TOD NCEA 19th November

 Five aspects of change: system changes

NCEA is changing radically and we were introduced to those changes during teacher only day en-masse... a lot to digest.

1) Well being - less assessments more big picture thinking.

2) Equity and inclusiveness - how do we build school courses that represent and honour the diversity in our society? 

3) Coherence - links from the NZC through to the outcomes will be clearer. At the moment, I don't feel like the NZC integrates with NCEA and that they can be taught quite independently from each other, so addressing this is a good thing.

4) Pathways - suitability - vocational type courses are unit standards based and that says they are worth less to the learner and at times community. If we continue to undervalue these areas we will continue 

5) Credibility - is this about the rigour of which we assess NCEA or the creditability of courses? One of the things our group noted was that our inherent course elitism at school possibly denies our students opportunities to just learn process, with this focus on content. If you want to go to Art school and didn't do Art at school you do a catch up course at uni if you have your UE and apply and most likely get in, likewise for all aspects of health sciences. Why are we so caught up with exactly what content kids are learning, when process is actually more important? 

Change one - removing fees, and making it easier to apply for SAC

Change two - opening te ao Māori pathways. Māori performing arts is not UE, yet dance and drama are. That is being addressed. Integrate mātauranaga Māori. This will be integrated into our outcome statements for NCEA. Unsure what that looks like. 

Change three - strengthen literacy and numeracy requirements - are they going to make this harder to attain? It sounds like they will streamline what and where literacy and numeracy will come from. There will only be lit and num from one 20 credit package to gain these standards and they can attain them from year 9 onwards.

Change four - less credits for each subject. Less fragmentation of learning. Every subject will have 4 AS and it will be a 50:50 split; externals will not necessarily be 'exams'. 

Change five - hard to understand? Simplify. Removing the 20 credit carry over, limiting resubs. Maximum enrolment of credits - 120 L1, 120 for L2 and 3.

Change six - show clearer pathways - vocational entrance award introduced, just like UE. graduate profile for each level of NCEA will be introduced and record of achievement will be simplified so it makes sense to employers.

Change seven - keep level one as optional. Level one kept broad, level two and three will be where specialisation occurs. 

Reflect on the following for the day as we go over the modules:

1 - Know and think - skills knowledge capabilities needed?

2 - Feel and believe - what are the attributes and capabilities required?

3 - Build and create - structures to  support change and implementation

4 - Actions to take away - need to do and think of now? 

1) We need to be willing to be process teachers rather than content teachers.  Let go of the elitism of particular subjects and particular pathways. There is a move to a vocational entry qualification like University Entrance. I note they seem to discuss how Māori Performing arts are not recognised as Achievement standards, yet when they moved to discussing other pathways other than traditional University ones, this was not a 'thing' that was acknowledged. 

Big picture planning rather than a pick and choose model of achievement standards will need to be thought through in order to be able to effectively tie the big ideas to the standards. It does concern me that student choice could be lost here in Visual Arts. Setting up a good selection of student choice that interrelates to the planning matrix is going to be necessary and is not a small task. 

We could/can look at adjusting our level one matrix in Art to be inclusive of the big ideas as a starting point that could lighten the change process load. Along with how we integrate T-shaped literacy within that matrix, it feels like a do-able and workable task. 

2) Feel and believe - acknowledgement of unintentional streaming of Māori/Pasifika learners. Is it happening at Hornby? If it is, it is an aspect of institutionalised racism that needs addressing.  

3) Build and create - it appears that we are being directed towards cross curricular structures, which given Hornby's start in this area with Hurumanu, could be an easier transition. I see that Rolleston College and Haeata are already well-entrenched in this direction. Looking at their course outlines along with thinking about the needs and wants of our students currently situated in Hurumanu would be useful. I am unsure what our leaders in this area are doing in regards to collecting data from the students experiencing Hurumanu currently, but one would presume they are and that this would help us plan further into NCEA levels. 

4) Actions to take away - how the big ideas direct the learning from above. I would like to break down my understanding of these in relation to art making outcomes more. I can see how they can be used to reconfigure our existing research and practical applications Artist models matrix for level one. I can also see how T-shaped Literacy would slot into that as well. We will make that our reality for 2021 in preparation to understanding how they work for the roll-out of the new standards in 2022. 

DFI seven

Devices. Fiona Grant.
Cybersmart learning and being cybersmart - focussed on empowering everyone.

Kua tangata whenua ki te ao matihiko- at home in a digital world. 

Cybersmart was a term used as a proactive term instead of cyber'safe' which is a reactive term. It needs to be consistently and persistently modelling how we use language, and position ourselves positively on line. smart and secure. One doesn't exist without the other. Today we are working on how we show that sharing online is not just a negative experience; less about scaremongering more about positive use.

10 cybersmart categories exist in the curriculum presented by Manaiakalani.

Implementation is a whole school focus, not part of school. A common language and the same process for introducing LCS to school - term one learn smart learners, create term two smart footprint, share term three smart relationships.

By the time our young people get to high school we should be able to continue on with the learning.

Kawa of care is considered a really important document as it is an agreement between whānau and kura about how we are all going to behave online and physically manage personal devices as learner devices. Ours is a part of our enrolment form rather than being a separate component. 

