The Community Advancing Digital Learning (DLAC) is an organisation that is hoping to address the identified gap in research for K-12 digital learning. DLAC is trying to determine the key areas of research that they should pursue based on the interests of online educators. Please complete this very quick survey (link in article) to help focus the research.

Amanda Rowe is Head Teacher Teaching and Learning (Instructional Leadership) at Finigan School of Distance Education in New South Wales. With over 15 years of experience in distance education, Amanda leads school-wide initiatives to strengthen the quality of online teaching and learning. In this webinar, Amanda talks about the Quality Live Lesson Framework. This framework is a reflection tool that supports the improvement of real-time online lesson delivery through video analysis. Designed by distance education teachers at Finigan SDE for distance education, the framework guides teachers to observe and evaluate their own recorded lessons across three key domains: Body Language, Voice, and Cognitive Load. Click on read more to watch the webinar recording.

Prof. Michael K. Barbour explores effective online and synchronous learning in this March 2025 AADES webinar. Learn about key international practices, essential research, and valuable teaching resources.

The AADES Council met in NSW last week for their AGM and to plan the year ahead. There will be may exciting initiatives in 2025 which will expand opportunities for our members to connect around our common purpose of providing the best possible learning opportunities for our students. This article includes our 2025 Council and 2024 report.

This webinar explores how project-based integrated units at ASSOA engage distance learners through authentic, inquiry-driven learning. Each unit is built around a central inquiry question, guiding students to explore big ideas across multiple curriculum areas. Through hands-on projects, real-world applications and meaningful connections, students actively construct knowledge. Date: 27/3/25 Time: 1pm (AEDT) Details in article

AADES is proud to publish its first Community of Practice resource Capturing Hearts and Minds - Differentiation. Our first Community of Practice consisted of representatives from each Australian state and territory and New Zealand. Over a period of 12 months these dedicated distance education teachers worked together to develop a resource to support teachers when differentiating learning for our diverse students in the online context.

The AADES Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday 13 March at 2.15pm AEDT. All members are welcome to attend. The meeting will be held via Microsoft Teams which can be accessed by the Teams app or a browser.

Join Michael Barbour to gain insights into the latest research into next practice distance and online education. Date: 13th March 2025Time: 1 - 2PM AEDT. Details in article.

Kevin Chung from Virtual School Victoria reflects on how trauma-informed practices, grounded in connection and persistence, help VSV students overcome barriers and achieve success.

Emma Kirk and Kelly McMeeken from Capricornia School of Distance Education hosted a webinar designed to encourage you to embrace the future of education with ' AI Unleashed: Sparking Joy in the Classroom Revolution!’ Webinar recording and resource now available

Deni excels at Virtual School Victoria

The inaugural AADES Community of Practice (CoP), focusing on Differentiation in the distance/online/virtual context will presented its findings and the resources that have been developed for sharing with our membership. The CoP included representatives from each jurisdiction worked together in-person and online for over a year to determine the most effective and efficient ways of differentiating learning to meet the needs of our diverse learners. Join this webinar to learn about their findings. Webinar recording now available.

Kim Lester, a Year 1-10 teacher at Te Aho O Te Kura Pounamu takes you through the school's highly successful special interest program (Korimako) for students. Webinar recording now available.

Jenny Donovan and Naomi White of Dubbo School of Distance Education take you through their school's Core Values course and its impact on learning culture and engagement. Webinar recording now available.

Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu has undergone transformational growth towards embracing change and building connections with Māori. Join Whaimutu Marino to hear the journey undertaken by staff in this organisation as Māori ways of being, doing and knowing are embedded in all areas of delivery. Explore how an organisation shifted from simple acknowledgements and greetings to establishing provision for bilingual and immersion education. Come along and unpack through discussions the small nudges that made for the greatest impact. Te Aka Taumatua means the main vine system - this system nurtures aspirations and innovations, and inspires future generations to step into their uniqueness. Thursday 24 October 1pm AEDT.

How do we meet the social and emotional learning needs of students in distance education? Join Penny Evans, Head Teacher Student Engagement at Finigan School of Distance Education to explore the impact of trauma on the learning experience and identify practical strategies to support the development of student self-regulation to maximise learning outcomes. The positive impact of teacher and school-wide factors in mitigating the adverse effects of ACEs will also be discussed. Thursday 17 October 1pm AEDT.

