ViSN Student Connect

Catholic Education Western Australia (CEWA) is helping students engage in Year 11 and Year 12 courses of their choice.

Over 200 Year 11 and Year 12 students commenced their study last week through CEWA’s online learning program, the Virtual School Network (ViSN).  In 2020, ViSN will provide access to 23 courses for Year 11 and Year 12 students, including ATAR, VET and alternate entry to university options.

Students in ViSN remain enrolled in their own school, and each day, connect with their online teacher and classmates across the state using Teams, OneNote and other Office365 products.  Teachers are based in their own school and are available daily to answer questions and to provide help as needed. Once a week, the whole class comes together via Teams Call (similar to Skype) to discuss the week’s activities and to support each other.

ViSN is underpinned by strong connections, collaboration and learning communities.  The teachers participate in a bespoke 12-month training program before they commence online delivery which helps them understand how to create an online classroom that ensures learners do not feel isolated. 

To assist in building these strong online classrooms, ViSN students from across the state recently came together for a camp in Perth.  Over the 2 day live-in camp at St Thomas More College, ViSN teachers and their students met in person to go over their course structure, content and the technology.  Students also had the opportunity to get to know their classmates and other ViSN students through team games and recreation activities.

Students reflected that they felt far more confident about studying online through ViSN after camp, connecting with their peers and asking questions of their teacher.

ViSN is available to Year 11 and Year 12 students in CEWA schools and parents can contact the Deputy or Principal in their child’s school if interested.  For more information, go to https://leadinglights.cewa.edu.au/visn/

CSPWA would like to thank Meredith Roe,Virtual School Program Manager for providing this article to give us an insight into this amazing program.Thank you also to Meredith for her warm welcome when Siobhan and Theresa visited the camp last week.