"Positive, thoughtful, helpful"  has  been our way of doing things with commenting on student blogs and is something I believe the teachers at HHS who regularly comment are very good at. It again aligns with LCS - Positive - runs parallel to Learn/Ako - stating what you already know and determining something of a direction forwards. Thoughtful - Create/Waihanga - creating connections of learning. Helpful - Share/Tohatoha - sharing your ideas on what has been presented as a way of helping the writer initiate another cycle of inquiry. 

The blog again is the training wheels. As their time at school increases, they can reflect back on their digital footprint. just like anything in life, elevate the positive and not the negative.

Hapara session with Lenva Shearing

Hapara was built for the Manaiakalanai trust to provide visibility, not technological affordance. Never ask students to create folders, as they do not own them. They just work within them.

Hapara work spaces: hapara's answer to classroom, workspace is visible. The benefit is that you can personalise it over a site. Lenva does workshops online and is bookable on her calendar. There are public workspaces are available to have a look at and you can take up the opportunity to do one of our free badged courses. The student dashboard is a desktop interface. I don't know that we will go with this if we are looking at mymahi interface as well. Hapara also has analytics, which I would be interested in exploring better  and highlights the schools activity inside gsuite since they first joined google.

My own exploration of workspaces started a wee while ago (2016), but I have always struggled to maintain my own momentum with it. However, the more we discuss our lack of differentiation at HHS the more inclined I am to want to be able to use it proficiently. I struggle with the visual look of it, which is a bit churlish admittedly, but as a professional who places a high degree of weight on how things look, it's a hard one to overcome. The real brilliance with workspaces is that it allows you to group your learners and their view of the workspace is limited to the work they are set, not the work set for other groups. 

From a pedagogical point we do not direct our HoD's at the start of the year to sit and work out PAT data and learn to read it. There is no directive to know who your high fliers, low liers and anomoly data sits within your class groupings and there is no expectation that HOD's lead their department staff in catering for these groupings. If there were, then attaining buy in for workspace would probably fall into place. This should be done in relation to HLP's and everything else that Woolf Fisher provides for us. 

Mark's session Intro into devices

Affirming we are 1:1 not BYOD - BYOD allows free reign of device choice. There are issues with this as very cheap laptops are now on the market and a whānau who does not have regular income would be hard-pressed to pass up that opportunity over the more expensive chromebook the cluster offers, even though it haas insurance and warranty built into the cost. We know it is a better deal, but we also don't have to deal (as teachers in general) with the financial constraints of not knowing if money will be even available in a few weeks. I have noticed also that new enrolments during the year, students will often come from other schools with laptops, macbooks even, as this was their previous kura's expectation; it's pretty hard to say no you have to get rid of that fancy macbook and use this chromebook. I know I wouldnt want to as a senior student... 

1: 1 is based upon the three p's of the treaty - partnership participation and protection. I hadn't thought of this before. I liked the summary we were provided around this as it was clear. It is something I would like to rejig for whānau and put up on our facebook page every now and then as a way of reaffirming our direction for equity.

We did a digital dig into how to use a chromebook - shortcut keys are very similar to a mac, so it isn't a struggle for a mac user to switch over to a chromebook, thought he mousepads are not as smooth and i would struggle to move to a chromebook over this lovely macbook. In saying that, Our Japanese teacher Nick was very early on using a chromebook as his own work device so that he knew the limitations his learners would face, which I thought was a very clever move personally. The chromebook simulator Mark introduced us to thought I found it frustrating as a user, was a little moment of inspiration for our visual arts meeting when we were trying to figure out how to introduce 30 students at once in a  year 9 class to the difference between a cell phone for photography and a proper DSLR camera. I figured if there was a chromebook simulator surely someone had thought of a DSLR camera simulator and guess what! They had; about 12 iterations of such a thing came up which has meant that we had something really cool to move our year 9's to doing online in learning WHY we love DSLR's over iphones for Art photography. Little things like this happening in the DFI make it a worthwhile experience even when you think nyou already know it all (I don't think that BTW).

Cheryl talked through us using ipads for juniors. Samsung, Apple, and no brand tablets were piloted first to ensure they knew what they were getting. Ipads came out best. I do personally wonder if this would still be the case, as Samsung certainly produce a very large range of products here at every price-point which Apple do not.  Styluses are used, so hand writing is still learnt. I loved the weight of the stylus and it certainly made using the pad a much more enjoyable experience, so much so that I have purchased one for our home use. 

You're welcome Noel Leemings for the free advertising. 

EXPLAIN EVERYTHING
I love the idea of this, but I have to admit I struggled with applying it. I spent my time consistently second guessing if there was a way of just using screencastify and voice recordings on slides etc instead... Part of that was because you have to pay for it, even though we get a good subsidy through the cluster, it still bugged me. I would like another day on this one so I can determine if i can or how I can use it effectively. This might be a summer holiday task. 

My mahi for the week going forwards:

1) Missionising how we get a directive in place to have our HoD's working together at the start of each academic year to actively use PAT data alongside Woolf Fisher research for differentiation. 

