4 February 2010

To Whom it May Concern

Re: Folios International

I have been working with Folios International for the past two years in my capacity as Coordinator of Early Childhood Education and Care at James Cook University in Cairns.

There is an obvious need for software to support educators in the early childhood field, particularly with the management of the National Early Years Framework. In my experience of seeking a suitable software program with which to teach Preservice Early Childhood Teachers, I have trialled other programs, which proved problematic for my use. ClassMon, with the support of Folios International, has proved to be workable and user-friendly for Preservice Early Childhood Teachers and is currently embedded in the assessment component of their Early Childhood subjects. It has also received great interest from the School-based Teacher educators who mentor these Preservice Teachers.

Folios International not only developed and supplied the software for my students, but they have also come to Cairns and presented workshops and follow-up training to students and members of the Far North Early Childhood Network. They have been very responsive to feedback from student and professional users, which has assured that the software remains relevant and easy to use.

If you would like further information about my experience with Folios International, please contact me at Reesa.Sorin@jcu.edu.au .

Sincerely,

Dear Sir/Madam:

As Director of a busy kindergarten, I have for a long time, been searching for ways to make documentation of children’s learning an easier and less time consuming task for my teachers to manage. In the past we have been weighed down by the insurmountable task of recording observations for each individual child, linking the observations to curriculum outcomes, identifying learnings and noting down further planning for each child based on these observations.

After much searching on the internet, I discovered ClassMon and began to look into the potential it was showing for documentation of children’s learning. Over a number of months towards the end of 2009, I worked closely with ClassMon developers who were happy to incorporate many of my ideas and requirements into their program to suit my programming needs for our particular early childhood educational centres. I was also very aware that I needed a program that would assist us to meet and demonstrate National Childhood Accreditation standards.

I have now purchased ClassMon for use at our Centre and it is proving a hit with all teachers. Whilst it can be used primarily as a digital portfolio program for each child, we are using it more as a tool to document children’s learning in a way that children’s learnings can be printed out and stored in individual display folders, which for our clientele, are more accessible to parents and children than the digital counterpart.

In addition we are particularly finding ClassMon useful to make those regular short observations that teachers often jot down on bits of paper throughout their day and try to compile onto the computer later in the evening. It’s so easy just to go to the computer, make a quick observation of what the child is doing or has said, link it to the Curriculum with a couple of easy clicks and get back to the class. Through the use of the Checklist function in ClassMon you can even quickly note the date of this observation, add some further possible programming based on this observation and later come back and evaluate the activity once implemented – so quick and easy! In this way every child has their own ongoing individual learning program that can readily be shared with parents, other educators and the like.

ClassMon has the power to be useful to any educational setting because of its ability to incorporate any learning curriculum – just load up the curriculum rubric, your class details and you’re ready to begin. I strongly recommend it for teachers in early childhood settings regardless of the Curriculum they are using.

At last a fabulous support tool long overdue for teachers.

Sincerely yours,

Rosalie Natalier

(Director)

Thank-you David for a great session.  My students enjoyed your presentation very much and although you covered so much material the students felt very encouraged to use your systems for their futures.    You are a very engaging presenter and we really appreciated all the practical examples.

Report on the Professional Learning Network at CQUni, Noosa

Conducted by Mike Horsley and Kathy Bauer.

The Professional Learning Network of CQUni Noosa, conducts detailed and in depth evaluation of all professional learning opportunities, courses and programs that it manages. Evaluation includes positive outcomes for the session, challenges raised in the session, solutions presented in the session, areas for further development and suggestions for future learning opportunities.

This report has been prepared for David Harris of Folios International. The report contains evaluation data collected on his session at CQUni Noosa on Monday, October 26, 2009.

Positive outcomes from the session with David Harris. Twenty-one responses, all contained positive comments – this is a selection of 5.

1. Fantastic, brilliant, easy to use, amazing. Love it!

2. So simple and easy to use.

3. An amazing tool, great time saver and a powerful way to demonstrate student learning.

4. Fantastic, what a wonderful tool, looking forward to using it.

5. Easy to use program. More effective way to creating folios.

Solutions presented in this session. Sixteen responses with positive comments on solutions.

1. Time saving/prepared curriculum already provided.

2. Time saving and user friendly, multiple portfolios at once – no more cut and paste. Easy to use at school and home.

3. Handy hints, products to save time.

4. Simplicity of creating folios, encourages the incorporation of digital portfolios.

5. How to save time, multiple applications for software.

Areas for further development. Ten responses provided.

1. National curriculum alignment, tutorial CD to take away.

2. Possibilities for incorporating with One School.

3. Picture file, backup, restore feature.

4. Behaviour management.

Suggestions for further development. Seven responses provided.

All of these responses indicated the desirability of having a hands-on workshop with the opportunity to explore the software and learn how to use it to implement solutions to perceived area of needs and better use ICT in teaching.

Recommendation.

We would recommend, based on this evaluation that you consider running 2 hands-on workshops in early 2010.

Thanks David, that was a really worthwhile workshop you ran for us and it’s a truly wonderful product (s). Having worked in several different strands of Early Childhood Settings I can easily see what wonderful uses the Class Mon would be in any one of those settings.  It’s a wonderful resources for us time poor teachers!  I really believe that Class Mon would help us produce a superior folio.  We can put more into the children’s folio, as it’s so user friendly.

Hayley, Prep Teacher, Rockhampton

It was great to see ideas that are very practical to use. David is a very good presenter and always adapts his workshop to the questions that the participants are asking.

I loved the ClassMon and FolioMaker products and I can already see how I could utilise these products in the Classroom.

Linda, Prep Teacher, Mackay

In regards to the workshop I absolutely enjoyed every moment of it. It was great to see such an enthusiastic presenter that really knew what he was talking about. I like that not only did he teach us about the ClassMon and FolioMaker software but also Picasa. Picasa is a great way in which teachers can incorporate and play with photos in the classroom to display students work. It also links nicely with the ClassMon and FolioMaker software as you can reduce picture size to add to students’ folios as work samples.

ClassMon and FolioMaker are two programs that I will purchase very soon. I would like to see the Essential Learnings be incorporated in the ClassMon software as Early Childhood Educators are progressively using the Essential Learnings within their teaching. I like the way the teacher can make as many observations and recordings of how the student in progressing all in the one program. I also like how the program can add work samples and show the learning records of all class members/ students across all Key Learning Areas.

FolioMaker is a great program that will assist me as a University student to complete a folio for my exit of uni. I like the way that the children can all make their own folio and the teacher can monitor this through the school network. This is a great way to incorporate ICTs in the classroom.

Overall, I think both Programs are great. Thank you.

Jacinta, JCU Early Childhood Student

The workshop definitely inspired me to incorporate ICT more into all areas of the curriculum. Really liked Millie’s presentation using the webcam. Just taking digital photos rather than scanning work in is also a simple but great idea. Thanks for all the extra tips, Dave.

Krissy, Cairns Primary Teacher

The workshop definitely inspired me to incorporate ICT more into all areas of the curriculum. Really liked Millie’s presentation using the webcam. Just taking digital photos rather than scanning work in is also a simple but great idea. Thanks for all the extra tips, Dave.

Krissy, Cairns Primary Teacher