Albany Senior High School - Learning Spaces & Technology

I have included a link to the slideshow from Albany Senior High School (which I uploaded over a month ago) because I like the way ASHS have a vision for their students (see slide 3) which connects with their goals for the use of technology:

• enage
• create
• communicate
• contribute

"in a caring and chellenging learning community." This includes teaching students about cybersafety and use of a school intranet, moodle, e-portfolios to encourage community participation and skype.

Our school is currently developing an ICT action plan and I would like to see us starting with our vision for our students and then how technology can support this, rather than starting with the technology itself.

I am interested to know how other schools have tackled this process.

On another note, when I visited Albany Junior High School recently I was most jealous of their technology resources. Again and again I am restricted by access when trying to get my students using technology to support their learning. Most of my students have resorted to creating their work using the technology that they have at home and then presenting it to the class using the classroom laptop and data projector. Students have created the most amazing artifacts: character cubes (exploring different aspects of characters) using google sketchup, videos combining Youtube resources and their own recordings, songs using software that they have at home; websites, wikis ... I feel inspired by my students everyday but I wish that they could make these things at school so that I can learn from them. I am also aware that there are students who don't have access to these resources and are falling behind their more technologically literate classmates.

I have put in a request for COWs to be installed in the classroom block where most of the English teachers are situated so hopefully in the future the access issue may no longer be relevant. I can't wait for the day!!