2) Getting to grips with workspace so that can become an affordance to making the first point work

3) What I have already done, but I will count it on my check list anyway (Always feels better if you have things on the checklist that are actually done!) spreading the love around Toby Mini and how it can make opening a class set of blogs very easy and therefore commenting on those blogs much easier; screencastify, their promo video and a link to the extension sent out to staff. One of the things this helps overcome - with a bit of work admittedly - is that we have many classes that are a mix of classes now and kamar/hapara cannot seem to accomodate this for us. My senior art classes are made up of seven markbooks in kamar for example, which translates into seven classes on Hapara, and seven folders to go into to retrieve my students blogs. This is now much quicker and smarter for me. 

Having read Terry's blog I'm now wondering if we need to be directive about insisting our staff are 'trained' in using Hapara effectively at the start of each year too. I wonder what others reading this would think of that? It would be super fun to be able to get in a plan how our first week would look like professionally with the distinct intention of not making it look like it normally does, but is andragogically responsive to our current pedagogy.

.  

DFI Day six - enabling access - sites

From last time:

• Adding audio files that read the site out is helpful. Online voice recorder and a chrome extension specifically for slides - this is a work in progress and something I am implementing as my new normal
• Hapara parent portal - we have a lot of apps/mediums already. at this stage we want to know what it looks like as a parent and we are yet to see it, because we haven't had time to look! But it is certainly a part of our intention
• Challenging how visible we are as a kura, digitally - Wānanga teacher sites were not actually visible to our community. We have addressed this  however, the consistency between sites is very varies, even though there are really good guidelines and examples from our Wānanga leaders, Anna and Raewyn. 
• Promoting google class OnAir to staff as a resource - yet to happen beyond an email sent out. It is a start. A prompt to have our staff consider how visible our amazing aspects of our own practice are and what we can do about making them more so.
• Can each of our learning experiences be slotted into the multi-modal text database format? Should this be something of a requirement for any major teaching sequences? It certainly helps strongly address high leverage practices put forward by Woolf Fisher. Again, that is something our e-learning team need to take to the table and extrapolate out for staff as a model of practice (we have no staff meeting slots this term... that's a possibility to be changed). This one I have yet to consider HOW it happens.
  

Dorothy's session today and my thoughts going forward:

Connected - today's theme is connected from the Manaiakalani kaupapa. 

Today was more around how we enable access and inspire connection/connected practice to happen. Technical aspects as well as pedagogical aspects were discussed as well as more discussion around the origins of the Manaiakalani Trust and how that formation led to where we are right now.

Origins: Back in 2006 the network that was formed through Manaiakalani was diverse. This became, and is a strength. Most of us are at our best when we are connected with other people. We strengthen our own school by making connections outside of it as well as within it. Siloed practice just doesn't have a place in modern education. We know there are pockets of it remaining in our MLE school however. I wonder if there always will be or if there is still yet a way of pushing that out? Shared kaupapa is only possible when everyone has made the commitment to make our mahi visible. 

Technical: The Limit the links - document is a live document and has recently been updated. This is something we have discussed in staff. Sometimes it's really hard to keep it down to three clicks. However, if we are earnest about trying to, and it sometimes varies from that, it has to be better for our learners in the long run than not having made a statement about how many clicks teachers allow to evolve on their sites. 

Technical: RSS = real simple syndication. RSS grabs each blog post and puts it out there as a tweet to the rest of the world. Egalitarian in nature not popularity based - the most recent post is what is at the top. I have some questions about this as all of our rangatahi coming through are now on primary school based blogs, not HHS ones, so the feed is distorted and does not reflect High School blogging in Uru Mānuka particularly any more. Dave Winter then sent us the secondary RSS feed. It is all of the high schools across NZ involved in a cluster. 

Pedagogical: Connect - AKO - we connect when we use the ako/learn concept - we aim to make sure we know (or begin that process) prior knowledge of our students and we activate a shared vision to learn. At least our best practice versions of ourselves do this. I wonder if I know if that happens across our staff, or if I just presume that it does because I want it to? 

Pedagogical: Connected learners share. A connection needs both parties to share. Give and take. It cannot just be digital however, face to face opportunities are also a significant aspect. That is why a great deal of what we do is done in face to face meetings rather than solely relying on google meets and digital connections. 

Ways we as clusters have been working to connect lately:

- Tuhi mai tuhi atu. This is across cluster blogging connections. It is not something Hornby High School has put a lot into as of yet. I personally feel we are another year away from this with the changes in our curriculum (Wānanga time, Hurumanu across years 7 - 9, soon to be 7 - 11) and our new build previously. 

- Connections of high school teachers across clusters is being specifically addressed through Secondary Connects. Need to find the agenda for this one! Katie Tozer seems to have it somewhere. 

- Te reo Māori advisor - Mikaere, travels throughout NZ to visit our cluster schools to work on Te ao digitally.  I believe Mikaere has had some connection with our HoD Maori and Immersion Te reo Māori teacher, though the visibility of this is not clear. 

- There was a deliberate drive to forge connections from our end as teachers and as leaders with our audiences (staff and students) that was a necessity during lock down. 

Ways we can continue to push connecting:
Google plus has now become Currents. We need to investigate that. Using groups succinctly in school email so that we are more streamlined and knowing that LCS is a structure that we can apply to all processes of our school, including andragogically.

When we talk about Connected; We cannot cherry pick from the kaupapa about what we are going to use, connected doesn't work without visibility.

