Rural and Distance EducationRural and Distance Education

David McLeodLeader, Rural & Distance Education Programs

our focusour focus

curriculum access, peer interaction & connectednesscurriculum access, peer interaction & connectedness

Tibooburra

Bourke

Casino

Ballina

Port

Macquarie

Broken Hill

HayQueanbeyan/

Karabar

Dubbo

Walgett

Primary Distance Education

Centres

Secondary Education Centres

Distance Education Pre–School

Distance Education CentresDistance Education Centresand Schools in NSW and Schools in NSW

Camden Haven

Sydney DEPS

Sydney DEHS

Open High School

DESU

BackgroundBackground

The Distance Education review identified a need to improve digital technologies that supported the development of blended learning programs for contemporary distance learning pedagogy

High School leaders have supported the concept of sharing through the Camden Haven Declaration

The Main AimThe Main Aim

• Collegial networks• Symposium

The Role of EquellaThe Role of Equella• The Equella trial demonstrated the capacity of

the system to meet the need to store, classify, access, adapt and share teaching and learning materials in Distance Education in New South Wales

• The repository will provide management of content so that it can be:– used in multiple output and distribution

formats (LMS, print, portable media)– adapted and cloned to meet individual student

learning needs– easily discovered by end users

Key GoalsKey Goals

• provide a platform for Distance Education schools and staff to share and update resources in an efficient manner

• Protect valuable DEC resources

• replace the disparate and disconnected thumb drives, portable hard disks, local storage and other solutions

Equella ServersEquella Servers

• Equella is implemented on servers administered by the Information Technology Directorate with full disaster recovery protocols.

• This implementation matches the system implemented as part of the Virtual Learning Environment of TAFE NSW.

CollectionsCollections

• Teaching materials• Non-teaching materials• Image Collection

SupportSupport

Level 1 Rural and Distance Education Unit Network Organisers Distance Education – NODES (see section 3.3)School based technology staffCollegial Networks

Level 2 Rural and Distance Education, Distance & Rural Technologies Support Unit

Level 2 ITD Support Operations

Level 3 ITD Infrastructure Services, Information Services, Network Operations

Level 3 The Learning Edge International

PROFESSIONAL LEARNINGPROFESSIONAL LEARNING

• DE Teachers– Delivered by the Rural and Distance Education Unit – (Kym Knight, Greg Alchin and Suzie New) – Curriculum considerations – blended learning, universal

learning for design– Using Equella – contributing an item, sharing an item,

searching, publishing items– Copyright considerations– Technical – Moodle integration

• Content Administrators – Specific role for a limited number of staff in each school

with additional ability to access/remove/archive material. Principals and Deputy Principals will automatically be members of this group.

ONGOING TRAINING AND ONGOING TRAINING AND SUPPORTSUPPORT

• Equella Bites – how to videos– Search– Contribute-Single/bundle– Quality Control-Favourites/review– Moodle LMS integration– Making a favourite– How to share

• Online User Guide• FAQs• Online quick reference guide• Equella VC Meetings

– Once per term available to all staff via video conference

• Equella User Reference Group– Once per term user group meetings of key school staff via

video conference

ConsiderationsConsiderations

• DE Symposium• Professional learning through targeted writing• Purchased resources• Primary music material• https://detwww.det.nsw.edu.au/directorates/

profcurr/schoollib/pdf/hbkcopyright.pdf

EquellaEquella

• http://www.equella.com/guest-access-sites.php

• http://labs.equella.com/institutions.do

• https://sharetest.schools.nsw.edu.au/rde/logon.do