Explore the High Impact Engagement Strategies (HIES) and how they can be implemented in the online context with VSV’s Middle Years Engagement Leader, Carly McDermott. This webinar takes you through a trauma informed approach to unpack the complexities of student engagement. Carly demonstrates how VSV's purpose-built engagement matrix can be utilised to measure and monitor engagement using a holistic approach. Recording available.

Today's webinar will be rescheduled. A new date will be sent out early next week. Apologies for the short notice. Join Rowan Richardson of the Tasmanian eSchool as he shares the most recent literature on effective educational video production, a real-world case study for participant brainstorming, and guidance in planning your next educational video for your online class.

Cara Karakasch and Emily Phimmachanh from Dubbo School of Distance Education delved into pedagogical strategies and learning experiences that deepen engagement and foster student connection. Recording available.

The next AADES Biennial Conference will be held 17-18 June 2024 in Fremantle, Western Australia. The 2024 conference will be an opportunity to showcase open and distance learning pedagogies and practices with a focus on the themes of Innovation, Inclusion and Inspiration. The conference website is live and workshop proposal submissions are now open.

Our second AADES webinar for 2024 will be hosted by Open Access College, South Australia on 18 March at 12.30pm (ACDT). Join Zena Wotton and Gabe Turci as they provide insight into the benefits of trauma-informed practice and an understanding of the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM). You will be introduced in how to use these practices in the online learning environment to positively impact learning behaviours.

The recording of the recent webinar by communications expert, Arabella Macpherson is now available. Arabella provided an overview of how we can make authentic connections with our students using technology. How can we reach through the screen and humanise the experience to support learning?‍

Implementing a consistent, whole school approach to learning intentions and success criteria (LISC) has shifted our distance education students from passive, compliance level engagement to active engagement with the learning process.

A VSV family has just returned from an extensive European adventure that spanned 32 countries.

The recording of our recent webinar hosted by Narelle Sumner and Jacinta Tse, Numeracy and Literacy Learning Specialists from Virtual School Victoria is now available. Narelle and Jacinta take you through their journey establishing an effective literacy and numeracy support program.

Our next AADES webinar will be held on Thursday 7 September at 10.00am AEST. Te Kura, in collaboration with the Tertiary Education Commission, (a Government organisation who are stewards of careers in Aotearoa NZ) runs a program called Inspiring the Future. It has been running at Te Kura with amazing success. It may be a blueprint for running your own careers exploration event or using the available resources from the Australian version of Inspiring the Future. Inspiring the Future encourages students to be curious and to explore future pathways. In these sessions students are invited to try and guess what a person does for a living. After this they head into a breakout room for a deep dive with a person of their choosing. The hardest decision is choosing which expert to listen to. The same principles and processes can adapted for any context, both face to face and online. Join Trudy Harrison from Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu in New Zealand as she takes you through a live session of Inspiring the Future. This is a repeat session due to popular demand.

Four VSV students were recently recognised at Premier's Awards

This webinar will explains feedforward feedback strategies to assist students to identify their next steps with learning. More information and the link to the webinar recording and resources are in this article.

Virtual School Victoria to run new Blended Learning Hub in Gippsland

AADES supports member schools to connect and learn with and from each other, to explore latest research, and to develop innovative thinking and practice. Nowhere was this more evident than in the two days the AADES Executive Team recently spent together from Thursday 23-Friday 24 March. The two days included time for several in-depth round table discussions, attendance at the latest AADES webinar, our AGM, a full day of facilitated strategic review and planning, and our regular AADES Council meeting.

Digital technology has enhanced the learning experiences of our distance education students and enables us to forge stronger connections. However, how do we ensure our students develop healthy technology habits? Jocelyn Brewer is a registered psychologist and cyberpsychology researcher who has spent over a decade exploring the impacts of digital technologies on how we live, love and learn. She has extensive experience working in schools as both a teacher and school psychologist and holds a Masters which explored factors which contributed to year 7 students' proneness to smartphone dependence. Jocelyn is the founder of Digital Nutrition. Digital Nutrition is focuses on the intentional and intelligent use of devices and healthy technology habits, improving digital literacy and wellbeing. Join Jocelyn at 1.00pm (AEDT) Thursday 23 March for a webinar on how to support the wellbeing of our students (and ourselves) in the digital age. ‍Stay online and join us for the AADES AGM at 2.15pm (AEDT).

‘Autism isn’t a challenge – it’s a superpower – it enables our creativity to shine.’

VCE Agricultural and Horticultural (AgHort) students have been flourishing with a recent project – creating and building a small AgHort business.

