Using ICT for something special
Shine article
Vermont South Special School caters for the educational, social and emotional needs of children aged five to 12 who have a mild intellectual disability.
A key focus of the school is for teachers to challenge their knowledge and use of information and communication technology (ICT) to improve learning outcomes.
According to Esther Hall, Ultranet coach in the eastern metropolitan region, the culture of knowledge sharing and support at Vermont South Special School allows non-tech savvy teachers the freedom to experiment with new technologies.
“Vermont South Special School has teams of teachers who are enthusiastic and committed to learning new ICTs for the benefit of their students," she said.
“The school culture embraces ICT and teachers of varying ability levels are willing to try new technologies and adapt tools to use in the classroom for purposeful learning for their students.”
The leadership team at Vermont South Special School encourage their staff to undertake professional learning in ICT. School leaders promote the use of ICT as a tool for learning and demonstrate the benefit of using different types of technology throughout different subject areas.
The school’s ICT coordinator Margaret Handreck says her school has a particularly innovative approach. “Last term, groups of teachers went to a variety of Waverley Network Professional Development sessions to learn new Web 2.0 and multimedia tools. Back at the school the groups presented what they had learnt, allowing informed decisions to be made in each subject on what technology would facilitate student learning,” she says.
Vermont South students are benefiting from their teachers embracing the use of ICT to enhance their teaching of subjects. Each student’s work is being showcased through the use of student digital portfolios which aids in motivating the student’s learning.
More information
This article was written in the November issue of Shine magazine and can be found on page 62. To read more articles, see: Shine