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Hiroko Terashi Since its opening, Queensland LOTE Centre has offered a wide variety of professional support for LOTE teachers in the state of Queensland. One of its innovative supports over the last couple of years has been the launching of two online communities for LOTE teachers, in the Learning Place. http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/ The Learning Place, an access point for a range of online learning resources, offers two types of 'communities', Professional Learning Communities (accessible to all web users) and Blackboard Communities (for Education Queensland teachers, accessible by password). In 2003, the Queensland LOTE Centre's Japanese advisors, Saeko KITAI and myself, developed two new communities - Nihongo Net and Nihongo Blackboard. |
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http://www.learningplace.com.au/en/lote/nihongo Nihongo Net is a flexible, dynamic website accessible to all Internet users. It contains an introduction to Nihongo Net and the Japanese advisor; details of Japanese resources available from the Queensland LOTE Centre and other organisations; up-todate information on professional developments and programs such as scholarships and exchange programs; links to useful internet sites; news and events related to Japanese language and culture; etc. Nihongo Net is one in excess of 250 community websites in the Learning Place’s Professional Learning Communities. From January to May 2004, Nihongo Net received 3828 hits. According to the hit count statistics, it seems that the viewers are most interested in the Professional Developments, Programs and Competitions, and Resources sections. |
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Blackboard is the Learning Management System used by Education Queensland
for online learning. Nihongo Blackboard is a closed community requiring
password access. The information and resources available in this community
are: Bibliography including Documents related to QLD Outcomes Approach,
Assessment and Reporting, LOTE and Literacy; Documents including LOTE
workprograms and a template for unit planning; and teaching resources.
Nihongo Blackboard also includes several functions such as a discussion
board (online forum), email, a digital drop box, calendar and document
storage via folders. So far, in the Discussion Board, there have been
twenty-two discussion threads created, including information on appropriate
dictionaries for Japanese learners; finding e-pal schools in Japan;
suitable excursion sites for Japanese classes; ideas for games and
songs for Japanese lessons; services offered and shops run by Japanese;
etc. As membership of this community is strictly limited to teachers who have attended one of the Nihongo Blackboard workshops run by the Japanese Advisors, currently only 54 teachers have enrolled across the state and private school sectors. Despite the small number of the participants, during the period from the opening of this community to the end of May 2004, Nihongo Blackboard had had 7757 hits. Due to the protected nature of this community, the participating teachers can share and exchange their information, ideas and resources in a secure environment. Queensland State Education 2010 clearly stated that teachers need mastery of and access to information technology to manage the learning of their students. As is a common situation in many workplaces today, Queensland LOTE Centre has to operate with fewer human resources and ever increasing workloads covering a wider area of tasks. I believe it is now time for the advisors to support teachers to be autonomous, and to establish their own networks through which they can assist and learn from each other by utilising available technologies. In light of this we have developed the two online communities, while hoping that eventually the participating teachers themselves will manage the communities and supply the content. Due to the heavy workloads at school and the personal commitments of each teacher, it seems that it will take some time to realise this intention. In terms of quality assurance, it is critical for the success of this community to gain the collaboration of nativespeaker teachers of Japanese and experienced classroom teachers. Although there are several issues to be solved and improved, I hope that these two online communities have provided an opportunity to create a community of autonomous Japanese teachers in the state of Queensland. Hiroko Terashi was Senior Education Officer (LOTE) and Japanese Language Advisor in Queensland until June 2004. |
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