Hapara hot tips.
Student dashboard. More recent mobile friendly but not an app, definitely aimed at college kids. I think it is possibly more useful to environments that use workspace in an integrated manner? Surely using drive in an organised manner is just as useful. However, the information presented was interesting.

Summing this session up:

As an elearning leader; there was a lot that challenged my current thinking as well as plenty that reinforced my current thinking about how we do things. I do take for granted that many aspects are happening in the classrooms, which is given really when one only has two hours per week to be an elearning leader in the timetable; one of those hours is a meeting about why/what/how to do e-learning leadership. There is some irony in that. I continue to be aware of how much to push onto teachers, while still retaining visibility and encouraging connectedness in that role. 

As an HoD Visual Arts/teacher: I have moments of 'spot-on' teaching that are not visible. I want them to be visible and will often go home and recreate these moments as rewindable learning. Sometimes I wish it would all just happen without the level of work I put in. 

As Year 12 Dean: I work to keep what we do visible pastorally as much as I do with my teaching. Our slide shows for each community time are well planned and up on my site for that purpose. Our form teachers are often given tasks to call home to encourage the collaboration and connection when I feel like it's not actually happening like it could be, usually due to the fact that we are all extremely busy, so that is not a criticism, but it is an active step I take. When we eventually have Wānanga time across our school this is something that will happen with much greater ease. 

Mahi for this week:

EVALUATING EACH OTHER'S SITES AND MAKING SOME GOALS MOVING FORWARDS:

This was good, as it meant that we connected professionally within the room kanohi ki te kanohi. When I saw that another professional went everywhere I didn't want a learner to go it occurred to me that there was a way I had visually prioritised my pages and layout that was getting in the way of people seeing the good stuff I was most proud of first. 

Streamlining my site - removing redundant pages and renaming ones that seem confusing. I have also changed how my menu's up the top work - instead of it being a stepped drop down to find the classes and all other random categories across the top, I have reversed that; prioritising my classes over the random stuff visually. I also enjoyed helping others on the course too and the fact that allowed for me to connect on a professional level as well, beyond HHS.

How do we make our Wānanga teacher sites visible? They are not right now, it's a gap to be filled. I can fix that (and did) 

The Wānanga leaders had already made the google drawing, so this was not an arduous task. Hopefully, it was something I have done that means they do not have to do it. I have transferred ownership to Raewyn and Anna is an editor so that it can be updated as required. 

I have procured two chromebooks form the loan pool for relievers and although had a scheduled date and time to work with a fusion technician, they were too busy for me last week. Never mind! It is still a work in progress and I can continue to place tickets for it a step at a time. at this point it is not about setting our relief digitally on a google calendar (though that is exactly where I want to head) just making sure our mainstay relievers have sites access to the teacher's they are covering for. 

Next steps for myself:

Multi-modal encouragement and support - I need to sit down with Katie and we need a better plan around this. 

Secondary twitter feed - It is worth having this embedded into everyone's sites as it means that blogging is at the forefront somewhat. If it is what every child sees when they open a teachers site and they then see someone they know, then it raises the importance of it. 

I would like to get four students to screen-castify four teacher's sites and explain how they work/critique them. They must be willing volunteers on both ends for this to work! I can see this working as extremely good promotional material up on facebook too! it makes our learning process really visible to our community and beyond too. 

Making sure the reliever chromebooks get implemented. 

Encouraging our staff to be more visible with good practice - by promoting google class onair, and putting something of a thought challenge out there for staff to consider how we can celebrate our own spot-on moments, I do feel this is something that has the potential to accelerate. 

Aside from all of this we are also re-emphasising how our staff keep themselves safe online which goes beyond school and into our personal arenas. We are in the unenviable position of again having to reaffirm that we don't connect with students via social media and we do make sure any profiles we have on social media (not just facebook either!) are locked down. This aspect is possibly where we have to be aware that the practice and learning we do with colleagues needs to be more than pedagogical; its andragogical - steeped in adult learning theory which means the 'telling' you to do it aspect needs to be the buying into it by staff in the first place so they aren't needing to be told, they are self-reflecting enough that they do the  right thing. 

The end. 

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Day One

Digital Fluency Intensive (DFI) is a one day a week for nine weeks, a course intended to deepen understanding and application of a digital learning environment for practitioners. As an e-Learning leader already I wasn't sure what I would be getting out of this and did wonder if I was taking up a place that someone else could have used.  Fortunately, there is differentiation and depth within the basic skills that mean it is easily accessible for beginners and experienced practitioners.

Ako - Learn - to know

What did I already know that helped my understanding moving forwards today? What made it possible for me to gain momentum today?

My interpretation of LCS is as activation (to know), developing and refining (to act), followed by valuing the learning experience (to value) (Heick, T. 2017)  based on foundational, meta and humanistic knowledge bases. 

The first part of our day has been based upon what we know and if not, what we ought to know about the kaupapa of Manaiakalani. Making connections with those around us provides a relational base for what we will continue to do over the following eight weeks. 

Fluency in how tools work for learners is as important as fluency in how to use them in delivery, which is as important as evidence that they work and likewise leads back to how the Manaiakalani pedagogy is intended to gain positive momentum in a changing and now digital world. 

