The Thistle - An E-Newsletter of Scotch College, Perth, Western Australia

ILT – Digital Resources in Learning

Future focused education describes the need for to both teach subject disciplines and to develop and broaden student general capabilities in preparation for their entry into future employment. A recurring theme in the personal skills needed for the future workplace is the importance of collaboration and communication.

Students must possess the ability to collaborate seamlessly in both physical and virtual spaces, with real and virtual partners equally” - Lee Watanabe-Crockett

Our students live in a digital age and are social by nature. They text, post, update, share, chat and constantly co-create in technological environments with each other. This is not always seen in a positive light, but perhaps we should appreciate the skills they are modelling, skills that may be necessary in their globalised future, where the organisation they work for is spread across several countries and time-zones and their teams need to constantly collaborate and communicate to meet the demands of their project.

For the past year Scotch College has been incorporating Office 365 into our teaching and learning programmes. Office 365 is the version of the Microsoft Office Suite operating from a cloud storage that enables traditional web browsers to provide all of the functionality available in Microsoft’s purpose-built Office applications. This seemingly simple idea represents a significant shift in philosophy, embracing the future demands of 21st Century working environments.

With Office 365 our students create and access their digital resources, anytime, anywhere, on any device and on any architecture. What they create can be shared with anyone, can be a multi-authored collaboration and the authors can simultaneously edit the one document. OneNote has become integral in teaching with resources, instruction, assessment and day to day notes shared and constructed by teachers and students alike.

The technology seamlessly supports collaboration and communication, facilitating the development and practice of those skills in our students.

Dr Nick Spadaccini 
ILT Curriculum Integration Manager