Google for Education: NZ Energiser 2022

Kia ora koutou, 

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Google for Education NZ Energiser event held at Google HQ here in Auckland over the last couple of days. It was a brilliant experience being able to connect with a range of Innovators, fellow Trainers, Coaches, Reference School leaders and Educator Group leaders. Our Manaiakalani team had the chance to go into Google a couple of weeks ago, but it was great to be able to do this again for a full couple of days learning before the new term started. 

The days were jam packed with information about updates to new features to come, keynote talks from Google employees, sessions lead by fellow colleagues, product reviews and opportunities to give feedback on features and apps, a very enjoyable scavenger hunt around the viaduct area, incredible food from the in-house cafeteria and much more! 

A special thanks to Steve Smith (not the Cricketer haha) and Chris Betcher from Google for making it all happen!

Fun with micro:bit!

Kia ora koutou, 

I had a lot of fun in at The Mind Lab today for a block course. Lots of cool activities and opportunities to get our hands on and create. The afternoon was spent creating using micro:bit. I was able to write my name, play Beethoven's Symphony No.9, and even programmed a compass!

A lot of fun, and a great way to spend a wet Auckland day.

Thanks to Dave and the TML team for a really interesting block course!

Programming the compass using the micro:bit

downloading the hex file onto the micro:bit using a USB 

walking around the room testing my compass

The Mind Lab - Transformation 2: Reflective entry 4

My role as a facilitator lends itself nicely to this idea of leading educational transformation. In essence, my role is to support this in every school I work in - whatever this looks like for each school. I am fortunate that I get to work with a number of different teachers, providing 1:1 support throughout the course of a year. Spending an hour a week in each class, my role is to support the teacher to develop their understanding and confidence in digital teaching and learning. No matter where they start on the ‘spectrum’ of confidence and ability to teach with digital technologies, my role is to take the teacher on a journey over the course of the year, modelling and demonstrating techniques and tools which they can use as part of their programmes. In addition to the support with individual teachers, other aspects of my role are to support senior leadership, as well as the wider staff group through staff meetings and ongoing PD sessions. In short, I am fortunate that I have tremendous potential to lead transformation in the schools I am working in.

Manaiakalani in-class facilitation

An example of how I am supporting one of my schools in changing the way that teaching and learning happens in their school, is by assisting in the transition to having a class website for every class, where teaching and learning content is readily accessible with a few clicks. Another example of how I am supporting transformation in my role has been a case of supporting the school to implement processes such as teachers switching from a weekly Word doc that is saved to a shared drive and printed off, to one single Google Doc that is embedded into the class site, with the latest learning at the top. The real-time collaboration component of the G Suite apps assists with this. 

Class Sites linked off the school website, easily accessible to anyone interested

Lockdowns and other Covid-related class/school closures highlighted the need for digital technologies in modern teaching and learning. Anecdotally, across the schools I am associated with, those that already had a reasonable level of digital infrastructure across their community were able to, more or less, continue with their programmes from home straightaway. Whereas those that didn’t have these processes in place struggled to get teaching and learning happening effectively, or else needed some time to set themselves up prepared to do so, meaning teaching from home was delayed or heavily scaled down to compensate.  

The effects of Covid 19 on education highlighted issues with equity across the country, notably around the lack of access to digital infrastructure in homes, whether that be with a lack of devices, no internet access, or both. In a 2021 blog post, Claire Amos, Principal of Albany Senior High wrote about what she calls the “digital divide”. Amos writes that it is a serious problem that so many of our young people don’t have access to their own devices for learning, or internet access. (Amos, 2021). 

Claire Amos' blog post

But what is being done about this? The Government attempted to address this by sending out devices and internet routers to families who indicated they needed them during 2020, but this only goes part of the way to addressing the issue. Putting a new device in the hands of a family is helpful initially. But what happens when that device breaks? Or when it becomes slow or unable to be updated in a few years? For me, the answer is supporting and empowering families to purchase devices of their own. As part of our partnership with our schools, and with the support of our commercial partners the Manaiakalani Education Trust offers families the opportunity to purchase Chromebooks for their children. Not just the device, but importantly device care (insurance) and a case to protect it as the learner comes to and from school. 

It is this kind of model which I believe is the answer to supporting young people to be successful in education. We know that technology is only going to become a more crucial part of modern teaching and learning, and so device access is essential to facilitate this. 

