Laurie Wales, a
Google Certified Teacher from the Catholic Schools Office in Newcastle Australia, is well-versed in the value that online tools can deliver in the classroom. In a presentation at the recent
Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association Conference, Laurie ran a workshop titled "Connect - Construct - Collaborate". The workshop demonstrated how
Google Sites can be used to create an
e-portfolio, allowing students to record, archive and share their work with peers, parents, class, school and the world – and showcased how developing projects using Google applications has the potential to bring teachers and students together by making them part of a "global community".
Across the ditch in New Zealand, cloud computing in the classroom is also really hotting up.
Fendalton School in Christchurch, New Zealand uses
Google Docs extensively to help staff collaborate on team meeting agendas, track meeting minutes and manage their budgets. The school also uses Google Docs in the classroom to help children as young as seven get organised and receive immediate peer feedback on class presentations through online
forms. Blogs are also used extensively across the school, allowing students to discuss key events and helping parents break through the typical "What did you do at school today?" silence. Fendalton School's new web site,
FOS Live, is driven through Google Docs and pulls in RSS feeds from class blogs to share learning as it happens in classrooms. This has the potential to reduce traditional barriers between school and the home. In the video below, Fendalton School's Rob Clarke describes some of the uses of Google tools by Fendalton teachers and students. There are even plans to use Google's
OpenSocial tools on this school web site.
Pt England School in Auckland, New Zealand, has taken this one step further using a range of
Google tools to make learning fun. The school's principal, Russell Burt, describes their approach as giving students the space to collaborate with each other and with people worldwide to create and remix content, and to share their work in a manner that was previously only available to the highly technically skilled. To see what the kids at Pt England have been up to, check out the video below.