Alice Springs School of the Air is implementing a structured program to teach reading and spelling to the Early Childhood classes to lift student progress and achievement in early literacy.

AADES recently hosted a series of webinars based on workshops from our 2022 conference. Recordings of the webinars are now available for viewing.

The links for next week's webinar series are now available in this article and the webinar section of our website. For those that missed our recent conference or missed out on a specific workshop, AADES is hosting a Webinar Week from 5-9 September. A webinar will be held each weekday from 5-9 September at 1.00pm AEST. Each webinar will run for 45 minutes. Mark your calendars for next week. Click on the article for further details.

Virtual School Victoria received the AADES Project Achievement Award for the Victorian High Ability Program (VHAP) at the recent AADES biennial conference. The program was an initiative with the Victorian Government for high-ability students in Years 5-8 in Victorian public schools. This program is an example of how distance education schools can extend their role in supporting face-to-face schools through a specialised online program.

Keynote speaker: Dr Jordan Nguyen, one of Australia’s most innovative engineers, who is committed to improving the lives of as many people as possible, and to help become a driving force behind both human and technological evolution as we move into the future.

32 students recently performed and produced Picnic at Hanging Rock

Students at the Tasmanian eSchool have been experimenting with Neurographic Art, a technique created by Russian psychologist Pavel Piskarev in 2014.

The AADES Biennial Conference will be held at the National Wine Centre in Adelaide, South Australia, 8-9 August 2022. The conference will showcase what is the best practice in Australia and New Zealand in online and blended education for students from Kindergarten to Year 12. Registrations are now open through the AADES Conference website.

AADES Webinar - Quality Teaching & Visible Learning - Thursday 26 May 1:00pm. AEST Join Finigan School of Distance Education's Deputy Principal Harvey Wilson and Head Teacher Teaching & Learning Ashlee Kellner as they share how they have implemented and adapted the evidence-based practices of Visible learning and Quality Teaching Rounds into the distance education setting.

Two song-writing students at Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu have had their own songs released under a school initiative that has been given the thumbs up by industry heavyweights.

The 2022 AADES Conference will be held in Adelaide on the 8-9 August 2022. The theme for the conference is Connect Contribute Thrive. The conference venue is the Australian National Wine Centre. AADES is currently calling for workshop proposals and nominations for the AADES Awards. See the Conference and Award sections of the AADES website for further details.

AADES has relaunched its social media channels. Keep up to date with AADES news and connect with distance education colleagues across Australasia through your preferred social media channel (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter).

AgHort students enjoyed the opportunity to learn from industry innovators and meet other like-minded students on a recent excursion.

Students at the Tasmanian eSchool have been looking at Sidney Nolan, more particularly his ‘Ned Kelly’ series.

We are Mai and Siobhan, two Occupational Therapy (OT) students from the University of South Australia. We are based at Open Access College Marden Campus holding a 9-week project to support student engagement in online learning.

The AADES 2022 Annual General Meeting will be held online on Friday 25 March at 1.00pm AEST. Members are invited to attend.‍

A joint Mathematics project between students at the One Arm Point Remote Community School in the Ardyaloon Community, and the Shenton College Deaf Education Centre in Perth has led to the creation of a board game to consolidate Mathematics concepts and help preserve the Bardi language spoken at Ardyaloon.

Virtual School Victoria (VSV) and the Melbourne Recital Centre (MRC) continue to nurture the next generation of composers and performers at the annual Making Waves concert.

Sitting a Year 12 exam and playing cricket in the Women’s Big Bash League are all in a day’s work for Virtual School Victoria (VSV) student, Ella.

2021 is the first year the Tasmanian eSchool has taught Dance as part of our year 7-8 HPE classes and every student embraced the challenge of studying dance from home in their own way.

Alice Springs School of the Air celebrates World Kindness Day through whole school learning and activities.

For four days in September, from Monday 6th to Thursday 9th, Marden Campus was transformed for the first time into “Wellbeing Central.”

Virtual School Victoria (VSV) recently celebrated a significant milestone – the first anniversary of delivering the Victorian High-Ability Program (VHAP).Almost 18,000 Victorian students in Years 5-8 have participated in the State Government initiative that supports government schools to extend their high-ability students.

Open Access College primary students celebrated Book Week 2021 in week 5 of Term 3. We had a special visit from Illustrator Andrew Joyner and learned how to draw elephants!

