Hale School in Western Australia has come a long way since it first opened its doors more than 150 years ago, but it’s doubtful it has ever made a bigger leap forward than its recent technological innovation – in the process living its philosophy to ‘provide opportunities for every boy to excel’.
The former Head of Junior School and Head of Middle School at Hale, Michael Valentine, became the Head of Online Learning in 2013. An educational leader for over 30 years, Michael sees his role as that of an innovator with a responsibility to explore the potential for real change to Australia’s educational model.
Two key learning initiatives currently keeping Michael on his toes are the Hale@home and Hale21Future School projects. Michael is a strong believer that technology now has the power to transform education – and in his current role at Hale he’s bringing this vision to life.
‘Hale@home’ provides boys attending country schools the opportunity to transition into Hale by doing classes remotely using One Note and Office 365 in the year prior to starting at Hale as a full time boarder.
Hale@home is designed to build each boys’ confidence about their transition to boarding life by offering them a richly positive, online interaction with their future boarding-house mates each week. Further to this an engaging interdisciplinary curriculum engages the boys with technology they have not used before and encourages communication and creativity skills.
“I’m meeting with lots of boys in country schools and it is fabulous to introduce them to 1:1 technology and its capacity to connect, engage and amplify their learning,” Michael says “Hale@home ensures each boys boarding journey now begins in the security of his own home and school 12 months before entering Hale School, so they can hit the ground running when they start at Hale. It helps to connect them with other students, to engage with technology – as some don’t use computers on a day-to-day basis – and heightens their optimism about handling the transition from home to boarding school and the Hale School academic context. Each boy receives a computer from the school to use for Hale@home for the year.”
“I’m meeting with lots of boys in country schools and it is fabulous to introduce them to 1:1 technology and its capacity to connect, engage and amplify their learning”
“We’ve had over 50 families go through this program over the past three years and we’ve had some great feedback to date. What this led us to wonder is how we can extend this platform so that more kids can benefit? At Hale, we’ve learnt a lot as a school, and we’re ready to share it with other school communities.”
The success of the Hale@home program, led to the Hale 21 Future Program. “I have learned an enormous amount about teaching online with Hale@home and it is a pleasure to be able to share this knowledge with colleagues in rural communities,” said Michael. In its first year, the free program introduces government and catholic sector teachers from different rural schools to design 21st century learning curriculum and enables them to build a professional-learning community using the Microsoft 365 cloud-based platform. Michael works with a small group of students and their teacher each week in a lively, interactive session where the three groups all converse as they share their collective learning seamlessly across the vast distances between them. Hale School is even providing these schools with 4G dongles to enable better network connectivity for their weekly online sessions.
Michael has taken three schools from throughout Western Australia through this program to date, setting his sights on many more in the future. Teachers sign on to work with Michael for 18 weeks and commit to designing a unit of work which all students in the programme undertake. Michael has designed a unique online curriculum-design model which is provided to all teachers to use, as are all his own units of work. The vision for Hale21 Future School is to empower previously isolated classroom teachers to connect with other teachers and students from across the state and the world to build a dynamic learning community with a library of teaching units for all to access.
“Time and again, we sit and wait for technology to do everything for us. We now have all the tools to transform the curriculum model we have used for centuries. It is innovation which must transform education, so what’s stopping us? Too often technology is used to fit the existing education model, instead of the needs of the students and teachers being the source of our use of technology,” Michael says.
“Too often technology is used to fit the existing education model, instead of the needs of the students and teachers being the source of our use of technology”
“Technology such as Microsoft Office 365 empowers schools to have no walls – opening up a whole portfolio of new opportunities. As teachers, we have the responsibility to provide our students with the opportunity to create, collaborate and build long life skills that will support them in the future; and technology innovation has the power to enable this.”
Michael is one of six Expert Educators who have been selected to represent Australia at the Microsoft Global Educator Exchange (E2) in Seattle, on the 29th of April – an annual event that brings together 300 of the most innovative educators and students from around the world.
“I’ve really enjoyed being part of the Expert Educator community – to challenge myself to meet the expectations of the group, and it has certainly opened doors to a different way of thinking that I’m able to utilise in my virtual classrooms,” Michael says.