References

Amos, C. (2021, August 24). Why need to close the digital divide in our schools - now! Teaching. Learning. Leading change. Retrieved July 18, 2022, from https://teachingandelearning.blogspot.com/2021/08/why-need-to-close-digital-divide-in-our.html

Hāpara Champion Trainer

Kia ora koutou, 

I am very happy to announce that I have completed the Hāpara Champion Trainer course!

It has been a great experience completing the course and I have learnt a lot of valuable knowledge and expertise to be able to support the teachers I work with. 

The Mind Lab - Transformation 2: Reflective entry 3

The most significant change made in my own attitude and philosophy towards teaching came when I started in a Manaiakalani school and gained an understanding of the pedagogy guiding the programme. As I have already reflected in the earlier entries, the sum of my use of digital technologies in my first couple of years of teaching was very surface-level. I had an understanding of the tools and knew of some simple ways to use them, but what I was missing was the pedagogy or the ‘why’ behind what I was doing with digital devices in my class. 

The Manaiakalani pedagogy is made up of 3 components: Learn, Create and Share. The Learn component looks like teaching and learning being visible using a Google Site. Create is done primarily using the Google G Suite apps on Chromebooks, and the use of blogs is a fundamental part of the Share component of the pedagogy. (Manaiakalani Education Trust, n.d.). It was once I had begun in this new role and started to gain an understanding of what the Manaiakalani pedagogy looked like, that I realised that there were parts that our school wasn’t doing well and needed support with. Blogging, for instance, was an area that needed some leadership and direction in order to get it moving. The content was there - teachers were planning and delivering awesome learning content, but there was all of the behind the scenes work and implementation that needed to be done at the start of the year. Although this work didn’t technically come under my role, it was an opportunity for me to take leadership as well as gaining some valuable experience on how these systems of established. 

Manaiakalani's Learn Create Share pedagogy

Transitioning out of my own classroom and into a role of facilitation has been a really valuable experience. I started my new role by spending time shadowing some of my experienced colleagues in the classes they were facilitating in. This was a really valuable experience, as I found that I was able to take bits and pieces from what I was observing and experiencing from being alongside each of them. Some had been in facilitation for a number of years, some had spent a lot of time in the classroom, and some had recently come out of leadership positions in the classroom. This meant that each of them brought different perspectives to the role and looked at their facilitation through different lenses. Having the exposure to these differing approaches meant that I have been able to decide on my own style and approach with the best bits of all of what I have seen. 

Working in this role has also presented me with opportunities to work with senior leadership teams, making suggestions and problem solving, in addition to core parts of my role. An example of this was supporting a school to create a new school website that could be managed internally by a member of staff, rather than having to contact a third party to get changes made. The idea started with me replicating what the school had on their then website, using a Google Site. I showed the concept to the leadership team and explained the benefits that using a Google Site could bring in their context. In the end, I worked with the school’s tech leader to upskill them and prepare them to be able to manage the Site for themselves. It is now their current school site and they have autonomy over the content and the upkeep - something they had been wanting to happen for a long time, but didn’t have the means to make this happen for themselves. This type of change is referred to as ‘Adaptive’ change, where the change has been established by stakeholders within the school, with the knowledge and understanding being passed on to allow it to be supported internally (Osborne, 2014). 

References

Manaiakalani Education Trust. (n.d.). Manaiakalani Pedagogy. The Manaiakalani Programme. Retrieved July 14, 2022, from https://www.manaiakalani.org/programme/pedagogy#h.vwynzcsw76k2

Osborne, M. (2014). Inviting innovation: Leading meaningful change in schools. Set, 2, 3-8.

https://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/journals/set/downloads/set2014_2_003.pdf

The Mind Lab - Transformation 2: Reflective entry 2

I am fortunate that I am able to work alongside a range of different educators in my role as a facilitator. From those in their first year of teaching, all the way across the spectrum to those who have been teaching for far longer than I have been alive. Interestingly, technology is often the great neutraliser. I have worked with vastly experienced teachers with very little confidence and fluency using technology, and with brand new teachers with incredible levels of digital skill. This, in a nutshell, is the nature of leading and supporting teachers. Age and experience doesn’t always have a direct correlation to teaching ability. Effective education leadership is about identifying strengths and weaknesses of a teacher, no matter their experience, and supporting them to grow in whichever way they need.

