CEnet Member Bulletin 16.11.20

Dear <<First Name>>,

This bulletin is provided by CEnet to inform and support member dioceses.

In this edition, students publish COVID-19 lockdown experiences, deployment project fast tracked to support remote learning, member collaboration activities, Transformation Reports, Catholic Learning Online professional learning activities and the introduction of a new tool for members of the CEnet Lucid for Education consortium.

We hope you find the information of interest and we welcome your feedback and suggestions.

Feedback

Students Publish Lockdown Experiences

Recently, Teacher Librarian Lia Radocchia asked students from St Mary's Rydalmere NSW (Parramatta Diocese) to write their thoughts and create art to reflect their experiences during the Covid-19 lockdown and remote learning period. An eBook was created from their efforts and uploaded to the CEnet member dioceses SORA eBook platform.

COVID-19 And Us student publication image

This is a great example of using SORA to support authentic and creative learning opportunities - where students become the publishers of a book that can be accessed by the 250,000+ students in the consortium.

Numerous students and staff across the consortium are already borrowing the book and feedback has been very enthusiastic about the students writing and the subsequent learning outcomes from their work:

".. was so impressed with the work of the staff and students to capture the thoughts and feelings in this momentous year. I loved reading about all the surprising positives that have also come from COVID-19 for the students and families"

"Thanks for all your efforts to put this on SORA as a wonderful example of writing for a purpose and audience beyond the immediate classroom. This authentic writing is so powerful and what our English syllabus asks us to do"

"Thank you and congratulations to all involved."
Kathy Ferrari, Literacy Manager Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta.

You can find the ebook in SORA via this link - Covid-19 and US: A book of how we survived lockdown.

Read the eBook

Catholic Education Canberra and Goulburn Remote Learning

Catholic Education, in the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn has successfully deployed a solution to support learning and teaching in schools in the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales.

The changes brought about as as a result of COVID-19 created a catalyst for the selection and deployment process with the project being fast tracked to meet demand for a solution that would support remote learning needs.

Technical deployment was completed in 35 days and a program of professional development was implemented to support teachers. You can read the full story by clicking here of using the button below.

Find Out More

Member Collaboration - Compass/TechOne Collaborative sessions

Last week the CEnet CX team hosted the second in a series of CeSIS Collaborative sessions, ’Centralised Account Process and Accounts Payable Automation’, presented by Emily Luchetti from the Catholic Education Office, Diocese of Wollongong.

Representatives from across the CEnet membership met to collaborate and learn from the experiences of the Wollongong CEO in its move to centralised AP processes and AP automation using Compass and TechOne.

The next collaborative session on 16 November at 1pm AEDT will be presented by Sherrol Gane, Anna-Louise Jones and Frank Wassef from Sydney Catholic Schools. They will be presenting on the semester reporting variations process that Sydney Diocese uses.

The series of workshops is being facilitated by CEnet, using the ONCE philosophy of reducing duplication of effort, to provide a forum for participants to share and benefit from the expertise and experiences of colleagues in other member dioceses.

Each week a different Diocese will present how they have tackled a school business process by using an aspect of Compass or TechOne. Those attending the collaborative sessions are asked to come prepared with questions and to be ready to brainstorm and collaborate on how Compass or TechOne can improve their school business processes.

Schedule of events:

16 November at 1.00pm AEDT - Semester Report variations
24 November at 10.30am AEDT - Student billing processes
2 December at 10.00am AEDT - One Session for primary schools
TBA - End of year financial processes

Like to get involved but not sure who to contact? Get in touch with Janine Duggan, CeSIS Subject Matter Expert, CEnet

More Information

Transformation Reports Opportunity

Some common questions amongst those who implement technology in schools are “How do we know how well we are doing?”, “How can we get a snapshot of usage and attitudes with regard to technology”, “What are we doing well?”, “What can we do better?”, “What should we focus on next?”

Transformation Reports is a free tool designed to help schools using G Suite to quantify the impact of their Google for Education implementation. This report can provide useful information about how G Suite is being used in a school, as well as insights and suggestions for the future.

The report contains two parts:

Part 1) an automated analysis of your G Suite domain to generate statistics that provide insights into how your school community is using these tools. Each custom report is designed to help the reader to understand how teachers and students are using Google technology, highlight usage over time, and recommend next steps and resources to support goals.
Automated reports can be triggered by logging into this site with an admin-level account before November 20.

Part 2) an opportunity for members of a school leadership team to complete a survey about their perceptions on their school culture. The information in this custom report is supplemented with next steps and recommended resources to support the school's Professional Learning Strategy.

These two components - the technical and the cultural - will be combined into a single report that provides insights into how a school stands on the Google transformation framework.

Transformation Reports can be generated by participating in the upcoming reporting window, details below.

The reporting window is open until November 2020
Reports will be available from December 2, 2020

Forty seven people made an early start on Wednesday of last week, 11 November to participate in the second ‘Building Student Reading Habits using the SORA eBook Library” workshop presented by Lisa Nash from Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta.

Lisa's two sessions have informed almost 100 participants from CEnet member dioceses about research relating to building learning habits and have shared strategies to develop student reading motivation.

Participants had an opportunity to develop an understanding of how to access the CEnet member dioceses' Overdrive consortium through SORA and features such as accessibility tools to suite the needs of individuals and achievement badges that the platform has help to build reading habits.

Participant comments:
"So much valuable information. Lisa was a terrific presenter & interacted well with us online"

"I enjoyed the sharing of ideas with other teachers and librarians about how they build a reading culture within their classrooms and schools"

"There was some really great ideas shared that I did not know about"

"Thank you very much. A very informative and inspiring webinar."

View the workshop video

Upcoming Catholic Learning Online Events:

Using Seesaw 18 November 7.30 am AEDT
Using Seesaw 26 November 4.15 pm AEDT

Register interest in participation in upcoming events by clicking here or by using the button below.

Catholic Learning Online Events is an initiative involving members of the the CEnet eLearning Working Group and others, that aims to identify and support areas of common need for professional learning in CEnet member dioceses.

Sign me up for a CLOE

New Addition to the Lucid For Education Bundle

Lucid recently launched a new product as part of the Lucid for Education Learning Suite: Lucidspark.

If your diocese is a participant in the CEnet member dicoeses' Lucid for Education consortium, Lucidspark is now included in your Lucid for Education Learning Suite. It’s a virtual whiteboard designed to assist collaboration.

The tool has a number of collaboration features:

Sticky notes
Freehand drawing
Chat, comments, @ mentions
Voting
Timer
Infinite canvas

The addition of this new tool means that consortium participants now have access to Lucidpress for desktop publishing, Lucidchart for creation of diagrams and flowcharts and and Lucidspark for virtual whiteboarding.

Lucid for Education has contacted each diocesan account administrator and offered to assist with any questions arising from the introduction of this new tool.

Share a Story

The CEnet Member Bulletin provides a great opportunity to share information about activities occurring in member dioceses.

If your diocese has an interesting story to share contact us.

Share a Story