Goals 2013

2013 awaits with anticipation to see what youthful inspiration and educational phenomena will bless our schools.    We know that technological advancement is turbo charged, and we can only hang on by the edge of our seats to stay in control;) Thankfully we have our almighty God who gives vision and helps steer our ship.

As our learning commons moves to a new setting in the form of a Wordpress 3 blog and website, hcslearningcommons.org we are  optimistic that the vision set forth in Building a New Learning Commons will continue to thrive in its new home?  Discipleship is still first and foremost the goal of our learning commons, and with that in mind here are our goals for our students in 2013.

 Literacy!  Our goal for each and every student in HCS Schools, is that literacy in the many forms of digital, and non- digital media will be easily assimilated and transferred to learning that is relevant to the 21st century.  Find all things literary under our new Literacy Centre, including the Read-A-Thon, with a Character Trait theme this January. Join our new E library and discover a world of e books chosen specifically for your perusal based on your requests.  Discover our learning commons kits and make learning outcomes stress free!  Or check out our books and media library at the campus school/online learning commons, and have materials shipped right to your front door, via Canpar and our superb learning commons team Shandra, Kelly and Jessie.  Our Knowledge Building Centre is enhanced by our HCS Weblinking Library , which covers research related links on numerous subjects for your students' perusal. Our Subscription library has 21 century learning right at your fingertips with some authoritative databases.  Content curation is covered extensively by Pippa and Natalie,  who scour the web daily for your research related queries, on Scoopit and also via LibAnswers.

2.  Collaboration!  Our goal for each and every student will be to invite collaboration and participation in the learning commons ning!  It is our belief that each student who is fully engaged in learning which is personal and unique to their passions, will feel led to engage more fully with their peers and teachers.  Students will also be able to connect with their fellow classmates, pray for each other and problem solve together.

3.  Build Creatively and with Innovation!  Our goal is to invite deeper learning, in the Experiential Building Centre which will encourage building and problem solving along the lines of our teen geek squad and their technological gifts, or the Flat Stanley community, or the Digital Photography competition that is happening right now on our ning, and a poetry and writing competition in the spring.  Last year some of our students enjoyed critical acclaim for their digital animation skills,  and this year we look forward again to seeing their creations.  We invite all of our teen students to share their gifts on the ning.

 Research and Think Deeply, as a Digital Citizen!  Our goal is to teach and encourage digital citizenship, research skills, problem based learning and privacy aspects of being online, with mobile technology and social networks.   Our prayer is that we can engage in our chat room on the ning, share webinars on networking, and creating a personal learning network with our students,  whilst sharing how to be astute and discerning citizens online in our Reference Centre on our new website.  This term we have had Micah Penner join us as one of teen geek squad leaders to share in Blackboard Collaborate classrooms, how to make video trailers, and stop motion videos.  We look forward to more this new year.  In return we hope our students will teach us something on the technical aspects of being digital learners:)  We invite all of our staff to join us in this directive.

I look forward to hearing how your students are growing as unique, digital citizens in our blended learning commons, and I look forward to gleaning from you in the new year.  Many blessings from our team
Pippa