As part of our work with Port Vila International School, Open Access College has been sponsoring local students to complete high school. Thank you to Claire who has written this letter.

Supporting staff through training modules

VSV’s squad smashes the Stile Super Teacher Challenge

Cairns School of Distance Education (Cairns SDE) is thrilled to have received the Certificate of Commendation from the Consulate-General of Japan for the school's distinguished service to the deepening of ties between Japan and Australia.

Virtual School Victoria's VCE Theatre Studies class produced an incredibly powerful and poignant production of Alana Valentine’s Letters to Lindy in spite of only coming together for two intensive days of rehearsals prior to the live performance.

SA distance education school Open Access College hosts regular ‘Come in Days’ throughout the year to give students the opportunity to mix with their teachers and fellow students. The most recent event involved Stage 1 and 2 Visual Art and Creative Arts students visiting OAC for 'Art Come in Day'.

‘Growing our Learners’ was the theme of the annual Home Tutor Conference for Alice Springs School of the Air, held earlier this year. This week-long conference supports one of our strategic focus areas, partnerships, with our goal of building the capacity of our home tutors to meet their students’ learning needs.

Open Access College student Hudson found that studying online was the ideal way to continue his long-standing passion for learning Japanese.

Meet Eloise, a year 10 student from Open Access College in SA who enjoys singing in the Australian Girls Choir, trampolining and cooking. Eloise came to study online under the medical enrolment program at OAC because of uncontrolled epilepsy. Moving to distance education has done wonders for Eloise's confidence, self-belief and grades. After impressing her teachers with her hard work, leadership qualities and resilience, Eloise wrote an article describing her experience with distance education.

Year 11 VCE students recently travelled to NSW – virtually – for an insightful farm tour with a cotton farmer.

The recent webinar by Professor Doug Fisher on Visible Learning Mindframes in the distance education context including Collective Teacher Efficacy and effective feedback is now available to view as a recording for member schools until 5 July 2021.

As New Zealand’s state distance education provider, and the country’s largest school, Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Te Kura) supports more than 23,000 ākonga (students) with their learning every year. Located throughout New Zealand and overseas, our ākonga come from a wide range of backgrounds and have diverse learning needs, which we support through personalised learning programmes based on their interests, passions and goals. Our ākonga and their whānau have been affected in different ways during the COVID-19 disruptions. Many ākonga had to change or cancel plans at short notice, and find ways to adapt their learning programmes to accommodate government restrictions.

A former VSV student, Talia, has come full circle after recently joining the teaching team at VSV.

Throughout the year, Tasmanian eSchool offers several onsite activity days for students from Kindergarten to Year 12. The first for 2021 was a welcome BBQ at the Northern Campus.

AADES was proud to recently present a 90 minute webinar by Professor Doug Fisher free for all AADES member schools. Doug has recently co-authored The Distance Learning Playbook (Corwin) with John Hattie and Nancy Frey. The book details the latest research on effective teaching and learning in the online learning context. The webinar will include the topics 1. Teacher credibility and teacher clarity in distance learning 2. The design of engaging teaching and learning experiences useful in distance learning. Doug is engaging presenter and a passionate educator. A recording is now available for viewing for a limited time.

Senior ākonga (students) throughout Aotearoa are facing a range of challenges due to COVID-19 disruptions. Some have already left school or are significantly behind and at risk of disengaging, others have faced barriers to learning this year and are at risk of not achieving their NCEA goals. There are also ākonga who at the end of Term 4 may need only a few additional credits to gain NCEA Level 3 or University Entrance. After experiencing multiple disruptions, many Auckland ākonga require additional support. To support these ākonga, Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Te Kura) has partnered with the Ministry of Education to expand its programmes in Term 4 and over the summer break.

Virtual School Victoria (VSV) and the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) propel theatre into a new world, providing a glimpse of what theatre could look like during COVID-19 and beyond.

The ‘Improving Myselfie’ classes for year 5, 6 and 7 was part of a transition program trialled in 2020 with great success. The program was empowered students to deepen their understanding of their own ways of working, self-reflect and broadened their skill sets. The program was delivered online weekly, with students focussing on growth mindset, the brain and how we learn, and study skills.

Tasmanian eSchool students have a chance to regularly meet and mix at Northern and Southern Tasmanian Activity Days.