Foundational, meta and humanistic knowledge bases should not necessarily be an 'order' to learn in, rather they are interlinked and cyclical, not often strictly linear. That is how I see Learn, Create Share. It will be digital when it needs to be, and can and was analogue long before that. My classes are often inter-relating and back and forth combinations of LCS, which is like the balanced diet version of a good education as I see it. 

Waihanga - Create - to act

What specifically did I learn and create? 
How did I best retain the information? How can I use it in my practice forwards?

Here is a good example of where those delineations between Learn and Create cease to be, or at least are flicking back and forth consistently; time is given for exploring content, levelling up on what we may not have known, while others did, diving deeper into a tool, and gaining resources and skills that are adaptable to a range of subjects and levels with a bit of thought. 

Having prior knowledge whether it was provided today for the first time, or from where I already was at, was key to not becoming lost in the 'tips and tricks'. PLD provided as a bunch of how-to's without this would be difficult to retain and even harder to apply in my practice. It would lack the context. 

Aspects that I would want to extend on with peers and learners

Systematic understanding of the affordances of Google docs

Most of us in teaching now started out using products such as Microsoft word. Docs is the 'online' version. So when I approached it, I just looked for how it did what word had done. Possibly if I had begun using it as a product quite separate from word, I would have learned to use it very systematically and picked up some of this already. What I liked about this part of today was that I came into it thinking I wouldn't learn much and finished up with 'wow, I didn't know I could do that!'. 

Being coached through making a document that explores the tools specific to the product while acknowledging to us that 'yes you likely do know lots of this stuff' was aa good technique and meant that we finished up with a concrete piece of evidence as a reminder of how and what it does.  This translates well into other adult learning scenarios as well as in my classroom. I can see many applications for how I would approach teaching peers and students alike from this and emulating the approach at the beginning of a unit/topic/year would be a preferable way of managing digital assessments for me in the future, as it would allow more time for students to practice their skills with a purpose. 

Google groups

I am a part of a group through leaders of Learning, however, I just saw it as an email chain.

I also didn't really see any benefits to using groups as an end-user in this way as I didn't understand the affordances it provided. There are significant benefits; its something of a cross between google plus and email - to work from groups means that all of your topics and correspondence in regards to the one particular set of colleagues, such as a department are rewindable and stored on the one location online. when you go back to them it looks like a list of blog posts. when you are interacting with them it is no more difficult than responding to emails. It eliminates the fuss of having to search your emails for specific topics and/or contacts, if you are organised in the first place. Understanding this concept is far easier with prior knowledge of how email works, and how google+ aspired to work. I do wonder how easy this concept is to pick up and run with for someone new to a digital learning environment. I am possibly overthinking that. 

A Google-based scavenger hunt 

Such a simple concept, yet when presented like this, so hard to argue not to do this when you want that immersion into these digital tools for students, and so easily adaptable to a different subject or level. In order for me to adapt this, I would have to have a reason to use it fairly soon or it will be one of those things I never look at again as it fades from my poor memory.

A broad-brush look at a range of add-ons and extensions that improve workflow on google.

This is stuff I loved, but again, unless I actively figure out how to employ them within the week, I fear they will fade from memory. 

The tools I will be attempting to work into my own practice this coming week are:

TLDR (Too long, didnt read!) 

doc to form

eZnotifications

Docutube 

MindMeister

Tohatoha - Share - to value

Why does it work? Why should I? What do I envisage happening with learners in my class if I apply specific elements? 

The value of completing a course like this is that I am constantly reflecting on how I could use this information in my classroom and practice. I enjoyed taking a day out of classroom practice to focus on this, rather than troping over to a staff meeting following a day in the classroom to try and absorb some information, knowing that all the while I was forcing my eyelids open, and deliberating over whether I would eat the last of the lollies/slice/nibbles on the table there to share.  

My fear still remains that I may not apply what I have learnt due to time, good intentions and all. 

The two I am confident I will apply are google groups, which may be because we used that tool for the delving deeper section, so I know more about it and stronger structure in how I set up using google drive and docs with my two new junior classes this term. I will be integrating the scavenger hunt into this. 

Our weekly department meeting for Visual Arts would be a great place to pick out apps and extensions and teach to the department, challenging them to use these tools meaningfully over the next week. 

Cluster wide PLG's 2019

Terry, Marina and I lead two groups of teachers from three different schools in the same geographic area of Christchurch through the theme connected guided inquiry. It is one of my leadership roles in our kura.

Today's task was to bring our two Extended Learning Conversation groups together and brainstorm what our DLO's could look like for presenting our 'golden moments' from inquiry so far and to support and inspire each other in how that looks.

I made the suggestion that I felt that the teacher's voice and following on, the students voice seemed to me to be the most powerful 'tool' in making a DLO that is centred on conversations, and that I wouldn't be adverse to just holding up a cell phone and listening to everyone tell us their moments directly. Given that no one had a strong idea of what was expected today until 24 hours previous, this would be a lot to take in and may not be an idea that flies anyway. Though I still see it as the strongest as I am not sure lots of trick and gadgets is absolutely necessary, as this is about some of our more introverted tamariki and rangatahi finding their voice.

I will leave that concept to the side, as it may or may not be a reality.

