digital resources and monthly meetings

Today we want to cover two important topics.

The first is to address the issues that some people have had accessing digital resources from PDs through eMails. To combat this we will not be eMailing out digital resources anymore in favour of more reliable ways to make sure you get them!

The first way is quite simple. If you have a Laptop, Netbook or flash drive, we will give you the resources on the day and you can simply copy the resources straight to your own storage device. This will ensure you have them right there on the spot. It's a little time consuming to do on the day but we will make sure it gets done! Getting it this way you will receive all the files ready to just open in your office suite!

Of course not everyone will want to be dragging around a laptop with them so we are going to make them available through Skydrive too. Skydrive is a free file hosting service attached to Microsoft online services like Hotmail or Windows Live Messenger. We took a while checking out different file hosting sites and Skydrive is by far the best for us to use. It's advertisement free and doesn't require you to install anything to use. You simply follow a link and download the file to your computer.

For those who missed out on the digital resources for the Michael Ymer PD, as well as those wanting to try out Skydrive, they are there now! Here's the steps for those who aren't familiar with Skydrive and .zip files:

1) Click the link below.
2) Click on the Michael Ymer folder
3) Click on the Michael Ymer.zip file.
4) SAVE THIS TO YOUR COMPUTER in Documents (called My Documents in earlier versions of windows).
5) Navigate to Documents.
6) Open the Zip File by clicking/double clicking just like any other folder on your computer.

You should now be looking at all the documents from the Michael Ymer PD. If you have ANY problems don't hesitate to email for some help!

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=0d641ad8750d17a5

You can bookmark this Skydrive because it's the one I will be using for all PD downloads. However, be aware that future PD resources may be limited to those who attended the PD depending on the wishes of the presenter. In this case you will receive a link to the skydrive and instructions on how to access the files.

Because some have expressed a download-limit concern for their internet accounts, these files will always be contained in a compressed file like this one. File compression reduces the amount you have to download and turns multiple files into a single file so you only have to download one thing. We will be using the .zip format for this and the reason is simple. Every version of Windows from XP and newer (Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7) can open zip files just like a folder once you have downloaded it. You won't have to download any extra software in order to be able to get your resources!

For PDs containing very large amounts of resources we are trying another approach. We have received funding from the department for a number of flash drives to use in our upcoming Autism PD because it's simply the cheapest and most reliable way to get the job done. You'll get a flash drive in your goodie bag containing all the files, ready for you to use! We see no reason why this will not be approved again in the future.

We hope that between these 3 solutions everyone's needs will be met and no-one will have any fuss getting their digital resources ever again! If you think these solutions don't cover you, eMail us! It's our goal to make sure that everyone is covered fully and has the access to the digital resources for the PDs they attend!

The second topic for today's blog is getting the monthly meetings happening again! We realise that people have busy lives and just because you are a CRT and finish work when school gets out, that doesn't mean you aren't taking your kids to dance, sports or whatever in the evening too. For this reason we don't want to schedule something like "the first Wednesday of the month at 6.00pm" which might ensure that some people are never able to come.

So what we'd like is for you to tell us when suits you. Of course you can't please everyone and it's unlikely that everyone will pick the same day and the same time. What we will try to do is if we have it on Wednesday this month, we'll use Thursday the following month for example. In rotating it like this we hope to make sure that everyone gets to attend a minimum of twice a year but are aiming at maximum attendance for everyone.

The purposes of the meeting will be to discuss the network and network issues of course, but we would like to get that out of the way quickly which is a big reason for making the blog more active. We want to focus more on ourselves as teachers, be able to compare notes on schools, trade resources, share information on new resources we've found (and anything else that we feel we want to discuss), all in a social atmosphere created by us for us.

We hope that by following this format we can do a bit of self education, vent some frustration, get ourselves some answers and have a social outing all at the same time!

The next blog:

In the next blog I'm going to cover social networking and the all-important scheduling of PDs. Be sure to check in and eMail afterwards to have your say!

Getting the network back into high gear!

The first thing to mention is how important it is to us that you have your say. A network is a group of individuals working together and we want to make sure everyone has sufficient avenues of input. We may be "in charge" of the network but we understand completely that we are nothing without a body of members. You are important to us and we would like to make it understood that, even though communication has been poor up until now, it was not without reason.

