Blog Post
Regional students get head-start in virtual classrooms
Paul Brescia
While schools around the country rapidly work to deliver remote learning, and students adjust to a learning experience outside of the classroom, it is business as usual for Australia’s regional and rural students.
Clayfield College, a boarding school in South Brisbane, has many regional students who access their classroom materials remotely. As a result, it already had procedures in place to create virtual classrooms, facilitating discussion, and closely mimicking the in-class experience.
Covid-19 has forced prompted schools to take a hard-look at remote learning facilities. We spoke to Cathy Lamb, head of technology and E-Learning, Clayfield College, on how the school has moved to remote learning in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“For children who live out west, remote learning is nothing new to them,” she says.
Lamb notes that at Clayfield College, which already has a focus on STEM education for its young girls, “The girls are not daunted by the technology. In the 21st century, these are tools that they will use for the rest of their lives.
“There were some classes already using the tools – but now we are rolling it out to all staff. We have to be able to deliver curriculum remotely, communicate with students, and enable a classroom environment.
Clayfield uses the Microsoft Teams software suite, specifically, Teams for Education. It allows the teachers to compartmentalise their work with students. There is an area for communication, which emulates the classroom discussions that would be held, along with a separate area for files, in which the teachers provide the written materials.
OneNote operates as the classroom’s chalkboard, where a teacher can provide visual explanations of the content, using a touch screens on laptops or tablets.
Between the separate areas, the classroom functions as it would in a physical location, with students interacting under guidance from teachers, and working together simultaneously.
Lamb has spent the past week training all the teachers within the College, to be prepared when the Brisbane school term resumes after the Easter break. Making it easier for teachers to grasp is essential when working on such tight timelines.
“They understand the programs better when they have been broken up into those areas that mimic the real classroom. We can also have those conversations in real-time in a safe, encrypted environment for the students,” says Lamb.
Some schools have invested in Virtual Learning Environments, or VLEs. Programs such as Firefly and Noodles allow for a learning experience that is digital-first. Unlike Microsoft Teams for Education however, they are not free for registered educational institutions.
It is hard to fundamentally change your delivery model, particularly when that changed is forced by a once-in-a-hundred-years pandemic. Even in a post-coronavirus world, the changes made to delivering education will live on beyond the virus.
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As a Landcare group, one of our main interests is to increase ecological resilience in our local area. Many of our landscapes have been cleared of vegetation in previous decades, so we have the task of supporting landholders to plant trees and shrubs to replace those that are missing. The benefits of revegetation are manifold. They include providing habitat for a range of native animals; controlling erosion and salinity; increasing farm productivity through nutrient cycling and shade and shelter for stock; and drawing down carbon from the atmosphere. But as weather patterns become more variable and we experience more climatic extremes, we need to think about which plant species – and which plant genetics – are most appropriate in our revegetation efforts. We are forced to ask will our local plantings be able to survive our future climate? Up until recently, it has been common for people to preference locally sourced seed when re-planting. This has been based on the idea that such plants will be best adapted to local conditions. However, there is growing understanding among scientists and land managers that we need to shift our focus to plants that can persist as the climate changes. This involves looking at which plant species are most appropriate by focussing on species that have a wide distribution and grow in our area and also in hotter areas, and increasing the genetic diversity of our tubestock so they have the best potential to adapt over successive generations. Our Landcare group has been tackling this issue for the past several years, working with scientists and AdaptNSW to find the best way forward. There are several key steps involved: understanding our local future climate, analysing whether selected local species can survive in climates like the one projected for our area, and sourcing seed for those likely-to-survive species from a range of areas to increase the genetic diversity of our plantings. Planting the right species with good genetic diversity gives revegetation projects the best chance of survival into the future. It’s not just about making sure the individual tubestock will grow, but that future generations of those plants will be able to survive and thrive. Luckily there are some good resources available for farmers, land managers and groups interested in climate ready revegetation. The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney has launched the Restore and Renew Webtool ( https://www.restore-and-renew.org.au/ ), which is a wonderful way for people to incorporate both climate change and genetic information when sourcing seed or plants. The NSW Niche Finder is invaluable for those who want to dig further into climate variables and species distribution ( http://www.nswnichefinder.net/ ). For future climate information, the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology have joined forces to provide a user-friendly online tool ( https://myclimateview.com.au/ ). And AdaptNSW also provides projected climate change information for different regions of the state ( https://www.climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/projections-map ). The Yass Area Network of Landcare Groups also has detailed information about our work on climate ready revegetation and relevant resources our website: https://yan.org.au/projects/climate-ready-revegetation-project As the climate changes, our revegetation efforts are more important than ever. And we need to make sure that they are ‘climate ready’ so that their benefits persist well into the future.
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