N4L (Network for Learning) is making online learning hub Pond more accessible by allowing its registered users – currently 8200+ teachers – to make the learning materials they add to Pond’s fast-growing catalogue available for public viewing.
From today, teachers can chose to make every contribution they add to Pond’s online catalogue available for ‘public viewing’. This means items set for public viewing inside Pond are visible to anyone who searches for that topic on the web. Links to Pond resources marked for public viewing can also be shared via email and social media.
For example, St Patrick’s College teacher Douglas Walker has chosen to share a video of a flaming ethanol bottle rocket, which he’s added to the catalogue. He tagged the item as being useful for NCEA Level 1 Physics, so now anyone searching for learning resources on this topic can discover it when searching on pond.co.nz or via search engine like Google. Similarly, Green Bay High School teacher Heather Eccles has grouped a collection of human rights resources into a “Bucket” within Pond and made it available for public viewing.
Since Pond was introduced to teachers in the middle of last year, the community has blossomed to include over 8600 users. Most are teachers, with the other 333 users being organisations offering content and services relevant to the education sector. More than 1000 new Pond users are signing up to the digital hub every month.
Chris South, who leads Pond’s development team as N4L’s Head of Dynamic Services, says allowing greater visibility of quality learning resources benefits everyone: “Pond is designed to act as a central hub for digital discovery and participation, to help educators discover and share resources, and to facilitate connections and collaborations within the teaching community.
“Allowing teachers to share their contributions and lesson plans more widely makes it easier for those who are not yet inside Pond to find information about how other educators across New Zealand are approaching curriculum topics and fulfilling NCEA achievement standards.”
The default setting for all Pond user contributions is private. Each user needs to manually set each item they publish in Pond to be publicly visible, otherwise it is only accessible to registered Pond users.
Inside Pond, teachers can follow and connect with other teachers around the country who share a mutual interest or speciality teaching subject. They can share best practices and learn from their peers, growing their own knowledge and networks, and adding to the strength of the Pond community as a whole. All of Pond’s content is created by its user community, where it can be tagged, reviewed, bundled with other items and shared with registered users.
ENDS
For more information, please contact:
Julie Landry, N4L Communications, 09 222 0142 or [email protected]
About Pond
Pond is an online learning hub where teachers go to discover and share learning resources, as well as connect and collaborate with peers. The environment is designed to act as a central hub for digital discovery and participation, where educational resources can be accessed and shared more easily and effectively. All of Pond’s content is curated by its user community, which currently includes more than 8,270 teachers as well as 333 organisations providing resources and services for the education sector. One of Pond’s key features is a sophisticated search function allowing teachers to more easily find the appropriate learning materials that are not always easy to find using publicly accessible search engines, or may not be otherwise available. Examples include the rich educational resources available at Digital NZ, archived Radio New Zealand interviews and eTV educational videos. www.pond.co.nz
About N4L
N4L (Network for Learning) is a Crown company formed to provide all New Zealand students and teachers equitable access to high quality internet services and dynamic digital content for learning. The aim is to improve educational outcomes by enabling new learning opportunities presented by digital technologies and the government’s investment in ultra-fast broadband (UFB). The company is achieving this aim by building a Managed Network especially designed for schools and an online learning hub called Pond. Together, these initiatives are about investing in our young people, digitally empowering their education for a future-ready, world-ready Aotearoa New Zealand.