LIMELIGHT 0108
Last updated by: Helen Dobson on 2 June 2009 - 4:35pm
First edition of the LIMELIGHT
Welcome to the first edition of Limelight, an informal update bringing you the latest from your Academy.
The Symposium
To those who were fortunate enough to be able to attend the Symposium, thank you for helping to make it such an eventful event. We hope you have taken your enthusiasm back to your organisation to spread the word about the importance of great teachers.The results of the evaluation will be available on the website shortly, but in summary:
95% of respondents thought the event far exceeded their expectations, in that it provided them with many new ideas and also enabled them to form relationships with other members within their own, and in other organisations. These two aspects are what the majority of members had indicated as their prime reasons for attending.
All respondents stated that they would like to attend another such event in 2009.
Overall it was a hugely positive two days. The following comment on a feedback sheet sums it up nicely:
“I reflected on the amazing group of deeply committed and highly skilled tertiary teachers in the room. Their stories greatly inspired me and I have a strong sense of an increasingly positive place for teaching in our range of tertiary institutions. The time for improving, developing and recognising quality teaching is certainly here while the Academy is poised to work as an important part of Ako Aotearoa in addressing important policy issues at the national level. At the same time, the individual teachers in the Academy will exert even greater influence in ensuring that teaching is properly valued in their own institutions.”
For those that were unable to attend, we are sorry you weren’t able to make it but hopefully we can give enough advance notice of the next one to enable you to put the dates in your diary and be able to attend.
The website has been updated with some of the presentations and teaching stories as well as many photos – see below for details about the website.
The Executive Committee
The Committee was elected at the Symposium and will hold their first meeting on December 11th. Details of the committee are available on the website. If you have anything you would like raised at the meeting please let me know.
The Website
A special community for the Academy has been added to the Ako Aotearoa website. Some resources on the Academy pages are visible to everyone, but there are other areas which are only visible to members of the Academy (closed part of the site). The community can be accessed direct from http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/academy or through the Ako Aotearoa site http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz and then by clicking on the large rectangular Academy button on the right hand side. To access the member only areas you MUST be logged in.
The closed part of the site is constantly being updated but at present holds:
Governance – details of the Executive Committee and the Academy Terms of Reference
2008 Symposium – presentations, stories and photos
Teaching Stories – some of the teaching stories from the Symposium
Teaching Profiles – from the Excellence Booklet
Useful links – all sorts
Items that are marked “unpublished” can only be seen by the registered Academy members.
If you have not already registered please make sure when applying for registration that you use a User name that I will easily recognise as a member of the Academy, otherwise I may inadvertently decline your request thinking that you are not part of the Academy. If you need any help using the site please let me know.
Once logged in you can then create new resources, amend or edit any existing resources. There is a blog and a forum facility available as well. Please beware that entries on either of these will be visible to anyone that enters the Ako Aotearoa site, even if you have been on the Academy site while entering them. The developers are working on creating a closed blog/forum facility for the ACADEMY. I will let you know once this is available.
I’m sorry that this has taken so long to get to you. I have been away sick but now hope that I can do a regular update. If there is anything that you would like included either in this format or on the website then please let me know.
Parent group: