Learning

YCON 2016

From Monday 21   to Friday 25 November  Year 10 students will participate in YCON 2016. YCON is a Loreto Normanhurst program designed to raise awareness of global  and social justice issues. Students will participate in debates on global issues, problem solving and team and leadership building activities. This program is an important part of your daughter’s learning at Loreto in preparing her for the challenges and opportunities of her senior years. A number of guest speakers will address the students over the week including Phil Glendenning, Sr Libby Rogerson IBVM and representatives from Caritas, The Wilderness Society and Catholic Mission. We hope that your daughters will enjoy the learning opportunities the program will offer as well as taking advantage of the chance to develop their leadership skills as they start their senior studies.

Mrs Carolina Murdoch

Dean of Learning

Understanding how our students engage in the digital world

In relation to understanding digital  best practice it is important to have a broader understanding of how our students and your daughters engage in the digital world and then leverage their interests in learning. The Digital Learning Playbook (2014) outlines ( based on US research)the range of student activities and aspiration in their digital learning. The findings are most informative and help shape decision making to augment learning  of the students.   Below are three of their findings:

• “Girls outpace boys in use of many digital tools for learning, particularly the socially based tools like texting and collaborating online.” 
• “Students continue to report less regular interaction with traditional social networking sites like Facebook, while 44 percent of students in grades 6-12 report using social media apps like Instagram, Snapchat and Vine. Nearly one-third of high school students reported using Twitter. “
• “In four years, the percent of middle school students taking tests online increased from 32 percent to 47 percent.” 

Here are two thoughts worth pondering from these three findings: Firstly, from Loreto’s perspective we consider it important to understand social media for communication through engagement, hence our encouragement of parents and students to positively  engage in the school’s social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter and other web tools we use. And secondly, we are two years into the third finding about online testing and it seems evident we all need to prepare for  NAPLAN testing to be online in the coming years.

Mr Martin Pluss

Dean of Learning

Dates to Remember –  Term 4