A new wave of collaborative educators at Hillcrest

While some people try to keep their school days in distant memory, Daren Mallett ensures they stay top of mind – making sure he doesn’t fall into the same trap that caused him to temporarily lose his love of learning.

Now working as Hillcrest Christian College’s Digital Learning Co-ordinator, Daren believes that schools need to shift away from teacher-centred classrooms in favour of a more self-directed, learner centred model – leveraging technology to make students more engaged by empowering them to learn at their own pace. “Teachers are now working beside their students both virtually and in person to help them where they need it.”

“At Hillcrest, we are working towards making the classroom experience more collegial and collaborative, engaging and relevant. Learning is no longer centred on the information delivered from an individual teacher, but rather a wealth of resources and experts using exciting technologies to transform students’ learning experience as we know it. We encourage students to use a range of sources in their work – so in a similar vein we should be using different sources to teach, and technology enables us to do this.”

“Learning is no longer centred on the information delivered from an individual teacher, but rather a wealth of resources and experts using exciting technologies to transform students’ learning experience as we know it.”

Daren believes that applications such as OneNote, Office Mix, Skype for Business and Office 365 allows teachers to interact with students work in real-time, enabling a seamless collaborative process. “Now we have this amazing capability through OneNote, where the students don’t have to wait for me; which means that they get the opportunity to be in control of their learning process. And as a result, we’re seeing learning outcomes improve as a direct result of their engagement”.  Teachers are helping students from anywhere with a Surface device that enables them to provide meaningful, tailored tuition and help.

“A whole new realm of possibility has emerged with the use of the Surface devices – giving students the chance to experience an individualised learning program in more places and from more people. For example, Hillcrest’s Principal, Mr. Jeff Davis has organised for our students to visit popular Gold Coast theme parks Wet ‘N Wild, Sea World and Movie World, where they will be using their Surface device to measure water flow rates, the physics of machinery and drawing pictures of animals using their digital pens in OneNote. This not only engages them through real-world learning activities and real-world challenges, but it also adheres to the curriculum.”

“We have this amazing capability through OneNote, where the students don’t have to wait for me; which means that they get the opportunity to be in control of their learning process.”

Since joining Microsoft’s Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert program a year ago – a global community and program of educators who work closely with Microsoft to drive technology innovation – Daren and the Hillcrest leadership team have continued to evolve the school’s digital journey. Hillcrest recently adopted a BYOD model that encourages students to bring hybrid laptop-tablets with styluses, as well as the widespread roll out of Surface devices to its younger students. “We can just do more with a Surface.”

Daren also talks of other transformative learning experiences that students can engage in, following the journey of world famous explorer Dr. Geoff Wilson and the 5th Element Expedition team as they teach students from remote locations like the Antarctic how to assess risk.

“Imagine students engaging via Skype and OneNote as Dr. Wilson shows teenagers who are soon to get their drivers licenses, how to assess risks in potentially dangerous situations, all the while learning about the physics of flight, or the geography of terrain analysis in Antarctica or history of exploration from the experts on location. Without a digital pen, OneNote or Skype, these students would be left to textbooks – the transformation of the learning experience is real and exciting.”

Being a part of the Expert Educator community has also empowered Daren to share his ideas, collaborate on exciting innovative projects and learn from other teachers around the world, just as his students do with each other.

“I’m already closely collaborating with 15 other educators from schools across the world and we’re actually joining together and making projects using OneNote, Office 365 and Skype to make lessons come alive.”

“I’m already closely collaborating with 15 other educators from schools across the world and we’re working closely on projects using OneNote, Office 365 and Skype to make lessons come alive,” said Daren. “The MIE program has opened a whole new dimension of learning for me. I’m constantly learning about new technologies that I otherwise wouldn’t have otherwise known about – it’s a really exciting time to be an educator.”

Daren is excited to be one of four Expert Educators who have been selected to represent Australia at the Microsoft Global Educator Exchange (E2) in Budapest, on March 8, 9 and 10 – an annual event that brings together 300 of the most innovative educators and students from around the world.

To learn more about the Expert Educator program, including how to become one! Visit:  https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/education/educators/miee/default.aspx.

Tags: , ,

Related Posts