Exploring Animation: Professional Learning for Teachers

Abstract

As new technologies offer an ever-increasing range of possibilities for supporting student learning, teachers struggle to keep abreast of the changes. This is especially the case for teachers in smaller rural schools who are isolated professionally from their colleagues. A group of teachers from four such schools in northern New South Wales combined to support each other in learning about animation and incorporating these new-found skills into their teaching. Associated research investigated changing teacher attitudes to ICT in learning as the teachers engaged in the professional learning. Questionnaire responses before and after the professional learning and journal entries made during the learning were analysed. This paper reports the results from the analysis. Questionnaire analysis indicated some changes in teacher attitudes about student use of ICT. Teachers believed more strongly after the experience that students should use ICT to support learning. Journal entries were used for detailed investigation of the nature of these changes. Observations by teachers on the experience focused on what they had observed about their students' learning.