Dubbo School of Distance Education were winners of the NSW T4L (Technology for Learning) Award in 2019 for: “Leader in developing digital collaborative communities”.‍ We would like to present some of our collaborative teaching and learning that has stemmed from our knowledge of adjusting Project-based Learning (PBL) in an online environment, in a webinar “How to Engage an Authentic Audience”.‍ We will take you through our 8 STEPs of engaging a quality authentic audience in your projects that ensures quality learning experiences for your students.

New York Times bestselling author headlines at F-6 virtual connect

Te Kura student Bailey has turned his passion for fixing things, working with his hands, and helping kids in need into a thriving charity.

Paper planes abounded at the recent F-6 Virtual Connect, where Flight was the theme.

Many of our students at Tasmanian eSchool have significant challenges with their social and/or emotional wellbeing. Most of our learners have enrolled with the school under medical/psychological registration criteria. Using data collected from the 2019 Department of Education State-wide Wellbeing Survey,the Student Support Team in collaboration with school leadership developed a whole school response. The Student Support Team consisting of School Psychologists, Social Workers, and leaders of Wellbeing and Inclusion will present how they have systemised a wellbeing program which every learner and teacher has, and continues to experience. They will share how a targeted response has impacted all Kindergarten to Year 12 timetable structures and programs providing our learners and their teachers greater opportunity and capacity to maintain or improve their personal wellbeing.

SIDE’s Technologies Learning Area continues to develop partnerships with district high schools, allowing students at the schools to develop skills in Design and Technology, and schools to upskill staff and use their Design and Technology rooms.

SOTA students travelled a long way to Port Augusta campus with their families and supervisors for their annual school experience.

Not So Distanced: Coming together through Art is a collection of work by Open Access Students in years 7-10. Our students have shown extraordinary resilience during what has been a far from ordinary year. View the culmination of artwork produced during this time, from the safety and comfort of home in our virtual art exhibition.

At Tasmanian eSchool this year, all students from Prep to Year 8 are studying Digital Technologies and German. Our teachers collaborated to find ways to make the learning transferable and fun!

A free webinar will be hosted on 25 June 2020 (1pm AEST). Georgia Gouros, a teacher at the Virtual School Victoria will demonstrate how to scaffold learning through worked examples to support skill acquisition and reduce a learner’s cognitive load.

Elke and Nikola share their distance learning tips with Australia.

Hi, I am Berkley, I live in a caravan and travel around Australia. This means my life is a little different to most… We own a house in SA and occasionally stay there, but for the majority of the time, were out and about all over Australia.

Continuous collaboration, improvements in information technology infrastructure, and innovative use of learning technologies are leading to improved teaching and learning for SIDE’s secondary students living in the Kandiwal Community.

Unpacking a project piloted by Brisbane School of Distance Education to teach Health and Physical Education. The premise for this project is simple: increase the frequency of student performance and coaching feedback in every HPE lesson.

Schools across Australia and throughout the world have moved towards various forms of remote learning and digital methods of operating. CareMonkey hosted a peer-driven webinar on Tuesday, 28th April to help educational leaders share and learn from each other's experiences.

Every year staff and students at the Tasmanian eSchool look forward to opportunities to get together. At the commencement of Term 1, students from both our campuses in Launceston and Hobart met for a local ‘meet and greet’ event.

While Open Access College has been conducting online classes for years, it’s only recently that the concept of distance learning has truly been noticed by most of the Aussie population.

On February 13th OAC and MSC hosted a combined BBQ lunch to Celebrate Apology to the Stolen Generations.

At Capricornia School of Distance Education, we are feeling proud that we have built a method of delivery that we know can withstand the barriers of distance and still cater to the needs of a diverse learning group. Whilst there is a large responsibility on the shoulders of home tutors, the results of their work is evident in student outcomes, the maintaining of a strong learning culture and the positive relationships that Capricornia SDE families have with teachers. We couldn’t do it without them!

Brisbane SDE are collaboratively working to improve visible learning online.

The Tasmanian eSchool SRC support the Lids 4 Kids initiative and also raise awareness in the school community of bullying and how to stand up against it by becoming an "upstander".

Te Kura teachers coming from face-to-face environments often grieve for aspects of their professional self they feel they only know how to express in a face-to-face teaching environment. When tasked with supporting teachers in using a wider range of online teaching tools, my starting point was asking teachers which part of their face-to-face teaching selves they missed the most. We then proceeded to find ways to use digital tools to bring these teaching selves online. Selected examples of practice will be shared, and workshop participants will be invited to share or brainstorm ways of bringing their best teaching selves online.