Catholic sector

Online curriculum content published by The Le@rning Federation has been progressively released to Catholic Education South Australia (CESA) schools. All Catholic schools received the March 2006 release of TLF content, which served to supplement and update the 2005 release of learning objects. The 2006 DVD distribution of more than 1,000 learning objects also included a sampler of digital resources. Printed catalogues of learning objects organised by curriculum areas were distributed to assist teachers to select online resources for inclusion in teaching and learning. These catalogues were sent in a print format, but were also made accessible to all CESA teachers on the CESA Online intranet from this link: learning objects.

A range of professional learning opportunities has been provided to support school communities explore the integration of learning objects either at a whole school level or at a more granular level in learning teams. Additional opportunities were provided for teachers who had already embedded learning objects in their teaching. A longitudinal series of learning opportunities was implemented in 2006 to assist teachers to collaboratively share their experience in embedding online curriculum content.

TLF learning objects were the focus of a 2006 Australian Government Quality Teacher Project, 'Integrating ICTs into your teaching'. This cross-sector project of 5 two-hour workshops was offered by the Council of Education Associations of South Australia and the Computers in Education Group of South Australia. There was a strong response to this professional development opportunity with a focus on good pedagogy. Non-specialist ICT teachers were able to gain insights into using ICTs across the curriculum by planning to use TLF learning objects.

In 2007 the DVD delivery of online curriculum content continued as an interim arrangement while CESA explored the infrastructure and software requirements for the delivery and sequencing of online curriculum content. CESA has recently entered into a working partnership with a software provider to develop curriculum software, and undertook a pilot with a small number of schools in 2007. The software suite will meet the planning, assessment and reporting needs of schools, and will have the ability to seamlessly deliver learning objects as an integral part of the curriculum support software.