INTRODUCING SEQTA at WCC in 2015 We are very excited to announce an exciting change that we will be making in the life at the College in 2015 as we launch a new learning management system called SEQTA! SEQTA FAQ 1. What is SEQTA? SEQTA is an exciting school organisational and learning management system that streamlines day-today administrative tasks for teachers, providing them with new, more efficient ways to facilitate and support student learning. SEQTA provides a ‘window into the classroom’ (much like Moodle and the Schoology program that was trialled in Yrs 2 and 4 in 2014). As we begin to roll out SEQTA’s full functionality over time, SEQTA will provide a portal that enables parents to be even more actively involved in their child’s education. It will enable them to understand what is happening at school, in all aspects, without any extra work from teachers. SEQTA’s web portal allows parents to access information whenever they want, on any device they are using. Eventually, we will be in a position to explore some new ways to provide assessment and reporting information to parents. 2. Why is the school adopting SEQTA? Advances in technology are beginning to provide more efficient ways for the complex roles and responsibilities of teachers to be accomplished. This in turn provides greater opportunities for teachers to design and deliver rich learning opportunities for students, and new ways to support each individual student on their learning journey. SEQTA provides a range of functions that will streamline day-to-day College processes and communications in ways that will directly support and enhance student learning. 3. The school has had Moodle for years. Why are you replacing it? While Moodle provided an adequate ‘window’ into WCC classrooms for many years, it is now time to take our College Learning Management System (LMS) to the next level. At this point in time, SEQTA can offer us a much broader range of integrated functionalities than we have been able to access previously, within a much more dynamic online administration and learning platform. SEQTA will still provide a wonderful ‘window into the classroom’, but it comes with many other features that will be introduced over time. We believe that our transition to SEQTA is an upgrade that will provide significant benefits to each individual student, teacher and parent and to the daily operations and objectives of the College as a whole. 4. What’s happening with Moodle for the remainder of 2014? You may be aware that a technical issue earlier in the year meant that some information had been lost from Moodle. As we now move towards course and subject information being available in SEQTA for the start of 2015, you may find that there is a bit less on Moodle for the remainder of this year than you might have expected to see previously, but don’t be alarmed! While you should still be able to see some information about your child’s subjects and courses in Moodle, teachers will be working hard behind the scenes being trained to start putting lots of information into SEQTA, ready for our launch next year. It will obviously take us a little while to get everything fully up and running in SEQTA, but it shouldn’t take too long before we are all experiencing the many benefits of this new learning management system. 5. We loved Schoology (introduced to support the Yr 2 and 4 pilot ipad program in 2014). Why are you replacing it? We loved Schoology too! It was a terrific bridging step between Moodle and SEQTA which enabled us to bring in our integrated learning technologies pilot program for Year 2 and 4 students this year. However, while this technology pilot program has been in progress, we have been in a position to evaluate our broader needs across the College for improved teacher administration, student support and learning management. Our extensive evaluation process has revealed that SEQTA will provide many more direct and indirect benefits to students, parents and teachers than a stand-alone LMS would by itself. The decision to adopt SEQTA as our sole, College-wide LMS will build upon the foundation of continuous improvement that has been started by our excellent pilot program at Yrs 2 and 4 in 2014. 6. We like the push notifications of Schoology – why won’t we get these anymore? Unfortunately, the push notifications available through Schoology are not available in SEQTA. However, SEQTA does have an inbuilt, direct email and messaging functions available for use. A lot of information (including student timetables, homework, calendars and more) will now be much easier for parents to access. While we agree that it will be sad to lose the push notifications, the same information will be readily available to parents, but via email or through the user-friendly Parent-Q portal – stay tuned for more details about this being launched early in 2015! 7. What will be the benefits to my child’s learning? SEQTA will allow teachers to have greater, integrated access to relevant information about each student (everything from attendance records, pastoral care notes, progressive academic records, academic support program information, data analysis tools and more). Less time required of teachers to perform day-to-day administrative tasks will mean more time to focus on designing and delivering quality curriculum which is better able to be tailored to the unique abilities and needs of classes, as well as of individual students. Students will have streamlined, online access to information and resources that support their learning, from their timetable and access to homework tasks to other course materials and resources in a more integrated way than ever before. Through the SEQTA parent portal, parents will have more detailed access and insight into their child’s learning program and progress, thus continuing to strengthen the partnership between home and school to support each child’s academic development. 8. How will student and parent access to SEQTA be funded? The annual subscription fee ($10 per year per student) for access to the student and parent portals will be levied to parents. 9. What are the functionalities that we will benefit from in the short, mid and long term? Because SEQTA has such a broad range of features and functions, unfortunately it is not possible to roll them out all at the same time. While all major changes take some time to become established and start to grow, we know that you will be as excited as we are to see the SEQTA seed grow steadily to become a healthy, flourishing plant, bearing much fruit. Like all new skills and systems, this transition will take all of us a little bit of time to get used to, and we thank you in advance for your patience in watching us blossom in our use of SEQTA over the coming months and years. For the start of 2015, we are aiming to utilise some of the day-to-day teacher administration features (such as roll marking and some types of two way communications). Additionally, you will start to see some of your child’s course materials uploaded to the student and parent portals. Over time, we will be able to explore some of the more advanced features of SEQTA, such as online assessment submission and greater, more immediate access to assessment feedback. We are really excited by some of the tremendous possibilities that will come with our adoption of SEQTA, so please stay tuned for further updates. 10. How can I get more information about SEQTA? Initially, we anticipate that the parent portal will provide parents with a ‘window into the classroom’ from the start of 2015. Not all features will be immediately available, and it may in fact take us several years to roll out all of SEQTA’s more advanced functionalities. However, if you would like a sneak peak at some of the functions that may be rolled out at some point in the future, please feel free to watch this exciting video about SEQTA’s parent portal, called Coneqt.p: http://www.SEQTA.com.au/products/coneqt-p/ We look forward to entering this exciting new chapter in the life of the College with you in 2015! Mrs PT Hirschfield (Director of Learning and Teaching)