Virtual learning in the education sector has enormous potential for students in the Canberra-Goulburn Archdiocese, according to McAuley College principal Eamonn Moore. Source: Catholic Voice.
Mr Moore received the Blakeney Millar Foundation Churchill Fellowship to investigate best practice in delivering curriculum through virtual learning late last year, and travelled to New Zealand and the United States for five weeks to explore how different organisations were utilising technology.
“The virtual world is on the brink of exploding, and I quickly learnt the scale of it in the US,” he said.
“Millions of kids in America don’t go to brick-and-mortar schools. There are very different models that operate in all kinds of ways – schools of two to three hundred students, where the school is an office in a shopping mall and everyone is online; hybrid models where the kids might come for a day or two a week; and flexible packages where you can do the lessons at any time.”
Mr Moore said he was particularly interested in virtual learning for remote students, such as those in Tumut and Temora.
“What I really hope for is that we could in some way offer specialised subjects and teachers for our students, particularly in Year 11 and 12,” he explained.
“What’s important to me is that I can keep boys and girls at home with their family, in their own town, with their weekend job and their sports team, while they can still have a successful HSC journey that is tailored to them.”
A virtual learning model has already supported the expansion of McAuley College in Tumut and St Anne’s Central School in Temora.
Both schools offered Year 12 for the first time last year thanks to virtual learning, which provided flexibility in timetabling and lesson delivery.
Mr Moore said while the concept was gaining momentum, with about 60 students from Archdiocesan secondary colleges now participating in virtual programs, he had also learned more about the challenges during his trip.
“Overall, what I kept coming back to was that our schools have a clear sense of belonging, and in many of the virtual schools, I failed to find that,” he said.
“That is something we need to hang on to – that’s our core business – that contact and relationship. If we keep that as our core, then we can build out from that as virtual learning progresses.”
FULL STORY
Virtual learning revolutionising rural Catholic education (By Veronika Cox, Catholic Voice)
