Click here to go to eTrain09 site - it is currently under construction

eTrain o8
When: September 11 and 12
Where: Collingwood Children's Farm & Abbotsford Convent



email rjwhite@mgs.vic.edu.au for more information

What is the eTrain?
The eTrain conference is a Melbourne Grammar School – Grimwade House initiative to bring together innovative educators and students to take on eLearning challenges that support a community based program. eTrain is now three years old and once again we have decided to conduct this event at the Collingwood Children’s Farm and Abbotsford Convent.

Situated on 7 hectares of land just 4 kms from Melbourne’s CBD, the Collingwood Children’s Farm provides a unique, educational and enjoyable country experience for all students and teachers. Approximately 300 students from Years 5 & 6 and 100 teachers from a number of schools took part in this event over the past two years.

Through these eLearning workshops, teachers and students use an inquiry approach to investigate a variety of environmental issues. This situation provides an authentic reason to use eLearning tools and strategies such as digital story telling, claymation, movie making, webpage design, pod casting, QTVR stitching, quiz & game making, creating sound scapes and interactive map making to assist with their problem solving.

All workshops require the students to work in teams to create a product that the Children's Farm can use to educate students for years to come. The students' work is used to create an interactive CD that the Farm sends to visiting schools.

The ‘Techno Savvy’ teachers of these workshops come from far a field. A combination of film makers and animators, representatives from private enterprise, teachers from both the Independent and State systems and teachers from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation make it possible to provide a rich learning experience for both students and teachers.

Each school is required to send one or two supervising teachers who have the opportunity to move between the techno teams, observing how the experts engage and guide their students. eTrain has proven to be an invaluable professional learning experience for all who attend. Jen O’Donoghue, a supervising teacher from Ivanhoe Grammar said “Our students certainly enjoyed, as I did, the opportunity to be stimulated and engaged in a variety of rich, relevant technology activities. They also enjoyed interacting with other students and seeing the different programs that other groups were engaged in. For myself, as merely a supervising teacher, I too enjoyed the opportunity to talk with my peers and to see some fabulous programs that I could use in my class- I've already started planning for next year!”