New South Wales
Country Areas Program
Projects That Really Make a Difference!

Project Title: Literacy and Technology
Type: Sunraysia Schools District Initiative
Coordination: Project Officer, Yvonne Madden liaised with District Technology Adviser
Participating School/s: Coomealla High School, Wentworth Pubic, Dareton Public, Buronga Public, Gol Gol Public, Pomona Public
Attributes Addressed: Self, Communication, Literacy, Technology

Overview

This initiative seeks to support teachers in working with technology in their classrooms. The focus has been to meet the technology outcomes in the English K-6 syllabus.

A survey of teachers in the schools indicated that, while there were a few teachers who felt comfortable in using technology effectively, many teachers felt they lacked the necessary technical skills and knowledge to embed the use of technology in their daily classroom lessons. Technology and particularly the use of computers was seen as an "add on" across curricula issue rather than an integral part of literacy teaching strategies.

In the schools listed above, each classroom has at least one computer with the availability internet access variable in each location. The support given to each school was tailored to meet the individual school needs and priorities.

Implementation

The Project Officer and the District Technology Adviser developed a Training and Development

timetable to work with individual or small groups of teachers to do the following:

• develop the necessary technical skills in using word processing, spreadsheets, data bases for classroom use
• become familiar with software available with the school
• become familiar with the protocols for using email and accessing websites on the internet
• develop strategies for incorporating technology into existing classroom program so that it becomes embedded in daily classroom lesson plans and teaching strategies.

Team teaching sessions with the project officer and the technology adviser were then timetabled to assist teachers to implement these strategies across all key learning areas. The focus for these sessions is to develop and use "best practice" teaching strategies.

Network meetings are also planned for teachers to share programs, strategies, successes and issues when using technology in the classroom.

Parent sessions were run in a number of the schools to inform and train parents in the same technology skills as the teachers and students.

As a development from the initiative, Literacy and Technology plans will be developed for each school to ensure on going training and development, networking and parent involvement.

For more information contact: Jan Cook CAP Consultant Broken Hill District Office

phone (08)8087 3300, fax (08)8087 9166

Email:-<cookj@gwise.det.nsw.edu.au>