ECAWA 2007 State Conference - Presenter - Brett Clarke and Mark Stephens

Mark Stephens and Brett Clarke will present
Introducing and Managing Web 2+ Portals for a School-based Setting
NB: This is a double length presentation to allow for more 'hands on' activities by participants

As a lap-top school PLC staff & students have online technology at their fingertips and the Scholaris Learning Gateway provides tight integration between disparate back-end systems used for finance, timetabling, attendance, health/pastoral care and class and curriculum organisation. The Scholaris Learning Gateway increases accessibility to information locked in legacy systems and reduces the training effort by presenting a consistent interface to all activities.

Still early in its implementation, the PLC Portal currently provides the following resources in a fully online and integrated environment:

- Staff & Student Information – timetable, contact details, classlists, alerts and pastoral care notes;
- Document Storage system with workflow and version control
- Student Attendance;
- Email & calendaring
- Committee Meeting Managers;
- Department Collaborative sites;
- Course and Virtual Classroom sites utilising Discussion Boards, Surveys and Wiki’s;
- Staff and Student ICT Training Resources.
- Staff Directory
- Daily Newsletter / Staff Notice Boards
- Old Collegians website and discussion board

All of these resources are provided in a highly customisable system that allows staff and students to take ownership of their own learning/working spaces.

The presenters will describe the journey that PLC has undertaken over the past two years to install; configure and integrate this powerful Web 2+ environment. It certainly hasn’t all been plain sailing but there have been some valuable lessons learnt that attendees would find most valuable.

In the follow-up workshop, participants will have an opportunity to look in more depth at the configuration and capabilities of this solution and how schools can use it to improve both educational and administrative outcomes.

Information Overview:

Why the Learning Gateway is more than just a Learning Management System with Web 2.0 features
What does the PLC Portal look like and how does it work – 5 Layer Model; Role-based?
What functionality is it currently offering PLC – for Staff / Students; for Admin / Curriculum delivery and management and what is planned for the future?
Organisational Change Management in a Web 2.0 world
Managing a critical Enterprise application responsibly
Setting up and configuring the Scholaris Learning Gateway

NB: This is a double length presentation to allow for more 'hands on' activities by participants

BYO notebook computer with a web browser installed
Intended Audience: Primary and Secondary

About the Presenters

Mark Stephens, a previous ECAWA Committee member and Educator of the Year (2002), currently works at Presbyterian Ladies’ College (PLC) as the Manager of Training and Online Services. In this role he works closely with staff to help them leverage the full capabilities of their Apple One-to-One laptop programme.

Part of his role involves developing the PLC Portal, a one-stop-information-shop for all PLC Community members. The PLC Portal is built upon the SolutionsIT – Scholaris2007 Learning Gateway which utilises Microsoft’s SharePoint2007 Services.

Brett Clarke a past president of ECAWA, is the Director of Information Services at PLC and believes Web 2 / Portal technologies are at heart of providing relevant, role-based information to all members of a school’s community.

Brett is an “Apple Distinguished Educator” and has played a major role in ensuring the Microsoft based Learning Gateway integrates into the Macintosh lap-top environment at PLC.