Once we had clarified the expectations of the DLO each participant would send to the leaders and that the leaders will then pull 5 minutes of something rewindable together for the Uru Mānuka site, we moved on to zooming our individual focus in to one student and/or moment so far that we felt showed a shift in engagement through developing their extended learning conversation skills beyond wherever they started at.

The notes I took while our participants were speaking revealed some underlying themes from new entrants through to high school:

- The process is educationally significant and positive for the introvert - the type of personality a school is not really developed for (Stade, Linda. Knowing Girls. 2018) (Matt, Ali, Abi, Kate)

- Feed the Language; Language needs to be given before it can be used - 4 comments to one question is a successful strategy in doing this as it helps provide modelling of learning language first. (Julie, Rovenna, Megan, Georgia, Matt, Kate)

- Reflective open questions need to be provided with academic take up time (Warwick, Kate, Sheri) which will be longer than we are used to. Intervention, not interference (Heather). The adult needs to learn when to shut up.

- Relationships for learning are required before any of it works (Abi), these are not always formed within the formal classroom - extracurricular (Allan).

While I have felt like I am swimming badly in the deep end facilitating a group that runs across education levels I am not an expert in, today was my gold, in that I heard first-hand themes that run across education from new entrant through to senior high school.

The gains I made in understanding were valuable and something that I will continue to ponder. Without this model of inquiry, I wonder if I would have this new lens to see my learners and my teaching practice through.



[Free image from Pixabay]

TEACHER ONLY DAY 28th June 2019 notes

John Quinn - Well being specialist

Social worker/counselor, education and sport as a background. 

What protective clothing do you need when you are in the eye of the storm? Being in the centre of the
storm is not good well being. It's ok not to be positive all of the time. You can't always be strong all of the time ‘kia kaha’ for instance, sometimes it is ok to be vulnerable. Can't always ‘leave it at the door’. As adults we don't always leave it at the door, so why are we expecting it consistently from our young people who are growing and changing? “Learn how to dance in the storm”. When things are tough do we have the tools to manage it?

Managing your reactions rather than your circumstances.

If we don't look after ourselves generally our reaction is not what it should be. We become the storm
rather than just being inside the eye of the storm. 

It’s not about being happy all of the time, but it's about having the tools to deal with things when its not. 

Ratio of positive vs negative emotions

Engaged and focused

Strong positive relationships - not over the internet - we are feeding the beast at the moment. 

A sense of meaning and life purpose - why do you teach? If you don't love it anymore do something else. Sense of accomplishment

Eat, sleep, move. 

PERMA - Seligman's theory of wellbeing

What determines happiness - 50% genetics/nurture, 10% external circumstances, 40% actions and
thoughts. 

18-month window - lose a limb, win the lotto - you will go back to your prior state of being within 18
months regardless of the change. We chase the wrong stuff.

There is not a bad or good emotion, there are just emotions but how do you bring the top ten positive
emotions into our lives? (Fredrickson, 2009).

If you have had that day that has really challenged you, how do you remember gratitude when you go
home? 

The negative stuff is always going to be there - we all have a negative bias. Combatting this. Kids are
great observers, but terrible interpreters. If you feel safe, you engage. Same with students. 

• 3 a day, 3 times a week, 3 a month, 1 a year. Well-being. 

What gives you: 

Joy

Gratitude

Serenity

Inspiration

Hope

Love

Awe

Amusement

Interest 

pride

Praise and critique the process not the outcome. If grades were the most important thing, there would
be no such thing as job interviews. Reward the stuff we want from our young people.

We have got to stop educating kids to do jobs that robots can do. The airy fairy stuff is what we need to
look at. 

The average time a father communicates with his child is 4 and a half minutes! If that is the average,
there are 50% kids who are not getting even that. Devices get in the way, adults are often distracted.

Have a goal, a five-year plan. Even if you don't get to it apparently research is that planning around it
will improve your well being.

Intentional activities are the key to happiness. Playtime and downtime - both are intentional activities.
Downtime should be ‘nothing’ time. Legitimately so.

“Time in” as opposed to time out. Mindfulness being aware. Being present. Paying attention. Gratitude
and compassion. Non-judgemental. It's impossible to be present all the time but we need to be aware
of where we are - focussed on the past anxious about the future, or in the present? Making sure it's not
too far either way. But focus on making the NOW part bigger. It is usually very small. 

The more awareness one can bring to bear on any action, the more feedback one gets from the
experience. And the more naturally one learns and is able to respond. 

“Flip your lid” visual metaphor for when you are in red brain mode (flight, fight, freeze). Bring the lid
back down is green brain mode (logic and reasoning). 

What allows us to focus? Quiet? Order? Often disconnecting does allow us to focus. We cannot
multitask properly, even when we think we can. Making lists helps. Having an ordered space helps.

You have got to treat technology like any other drug; have rules around it. What are your rules around
it around your kids? What are they seeing you doing? There is no research that says using your phone
improves your brain.

We get 1/24th of the relational time that we used to as hunter-gatherer societies. 

Loneliness is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. 

We teach perfection and we create anxiety in doing so. We ignore real engagement. 

Every day make a choice to create some positive emotions.

Pause-reflect - leadership TAI LCS NOTES only

Analyse recording of staff meeting for what I have managed well and areas to improve:



Before we presented, we shared this with two other staff members. One went through it on her own at home the other went through it with us and teased things out, questioning points, phrasing and wording of certain elements and how we would deal with certain reactions from staff.

