Engagement, innovation and digital literacy - ingredients which fuel a group of exciting classrooms in the York Region District School Board in Ontario. Over the past decade YRDSB has moved from having a few demonstration classrooms where designated teachers 'demonstrated' for those who visited the classrooms as observers - a passive model of learning - to over 200 Literacy@School (L@S) Learning Centre classrooms - a more active learning model. L@S teachers engage peers in their schools as well as peers across schools in conversations as co-learners while sharing how they themselves have learned to develop strong digital learning skills. To move digital literacy forward it is the goal of the board to host at least one L@S classroom in every school.

The evolution of L@S classes from a demo classroom model to a learning centre model has revolved around two main themes: identifying and practicing effective Instructional strategies; and developing an understanding of digital learning environments. The ways in which these two areas interact with and impact on each other forms the basis for understanding student learning in classrooms today. As the program had some influence on the schools where it was being developed, the interest in growing the program into other schools became apparent. There are now over 200 teachers involved in the Literacy@School network of learners. Co-learning is becoming an embedded feature of the York Region District School Board's culture. Every school is involved in a learning network and L@S teachers have the advantage of being in a network of co-learners within this program as well. Through the York Region's Curriculum and Instructional Services L@S teachers are given a modest amount of release time to work together and each L@S class is supported with technology that is designed to support learning. Teachers enhance their work through participation in an online community as well. Teachers who gain confidence integrating new and emerging technologies are also in a better position to influence and support their peers. L@S teachers are open to sharing practice across L@S classrooms and many of these teachers feel empowered to lead the system in finding new ways to share learning.

A clear side benefit of supporting this group of engaged educators is that it has fuelled further innovation and creativity as teachers share practice within and across classrooms. The place of innovation in our L@S classrooms has become one of the lasting legacies from the original years of the project. Teachers in the program have tended to be those leaders who will take ideas and move them into the mainstream in their classes. Our responsibility at a system level is to find ways to operationalize best practice in identifying what makes the most difference to children's learning. Innovation is an important goal of the program as L@S classrooms are selected for proof of concept projects using emerging technologies. One of the challenges of such a program is that of replication and sustainability. Each Literacy@School site has the opportunity to join the Board's Blueprints for Change process. The Blueprint engages each school in a consultative process combining resources of the school with central resources of the Board. The intent is the replication of the L@S classrooms.

The investment in professional learning and appropriate technology has proven its worth in terms of observable changes in classroom practice and in school decision-making. Likewise there have been some observable shifts in the learning culture at both local and system levels. The classroom as a learning centre and as a dynamic learning environment for teachers is a concept that has taken root and proven to be an effective strategy that supports schools as they move learning forward.