Lately a lot of my time and focus has been devoted to creating an online portal for learning enhancement at my school. Part of my brief for my new role was the promotion to parents of learning enhancement opportunities provided at school. I decided to try out Google Sites, supported in a major way by a talented colleague, Dawn, to whom I owe so much for her technological expertise. Here is the site at this point in time (click here).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I referred to The Friars Factor earlier as a portal because I think it’s a central place serving more than one purpose: an opportunity for members of the school community to write about events in detail and include images/videos (blog posts); resources defining and clarifying aspects of giftedness for both parents and teachers; resources to support teachers in providing a differentiated curriculum; the opportunity for teachers to develop a personal learning network (PLN) after reading blogs and connecting to bloggers; lessons/tutorials/games to extend students at point of need; the opportunity to read widely far beyond the confines of the curriculum; the opportunity for students to follow their passion; ideas and resources integrating technology into student-driven learning tasks.

What made me happy after the talk was receiving emails from teachers wanting to contribute resources or suggesting students who might like to write blog posts. That’s so satisfying, knowing that the school community wants to collaborate in the project. That indicates the start of ownership. Win.