Covid has come as a crossroads for a lot of teachers. What was possible pre-Covid, or what worked, doesn’t necessarily work anymore. I have found this was particularly the case with those teachers I work with who didn’t use technology much prior to Covid. For teachers who had minimal digital integration to their programmes, the idea of taking their teaching and learning online meant a massive shift in thinking. A lot is possible within the walls of a physical classroom, but when this is suddenly no longer an option, and teaching has to happen differently in order for learning to happen online. That’s was assuming the learners had internet and device access to be able to take part. 

Manaiakalani Education Trust is in partnership with more than 120 schools over the country, many of which are low decile schools or in low socio-economic areas. We are constantly looking for ways in which we can help support our whānau with setting their young people up for success. Developed in 2011, our Cybersmart curriculum (Manaiakalani Education Trust, 2011) is a positive alternative to the other Cybersafety and Digital Citizenship curriculums. It was later translated into te reo Māori, establishing the Tū Atamai i te Ipurangi curriculum. 

Manaiakalani's Cybersmart curriculum

Tū Atamai i te Ipurangi - the te reo Māori Cybersmart curriculum

A project that I am working on this year is bringing together a group of Samoan and Samoan-speaking educators from across our network to develop resources in Gagana Samoa for use in Samoan Bilingual Units across our network and classes with Samoan-speaking learners. This is in response to the fact that Samoan is the 3rd most commonly spoken language in New Zealand, and we have a Samoan representation across our network. The aim would be that eventually, we would be able to do the same process with other Pasifika languages. 

An important part of the Manaiakalani kaupapa is visibility of learning to all stakeholders in a child’s life. Tātaiako and Tapasā are cultural frameworks for supporting the educational achievement of Māori and Pasifika learners in New Zealand schools. The ‘Pasifika Success Compass’ from Tapasā (Ministry of Education, 2018) places “Pasifika learners, parents, families and communities at the centre” of Pasifika achievement and success in learning. Visibility of what the child is learning, through the mode of class websites enables all of these parties to be along for the journey with their child’s learning. All that a family member or other stakeholder needs to do in order to see what their young person is learning is to simply Google search the school’s name and follow the link to the class sites from the website.   

Tapasā - Cultural competencies framework for teachers of Pacific learners

These two components of Pasifika learners being able to learn in their own language, and having their ‘aiga and those important to them involved with their learning, are culturally intelligent ways of setting Pasifika learners up for success, using the proven principles that are found within Tapasā.

These principles of Tapasā are very similar to those found in Tātaiako (Education Council New Zealand, 2011) when looking at best practice for teaching Māori learners. The core principle of this approach is “Māori learners achieving educational success as Māori”. In order for this to happen, leaders of learning are challenged to foster the competencies of Ako, Whanaungatanga, Tangata Whenuatanga, Manaakitanga and Wānanga within our learning environments. 

Tātaiako - cultural competencies for teachers of Māori learners

References

Manaiakalani Education Trust. (2011). Manaiakalani Cybersmart. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://cybersmart.manaiakalani.org/

Ministry of Education. (2018). Tapasā: Cultural competencies framework for teachers of Pacific learners.
https://teachingcouncil.nz/assets/Files/Tapasa/Tapasa-Cultural-Competencies-Framework-for-Teachers-of-Pacific-Learners-2019.pdf

Education Council New Zealand–Matatū Aotearoa. (2011). Tātaiako: Cultural competencies for teachers of Māori learners. Ministry of Education.

The Mind Lab - Transformation 2: Reflective entry 1

I have seen many types of tech emerge; some came and were soon superseded. Some are still with us today, and in some cases, hanging on the wall, covered in cobwebs and swimming lesson recount plans.

A typical-looking secondary school computer lab from the 2000s

A 'Smartboard' in a class I visited in 2021, is not completely useless

My first teaching position came with an introduction to Hāpara Teacher Dashboard, a classroom management software with a range of features to help with digital teaching and learning. Teaching in a 1:1 BYOD class, Hāpara’s Teacher Dashboard created individual subject folders in each of the learner’s Google Drives, meaning they could easily organise their work. Hāpara allowed me the ability to view, monitor and leave feedback on my learner’s work, all on one easy dashboard. Although I probably didn’t get a chance to make the most out of all of its features, Hāpara was a great digital tool to use in my class. (K-12 Online Learning Platform, n.d.). 

A teacher's view of Hāpara Teacher Dashboard

In my first full year of teaching, it was difficult to create an effective teaching and learning environment without the knowledge or understanding of what an effective digital teaching environment looked like. I had the tools, but not much support with how to use them effectively. The BYOD devices in my class essentially were used for publishing or reading and maths games. Looking back now, this wasn’t effective, nor was it collaborative.