Both critiquers noted that our original presentation was too long - you can see we now have a part two inserted. Both also felt like our point lacked clarity. This led to changing the title of the presentation after orally reworking it with the second critiquer.

By the time we were presenting, we had developed a clear understanding that we would set this up to finish wherever we got to by 4.15pm regardless. We were able to stop at any point up to Part two without compromising learning for staff.

Analysing voice file for examples of my good and bad practice as a leader and presenter

The recording was made as audio only to simplify the technology at the time:
(link here) 54 minutes long, Katie Tozer and I presenting.
What I wanted to achieve:
A shared understanding that we must craft our language to reflect our desired outcome; LCS.
A reflection from all staff involved in their own use of language
Connections made between how language has been used to fool the user and the power of it.
Willingness to collaborate on learning between colleagues
A concrete interpretation of LCS and creating a DLO along with fish hooks you might encounter.
Setting the scene to develop cultural responsiveness from language forwards.
Opening of possibilities for learning by seeing, hearing and sharing different points of views and ways of thinking.

Positives:
- I set a time limit of 4.15pm - reassuring staff that there was going to be a stopping point
- Explained a rough structure of what we were presenting and expecting regarding interactiveness.
- Voice appears clear in presenting.
- I paused with straight outta the south pacific slave trade! and tried to paraphrase...
- I believe I made each task the 'why' for each task pretty clear.
- Pulling staff back together seemed fairly successful
- Paraphrasing what one of the staff wrote on the Padlet to sum things up.

Negatives:
- Fumbles with the technology
- I pronounce AKO badly. I can do that stuff better.
- Stuttering when we got to the slides about language... I knew that I might offend and was ducking linguistically?
- Have to work on paraphrasing as I am often just restating what has been said.
- "Not a horribly long article" is definitely my kind of phrasing that I should work on! It is said from negative pretexts; "not a" and 'horribly'. How I phrase these things can be better.
- Inflexion of my voice - I often end with my voice moving lower.
- "give us some feedback I guess" so not professional. Annoyed that I said it like that.
- I don't hear myself feeling happiness in my voice when I hear it back. I am actually feeling really happy when I am presenting once I am into it.

I'm still in the Learn phase of my inquiry. I'm still gathering evidence and developing my hunch and hypothesis more fully. Although some of that is happening concurrently, which is preferable to me, as I would rather see this as a fluid process.

 Notes:

Stuff for me to look up and reflect upon for next steps:
Joan Dalton -"Develop the art of the inquiry"

In questioning to open up the language of possibilities; how do I pause to reflect and allow myself . and others time to paraphrase in their own heads what is it we want to develop a shared understanding of.
It  takes 3 - 5 seconds to process high-level thoughts

I want to develop my capability around this as a leader.

Book 4 page 13 - 32

6 types of paraphrasing.

All stuff that I want to process and use somehow in how I develop my leadership capabilities.

What my next steps are:
1) Get someone to monitor my classes during the day for feedback purposes
2) Get a range of people from a range of leadership scenarios to assess me against leadership dimension 4.
3) Work through the Joan Dalton stuff and identify how to use pause, paraphrase etc... (book 4)

Move forward based on this and my own analysis.

Refreshing our google sites and trying to get everyone on board

One of the somewhat intimidating parts of being called a 'leader' in any area is those moments where you know there could be resistance, where people feel like you are always asking them to keep on doing; like maybe there should be an endpoint in an ever-evolving world. That is a contradiction in itself.

So here I am, preparing to do just that, annoy my colleagues into changing what they potentially already saw as finished, knowing that there will be the 'for goodness sake, when does it end?!' Umm, never? Nothing is static. Even Stonehenge is changing (albeit crumbling slowly away).

So here we go, adjustment time:

Is what we are doing the best of what we could be doing?
Does it fully encompass the school direction(s)?
Is it inspiring our learners?
Does it just need to be finished/started/used by your learners?

Following on from trying to find anything other than Prezi as an interesting alternative to slides or powerpoint, I clicked on this blog post from Matthew Guay:

https://zapier.com/blog/best-powerpoint-alternatives/#spark

Adobe Spark was most interesting to me and accessible, being online. No point advocating it if I didn't know how to use it, we need to model what we want, or what a load of hypocrisy. So I have prepared the first step in 'annoying my colleagues' by reminding them it is their professional responsibility to refresh their sites and remember they are in fact just path and course of 'the way we do things around here' on Adobe Spark. Which had some pros and cons as it turned out - though I am always hopeful for a wholly positive experience;

Pro's:
- Free
- Pre-set templates with good font/colour coordination and layout - design for dummies takes away some of the choices and can make the actual work output much faster for people like me who like to alter everything
- You too can have that annoying elevator-type music you see on facebook videos with no words (woohoo, always wanted that!).
- You can record your voice over your slides one at a time, and you can re-record until you get what you want.
- Really, very good stock photos available, which keeps artists happy, if you are not stealing things off google image.
- Strong encouragement from within Adobe Spark to keep your content and audio short and simple.

