Introducing digital initiatives

Growth and impact on school digital maturity

Longneck Lagoon Environmental Education Centre (LLEEC) focuses on sustainability education and fieldwork programs, with only one indoor classroom the teaching style is based on connecting with Country and learning about the surrounding ecosystems.

Limited connectivity in the area and no individual student devices makes it a unique digital learning experience. In the first stages of bringing digital programs into the school, Amy started with digitising the student log in process. Instead of manually writing down attendance, followed by manually logging these details, the administrative labour was instantly alleviated through introducing Google Forms and mail merge templates. Introducing these small changes initially helped to build staff confidence and reduced administrative time significantly thereby boosting productivity that could be channeled by into the classroom.

From this simple login process, Amy saw the opportunity to create a space for online collaboration and built digital teaching and learning resources that have seen a great uptake since the initial stages, and has supported professional development for the staff she works with. 

The learning programs that have traditionally been supplied on paper are now being supported and enhanced with digital tools, such as Canva. Planning for their upcoming conference with Brewongle EEC, Amy and team needed to find a way to collaborate and easily prepare the content. Using Google Sites, they have managed to build a one-stop-shop for all correspondence, event programming, registration forms, and so much more. This platform was so well received it will now be used as a template for future events.

Throughout the year, Amy slowly added more and more content to the site and built a 'tech help hub' to further professional development. This was built in stages so as to not overwhelm staff and is now a great solution for one-on-one communication, shared user tools and collaboration in order to help each other learn and develop their skill set. 

At the end of the year the follow up staff survey showed that staff confidence that initially was limited, increased to outstanding levels of confidence using different types of technology and digital tools. Amy also found that with this newfound confidence the number of times a week staff integrated technology into their classrooms also increased to a few times a week instead of just once.

Staff at the LLEEC found that the quality of learning soared with the introduction of more technology integration within the school. 

Listen to Amy's presentation to discover more.