The Manaiakalani Programme

Starting a job teaching at a Manaiakalani school in 2020 saw a fundamental change in my approach to teaching in a digital learning environment. At the centre of the Manaiakalani programme is the Learn Create Share pedagogy. Professor Stuart McNaughton from the Woolf Fisher Research Centre talks about the LCS framework, “Using the Learn Create Share framework to manage learning in a digital learning environment that is truly visible, through Google Sites leading learning, blogging sharing outcomes and highly effective teaching practice, has enabled this accelerated rate of progress.” (Jesson, McNaughton, Wilson, et al., 2018). 

The practicalities of teaching with the Learn Create Share pedagogy meant an intentional shift towards deliberately planning and the creation of resources with this structure in mind; learning, having a chance to create something related to the learning, and an opportunity to share. In Manaiaklaani schools, blogging is a central component of this sharing. Learners have their own blogs which they share individually, classes share using their class blogs, and teachers use a professional blog to share their own learning journeys.

A key component of the Learn Create Share pedagogy working effectively is through the use of Google Sites to make learning visible. Visibility is a key part of the Manaiakalani kaupapa, with the belief that all learning should be visible to everyone, anywhere and at any pace. Each class in Manaiakalani schools have a Class Site where their learning is visible and accessible. In classes Year 3 and above, learners use their devices to access their work and use the G Suite apps to complete it. 

I first used Google Sites as a simple way of bringing together the links to the various learning sites and apps that I used as part of my programme. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective - at least it stopped my kids coming up to me every few minutes to ask for the link to the maths website they were supposed to be on, or for me to remind them of their password. It was once I had professional development in the form of Manaiakalani’s Digital Fluency Intensive (DFI) - a 9-week course where participants engage with both the Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa, as well as digital technologies. This ongoing PD gave me an opportunity to increase my level of confidence in teaching in a digital environment, along with developing an understanding of the Manaiakalani pedagogy. At the conclusion of the DFI, we were given the opportunity to sit the Google for Education exams. It was at this point that I did both the Level 1 & 2 exams.

How my Class Sites transitioned over the course of my classroom teaching career

As part of my first year teaching in a Manaiakalani school, I received weekly in-class-support sessions from a facilitator, who would come in and teach my class, allowing me to observe and co-teach on occasion. This experience was great, as it allowed me to observe a specialist in this area. Last year, an opportunity presented itself to work for Manaiakalani in a role doing the same type of facilitation that I was receiving in 2020. I am now working in this role, supporting teachers from a range of schools. The biggest transition for me has been towards learning how to teach both the learners and the teacher at the same time. Designing lessons that are both engaging for the learners, whilst being explicit enough to help the teacher understand what I am wanting the learners to engage with, and why. I am loving this role, and know that is exactly the kind of position I am suited for. 

References

K-12 Online Learning Platform. (n.d.). Hāpara. Retrieved June 5, 2022, from https://hapara.com/workspace/

Rebecca Jesson, Stuart McNaughton, Aaron Wilson, Tong Zhu & Victoria Cockle (2018) Improving Achievement Using Digital Pedagogy: Impact of a Research Practice Partnership in New Zealand, Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 50:3, 183-199, DOI: 10.1080/15391523.2018.1436012

The Mind Lab: Transformation 1 assignment

Kia ora koutou, 

For the first of my assignments with The Mind Lab this year, I had to collaborate with Bhavik, another member of this cohort, based in Masterton. We chose topics we found interesting relating to the key idea of educational innovation through digital and collaborative learning. 

We both found not being in the same geographic area a bit of a challenge in terms of how we were able to make things work. Others in our cohort were able to meet up for coffee and work in the same place, whereas we had to try and schedule video calls and trade emails back and forth in order to get it done. I recorded my segments and sent them to Bhavik to edit together using software he had access to through school which was better than what I had. We also got together via Meet and recorded a couple of segments to make it come together nicely. 

All in all, a really interesting process and one that was worthwhile.

Check out our submission here:

The Mind Lab - continuing my learning journey!

Kia ora koutou, 

I am very excited to announce that I have enrolled to do Postgraduate study this year with The Mind Lab. I will be completing a Postgraduate Certificate in Digital and Collaborative Learning over the course of the year. I have colleagues who have completed this course in the past and have had a lot of positive feedback about it. I am looking forward to it!