Vision statement: PLANE will challenge and engage every teacher to contribute, learn and share experiences with a network of committed educators whose goal is to empower students to be 21st century learners.
Funded under the Digital Education Revolution’s Digital Strategy for Teachers. The Strategy is a national approach for teachers and school leaders across Australia to provide access to rich online learning resources, world class technology, and curriculum and ICT professional development.
PLANE will meet the just in time, anywhere, anytime, needs of pre-service teachers, in-service teachers and school leaders at all levels of ICT competence. Some of the learning experiences include:Project based collaboration.Simulated walk throughs or problem-solving in a learning game. Access to a virtual Library and Research World to view resources.Access to the Futures Possibilities World to meet experts.Communicating with others through blogs and social networking spaces as well as discussion within the environments using communication functionalities. Use of resources and tools on mobile devices.
It will build on teachers existing social networks and tools.Teacher or leaders will log into the “Entrance” and have the option of taking an online self-evaluation to be directed to relevant learning experiences or to use a searchable menu/timetable of learning experiences. The professional learning experience will be hosted either within the rich multimedia environment or a virtual world environment depending on the nature of the learning and may be synchronous or asynchronous or a mixture of both. There will be access to highly accomplished ICT educators within PLANE who are also qualified as peer-coaches through the Microsoft Partners in learning programPLANE will enable teachers and leader to set professional learning goals and collect evidence of their learning in a purpose built online space.Share with other educators and or used to attain professional accreditation. PLANE endeavours to promote best practice in professional learning that will build digital literacy and 21st Century learning skills thus increasing confidence in educators to teach with technology.
Open source and open standardsBuiltBuyme: a product by Tipodean TechnologiesRuns OpenSim in the browser (using Unity3D plugin)Allows for access from low bandwidth areasUses open standards web technology and can be configured to needsCan be embedded in social media like facebook or into websitesIs highly scalable
Phase 1 - research, testing (various platforms trialled on test server), requirements gatheringPhase 2 – focus groups with audience to develop user-case scenarios to help define professional learning requirements and platform features. Sourcing content and assets against our professional learning plan as well as designing new professional learning experiences. Culminating in a pilot of PLANE platforms and learning experiences with teacher/leader focus groups in late MayPhase 3 – PLANE will host the virtual world component and in-world events for a DER unconference in JunePhase 4 – production level PLANE environment with integration of platforms and toolsPhase 5 – finalising and evaluation
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3167-Gamifying-EducationGrading: progress encourages progress as opposed to "with every mistake there's nowhere to go but down" Gaming encourages the whole class to be working for one another the best kids can't get the maximum possible score unless they help their peers weaker students encourage more able students to continue to do well life isn’t something that just happens to you - games can help hammer home the notion that you control your own future
Alice is a Head Teacher Science and Technology Coordinator in South Western Sydney. She has been teaching for five years andis confident with her use of technology - integrating IWBs, edmodo, blogs, etc… regularly in her teaching. Alice is often the ‘go to’ person at her school for ICT knowledge. Most professional learning she has considered is aimed at a basic level, and she wants higher level ICT professional learning she’s particularly interested in game-based learning and opportunities for collaboration with higher end users in these areas.Alice goes onto PLANE and finds teachers who have experience of game-based learning. Some teachers have uploaded sample student work where game consoles have been used for a range of subjects and purposes. Alice finds out about Machinima (Masheenuma) – animated 3D story in game or movieformat - from some teachers on PLANE and logs on to the Machinima website to find more information and explore how she can integrate it into her studentlearning program. She goes back to PLANE to reflect with and discuss what worked and what didn’t with other teachers who have been using Machinima in their teaching. Alice is able to use her network on PLANE to continue exploring and extending her use of game-based learning as well as to gain endorsement from across educational sectors that her approach is supported. She is now prepared to lead a professional learning program with other teachers in her school and she will share the school implementation with the wider network of teachers and leaders through PLANE.