Award winning learning at the Learning Place

Darlene Hill, history teacher and Teacher Librarian at Bundaberg North State High School accessed a learning object from The Learning Federation through the Learning Place – and used it as inspiration for a unit for senior ancient history students, Studies of archaeology.

"I used the approach of archaeologists being like detectives," Mrs Hill said. The students used powerpoint presentations and took part in online chats with working archaeologists. "It gave the unit a real-life context," Mrs Hill said. "Having worked on archaeological excavations myself, and held ancient artefacts in my hands, I wanted the students to have the same thrill."

Mrs Hill said the students loved the unit and the technology. "They felt as if they were really there – and they wanted to know more."

Geography teacher Lissa Hodson from Robina State High School created a Blackboard unit, Year 8 sustainabilty challenge trial, that challenged Year 8 SOSE students to think about sustainability and the factors that influence it, and to consider the consumption of energy and water in their homes.

Through the Learning Place, students accessed tools such as learning objects and interactive environmental calculators. "The Learning Place is a fantastic resource that enables teachers to pick and choose from a variety of tools!" Ms Hodson said.

Students considered the amount of energy and water Gold Coast homes use, and the amount of waste each produces, then made decisions for personal action plans, and changing personal behaviours. Their decisions were presented in Microsoft Photostory.

"The students were continually engaged," Ms Hodson said. "Discussions were often generated by things students wrote on their blogs. We loved investigating and unwrapping these notions."

Teacher Librarian Jennie Jahnke, from Mitchelton State High School, designed an online course to encourage Year 8 students to read more and to create enthusiasm for the reading program and for Book Week.

Ms Jahnke received a Learning Place Fellowship in 2005 and learned to design online units of work using Blackboard. The result was Reading rocks. "The unit contrasts to the traditional way of verbally informing students about books and authors," Ms Jahnke said. "By engaging in the Blackboard course, students can interact in chat forums with authors, complete challenging and interesting tasks, and access authors' websites. Students create a reading log, a blog, and design a celebratory reading banner. They also share with other readers through an online discussion board."

The course assists students to learn new technologies, Ms Jahnke said. "The best thing was seeing the students have fun while they shared experiences and learned about new technologies."

Year 2 teacher Cassandra Marzella from Broadbeach State School wanted her class to look at the characteristics of successful authors, compare their writing styles, and consider why certain authors appeal to different students.

Through the Learning Place, Ms Marzella set up a class project room, What makes an author?, that included written chats and comic chats, blogs, forums and polls. Students took part in online chats with authors and "characters" from books. They voted in online polls and presented forums with their views on characters and authors, and created blogs about their own experiences.

"Students were racing home to tell their parents about what they'd learned," Ms Marzella said. "Parents were very interested in the technology and before-school parent lessons were introduced."

Ms Marzella said that the quality of students' writing improved greatly over the length of the unit. "Their responses showed editing and thought, and they became confident writers with a new medium."

A travel buddy named Wally Walkabout took Year 3 teacher Samantha McLean's Browns Plains State School class on a virtual road trip through the city, the coast and the outback.

Wally Walkabout and students from Browns Plains SS

The children made tribal masks out of clay

Through a Learning Place project room, the class took part in a Collaborative Online Project (COP), Living on the coast, living in the outback, based on a unit of work originally written by Ms McLean and co-writers Craig Abbott, Kerry Coombes and Jenny Heathwood.

"Students used ICT to create labelled maps and write a holiday journal, newspaper stories and postcards," Ms McLean said. "They discovered how humans are responsible for the environment they live in, how environments change over time and how people communicate information about environments."

Ms McLean said the students gained valuable insights into different lifestyles. "They were kept on task and engaged through the various ICT activities," she said.