Con's:
- There is a limited number of templates
- The grid your text snaps to is limited (but is probably for the best)
- It felt like I needed to put more work in to get a finished product with the words, image and then the audio (but I could have been less fussy)

So overall I will be using it again. It does make rewindable learning a little more attractive. It is not inaccessible (I find Prezi can be intimidating to some who feel technology is at times, overwhelming).

Coming back to my point; refreshing google sites and getting our staff on board with that; resistance is a part of the challenge, doing is part of not only the learning, but the leadership (who is going to listen to someone who doesn't know how to do? Probably not me), and change is normal. No one wants to crumble away like stonehenge. My goal as e-learning leader is to be walking the talk, able to adapt and available.

Bring on 2019.

Learn Create Share

As an elearning leader we have spent a lot of time trying to put this in place at our school. We have been struggling with how to keep this direction straight with 50 or so staff and that whole bell curve of change with the early adopters at one end and the laggards at the other.  We want to pull together where we are and align it, but it is clear that how we have started this journey in comparison to the model we have taken on, does have more of an impact than I initially wanted to accept. This is going to lead us to change our methods of leadership and direction.

Generally, we need our structural conditions to change or at least keep pace with our changes in pedagogy in order to be absolutely effective in making lasting change to 'the way we do things around here'. We would usually expect this structural change to come from the top down - government policy would change, the flavour of the month in how we design our buildings would turn around, funding systems would be revised and statements about why, how and what we do from government analysists, hopefully, backed up by academic research would be released to support it all. There would be a good chance that a pilot programme with a healthy funding fish hook would be attached to entice schools to be ready.

The original Manaiakalani set of schools made their own structural changes, without government systems to guide them, because no one had done this before. Mutually developed and agreed upon pedagogy (LCS) at Point England School came before devices. Point England School were doing what was best for their students over what was the done thing at the time, or what was expected of low decile schools. First by introducing devices to a community who was considered by most, too poor and then providing internet infrastructure on their own to back that up. They used the devices for the pedagogy, once it was already in place. Second, by sharing the learning with their neighbouring schools, rather than using this to promote their own worth within the community. A community of learning beyond 'your own patch' in the midst of a system that sets us up to compete in the 'educational market' (tomorrow's schools) was put in place - Manaiakalani.

Then structural conditions from the top were in fact changed, based on the success of schools like Point England in Tamaki pioneering and proving this was a healthy 'way we do things around here' providing accelerated success for students who start education under the line of whatever we have decided is normal western intelligence. That point may still need some fleshing out, another time though.

We always knew we were jumping into devices without establishing the pedagogy first. We were even carefully warned that this was going to make a difference to how things progressed for us in Hornby. I clearly remember both Dorothy and Russell stating this fact in our initial presentations around Learn Create Share. Optimistically I hoped this would not matter so much because we had been warned, we'd sort it out!

So here we are, new principal from when we started with our outreach, quite a few new staff, and we are still struggling with a consistent direction for LCS. It is harder at some levels in a high school, with multiple siloed disciplines.

Having pulled together the data from our most recent staff meeting, it is clear that the confusion still lies with 'Learn'. If we substitute the word for 'Activate' or 'Ignite' (thank you Kelsey), we have it. The rest of our time is Create and Share, bouncing back to 'activate' as needed. It is fluid, not isolated. Maybe more so at a high school level due to that change from concrete to abstract thinking.

While pondering this, it occurred to me that way back in the day when I was training to be a teacher, the best advice I got about planning lessons, units and the year of learning, was to break everything into three phases that you go back over and move forward from, repeatedly; "Catch'em, Teach'em, Learn'em". It lacks the depth of pedagogy and thought possibly of LCS, and you cannot see 'share' so obviously, except that as an Art teacher, that is implied. Art is not Art if it is not shared with an audience. 'Catch' is 'activate' or 'ignite'. Excite that desire to learn, engage prior knowledge - the best part of being in a classroom so often is seeing the ignition happen. 'Teach' is providing the students with new skills and ideas to create their own work with and 'Learn' is giving them the freedom and time to be able to do exactly that. Yip, 'Share' is just not there... But it is a useful start in my own analysing and breaking down how some of us get there and some of us don't in embedding the pedagogy.

Right in amongst all of that is a part of the confusion; Learn in LCS is not the Oxford dictionary definition of Learning. Hence when you come into LCS cold, you easily confuse yourself. Likewise, if you only pay lip service to it when your school says staff meeting is LCS based, and it is not within your planning and classroom practice explicitly, you end up talking yourself around in circles.

Our next steps must be: working with individual departments to help re-direct some individual thoughts over LCS, aligning the departments in how this looks, but managing this with distributive leadership in mind.  We need to make it explicit in our way of doing things starting with planning within the department - a whole school way of managing this. We cannot rely on whole staff meetings once in a while to get that message across clearly, there is just too much to be done. Likewise, we cannot rely on outsiders coming in once in a while to 'upskill' staff, as that is not the pedagogy that is being addressed (though it is still helpful). We cannot 'do' this for everyone, it needs to develop for us to become ours and be 'the way we do things around here' long after myself and the other elearning leader have moved on. It is time to start infiltrating ourselves rather than asking politely would you like help. Nicely of course.

Teacher Only Day September 2017

We were so lucky to have Dr Lucy Hone come in and talk us through resilience training.

Everything she said was with genuine relevance, and it has made me really reflect on how we continue to operate relationally as a school