The simple fact is that running the network is a lot more work than it looks like on the outside. The Department is now funding PDs for CRTs and it's no simple thing to put together an application likely to succeed at getting the funding. It has been a long, hard road getting to the point where we know the process well enough to achieve regular success.

We watched other networks get caught out and end up in trouble from over-communication or have a series of rejections just because the application process isn't simple and often misunderstood, something we wanted to avoid. Communicating planned PD's and then having to pass on the disappointment to our members wanting to go to them was something we wanted to avoid at all costs. Rest assured, we have had applications rejected too!

With the success of 3 applications, and new automaticly-approved PDs arranged by the department, we feel we are in a good position to start letting you all in on what's going on a lot more frequently than we have been.

Also, because this process is now a lot smoother for us, we now have a lot more time for the other things we wished we could have been doing all along! As a result, there's going to be a lot going on with the blog over the next few weeks as we gear the network back up again.

So, while we are in the planning stage, where would you like to see the network go? We are aware of some of the needs of our members on things like PD scheduling which we plan to cover in a blog soon but what issues do you think the network needs to address to try and cover the needs of all of our members?

Our eMail address is at the top right of the blog, use it and let us know! If your ideas or concerns are similar to many others, you won't be sent a private eMail in reply. Don't despair though, that's because we will be covering it with the blog instead to seek out further feedback!

Tomorrow's blog:

Making sure everyone gets their digital resources from now on and the reboot of monthly Wodonga CRT Support Network meetings!

Megan Dredge

Who is Megan Dredge?
Megan Dredge is a skilled and animated presenter, communicator, educator and trainer. For more than a decade, she has been teaching in both the private and public sectors. Megan’s passion is to place resources in the hands of principals, school leadership and teachers, so that they educate and communicate better than ever before. Megan has developed a variety of resources to help you. They rangefrom educational packs and public-speaking guides to leadership, teaching and training manuals. They come in different formats too – CDs, DVDs, books, e-books. A whole variety.

I have met Megan in person. She is a very passionate teacher, building resources and PD for CRTs. She understands our situation as she is a life long CRT herself.

Megan has her own website with online PD, blogsite, ebooks and more.

http://www.megandredge.com/

She also puts out an eNewsletter. The link below is the sign up page for this

http://www.megandredge.com/online-shop/what-makes-a-great-teacher-great/

Todays eNewsletter is labelled "What's your footprint?"

Mel

Holiday PD

Holidays are a great time for relaxing and catching up with friends.

It is also a great time for some individual professional development.
This might include reading (all the VIT and AEU publications that you have sitting in a pile from the term), internet research (remembering you have some time to play with some of the games that the kids are playing or expore an area of interest that will give you a better understanding of student behaviour/techniques/subjects), developing new lessons or reflecting on lessons that you have taught or volunteering at the local library to assist with their children's activities (and observing how others teach/run lessons).

Writing up your PD hours in one spot is also something that can be updated (or started). Grab yourself an exercise book, label it PD HOURS and keep it an area of the house that is easy to remember and grab when you need to write up your hours. I have mine sitting at the computer.

But please don't forget to rest! There has been alot of sickness travelling through schools. So please take it easy and also enjoy your holidays.

Term 4 Autism PD

Hello All,
Sorry I have been a little quiet lately. I have been working on some behind-the-scene paperwork for PDs.

Here is the Term 4 Full Day PD Opportunity details.

Autism PD

Sue King is a local teacher who has been working as the Autism Teaching and Learning coach in the Wodonga/Hume area over the last couple of years. Until recently she was based at Belvoir Special Development School until Department of Education requested her expertise.

She is an amazing person, teacher and presenter and is at the fore-front of the implementation of autistic support in schools in our region.

Sue is joining us for a full day PD exploring Autism. There will be three sessions throughout the day. These include Understanding Autism, up-to-date information on techniques and strategies and the implimentation of techniques and strategies into the classroom.

This PD is aimed at familiarising you better with Autism, exploring many aspects of Autism that will enhance your understanding in the Autism field.

Please email Mel at beautifulwhiteangel@hotmail.com for the PD Application form.

Take care
Mel Lichnovsky-Klock
Co-ordinator of the Wodonga CRT Support Network