At this time of the year teachers have usually spent a significant amount of time setting up their classroom/s and organising resources as well as establishing processes, routines and expectations with their students… but what about the online classroom?

The literature around learning in the 21^st century abounds with references to removing the walls of the classroom and “engaging students in ways not previously possible, creating new learning and teaching possibilities, enhancing achievement and extending interactions with local and global communities.”

Learning in an online World – Contemporary Learning MCEETYA.

This can be a daunting prospect for we ‘digital immigrant’ teachers to include in our thinking about our classrooms and how they operate … where to start? … what’s available that suits my students’ needs?… how can I learn about it ?… how will I manage it?

Here are details about three great examples of teachers in our schools who are moving into this territory by implementing an online presence for their students this year.

Grade 6-7 teacher Sue Wyatt began exploring the world of blogging in January this year,  and hopes that “by introducing my students to blogging, wikis and using the Smartboard this month, I feel I am expanding the students’ worlds but doing it so both they and their parents feel they are safe still within their own backyards. ” You can share Sue’s journey from ‘her first day at blogging‘ through wondering ‘why has no-one commented?’ to seeking advice from others about ‘Creating a classroom blog‘. Sue has now created a blog for her class and is using it for a variety of learning purposes from exploring internet safety issues to motivating her students to write for an audience.

Sue Atkinson worked with senior students in her school last year to create a blog to share their research about saving water with a broader audience. Over the holidays Sue experimented with using sound recordings to share local history stories through the Woodsdale Museum blog. This year she has created a new blog ready for Levendale students to share their work.

Jenni Morgan is just getting underway with a classroom blog for her Prep -1 class. She is planning to use it to keep parents informed about happenings in her classroom and she is using the ‘page’ facility on Edublogs to provide easy access to online resources for her young learners.

You might be wondering if there is a way to ‘put your toe in the water’ with this idea … something that is ‘in-house’ and protected in terms of student safety, as well as easy for teachers to use! The answer is “yes”. Many of our schools have established a SharePoint collaborative workspace to support administrative functions; it is just a matter of applying this tool to your classroom learning program.

An important difference between SharePoint technology and the blogs described above is that the materials aren’t openly available for viewing, so I can’t link you to examples to have a look at … only tell you about them!

I have seen class SharePoint sites used in our schools for purposes as diverse as:

• providing links directly to web-based resources for learning
• making documents relating to current classroom projects easily accessible
• sharing examples of students work, photos from excursions and classroom visitors
• using online discussions for reflective conversations and
• using calendars of important events to keep organised.

The audience is usually restricted to the students within a single school and their parents, who can view materials with their children logging on.

This technology has both limitations and benefits; it doesn’t provide global interactions, but can support building local communities of practice within the school; its functionality is limited in some ways, but it builds on skills and knowledge that many teachers already have.

I think it can be a useful way to “think global and act local”. What do you think? Use the ‘Comments’ facility to share your thoughts.