Posted September 2008 Ollie Up students get active online with sports stars
		In a quest to find out what drives and sustains our elite athletes, Queensland students interacted online with past and present Olympians and other Australian sporting personalities through the Learning Place’s Active Online.

In celebration of the Year of Physical Activity and the Beijing 2008 Olympics, Active Online involved a series of online chats and blogs with well-known sports stars such as Lions assistant coach Justin Leppitsch and Olympic 10km swimmer Ky Hurst. Some other online guests included Queensland Firebirds captain Peta Stephens; Olympic diver Robert Newbry; and Olympic hockey player Mark Knowles.

Delving into the minds of their sporting heroes proved to be a fun and rewarding task for students of the Ollie Up program. Ollie Up is an innovative approach to engaging middle schooling students in learning through ICT projects.

Delivered through the Learning Place, the program involves students working in small online groups to complete ICTs projects designed to cater to their interests and needs. Ollie Up co-ordinator Zoe Wilkins said Active Online was a relevant and exciting online event which encouraged students to use a range of online communication tools. "Active Online provided an engaging and real context for students to communicate, learn more about a global event and investigate and promote achieving goals, being active and achieving an active lifestyle," she said.

Ollie Up students played a key role in the event having the responsibility of using various Learning Place communication tools to mentor the athletes and provide them with tips on how to participate. They also peer tutored their own class so everyone could be involved.

"All sporting personalities were very grateful for the mentoring and were able to participate effectively in the event thanks to the Ollie Up students," Ms Wilkins said.

The following podcasts are from students and staff in the Ollie Up community and give some insight into Ollie Up and the Active Online event.