Goals for 2020

Even though we don't have to continue with appraisal systems based on our recent changes in the Collective Agreement and Accord - info here and here - I still continue to be a reflective and aspirational practitioner.

Goals for 2020:

* Survive Lockdown -- at times it's felt like waiting for the Purge. Other times I'm just damn grateful that I don't have children. Would this be what it's like having children? Stuck at home... ALL THE TIME? Gah. Mindboggling. I miss driving to see my friends. Being on an aeroplane and traveling to far-flung destinations. I miss being able to be completely free to go where I want, when I want. Being stuck inside has been HARD. For everyone. But harder still for those of us battling our insides and past trauma related to home stuff. I have so much aroha for those who are still in those dark, hurt places who are forced to stay in those spaces purely because of lockdown. How hard it must be to constantly be in that space with no hope of getting out. I just hope their neighbours have been actively listening and just being PRESENT for those people - so when the time comes, they will have help where needed.

* Finish my korowai -- last year in my appraisal hui we talked about my hobbies and passions. Something I'd missed doing all year was my korowai. Being so far away from Whaea Lorraine in Mamaku was hard and I struggled to even pick my korowai sampler up. This year I signed up with Te Wananga o Aotearoa... (yes, AGAIN!) and I've really enjoyed learning from Te Raita and her nan Roka. I've enjoyed researching Ngati Maniapoto kairaranga and whatu raranga like Rangimarie Hetet and her daughter Diggeress Te Rangituatahi Te Kanawa. I've recently been taught how to harvest harakeke but because it was my mate o te marama - I had to stand back and watch. Just you wait though... I know where to get the harakeke for muka now! Roka said I need to make 600 whenu. 600! That's going to be a LOT of prepping. Good thing I still have more samplers to do and to actually finish my korowai sampler too. It's looking so beautiful.

* Identify more places to travel to -- When lockdown is over - I am going to TRAVEL everywhere. I cannot wait.

* Sharing my tech geekiness with my colleagues -- I want to start ByteSized PLD with the OC whanau. It worked really well at Heights. Even if I was making more work for myself with little recognition from senior management... I was doing the mahi for them. But OC is different. At OC they seem keen on learning new things and happy for distributed leadership in those areas. I've waited back all of last year, assessing what needs my team has and figuring out how to best help people. I've really enjoyed doing PLD sessions with my team during lockdown. I've developed some PLD videos already for Whaea T, K and A -- and shared HEAPS of resources with S which hopefully helps with 3.8.

* More hui with English Dept -- I have LOVED doing our English dept catchup sessions each Wednesday and look forward to having time built into our timetable to be able to do this more often. Just being able to korero with the team about how things are going and what we need to do next to develop our skills as a team. It's been good seeing everyone and catching up even about mundane things which have become less trivial and actually interesting - the flip of lockdown I guess for me - recognising that this is why my nan always asks these questions about the weather and what I've been doing. Because it's actually interesting when you're stuck, bored out of your brain at home.

* Remote Learning -- I've learnt that there are MULTIPLE ways of doing online learning and that we still have much to learn. Even though I studied in Mindlab back in the ra, and all my studies, analysis, development of perspectives etc it reminds me daily that there are still laggards to bring along with us on this journey. These laggards have now been pushed like blue flamers into the late majority -- still keen to learn but not knowing how. For this, the lockdown has been useful too.

* Learning how to front those difficult conversations rather than continuing to avoid them to avoid confrontation -- the Effective Leadership hui we went on earlier this year is still in the back of my mind. I want to be better at communicating. I think though that the way I've fronted the issues which need most focus - has worked. Offering support, ensuring they know I'm here and waiting -- has actually worked. Proof -- hui this morning. AWESOME learning. It was truly so good. So much learning and more to happen this weekend.

* Developing resources -- Being commissioned by NZATE has been a really good challenge. I know I'm crap at deadlines. I also know I need processing and planning time. I gave myself a deadline I knew I couldn't meet, passed it and then asked for an extension. It's now only been a week since the deadline I should have given haha. I still have more to do. I wish I'd chosen to give a resource I'd already made. A win I guess, is that it allowed the discussion about Creative Commons to occur with my principal and the BOT.

* New leadership opportunities -- I wasn't shoulder tapped this time. But I was talked to about it, in a roundabout way. I was later told that they had brought my name up too but there was specific mandate NOT to shoulder tap me. And thus... I wait further. Hoping that my self-nomination is successful. Though I still would have liked to have more info about the role first haha. We'll see whether the association votes for me.

* External Moderation -- I still need to learn how to do this. I've asked for help from a few different people. Straight up - I just need someone to show me how. I know it's not hard. But it's my first time as a CA to do it on behalf of my team. I want to do it right and listen to what the MNA guy said last year too.

* Cross-curricular learning -- I want to do more of this. Let's work together!

* Localised learning -- I want to do more of this too!

* Lockdown has just been made SO MUCH EASIER -- thankyou cousin! We can now travel around the country to see our whanau. I CANNOT WAIT to go see our nan. YAY Level 2 - LOVE IT. Still stay safe. Stay vigilant and be on guard. Keep your contacts to a minimum.

* Distance Learning -- changes during Level 2 -- there will still be students needing remote learning available. More info to come.

Distance Learning Update:

At the moment we've been doing collaborative work on shared docs for juniors as a prelude to them doing their own individual work. It's taught them some VERY valuable skills 😂🤦‍♀️ I've really enjoyed seeing them work together.

My seniors on the other hand - has been more about wellbeing and checking in with them and then asking where they're stuck. We focus on those issues first before working on the learning I had planned. It's honestly just a day by day thing and we're getting there. Having a Google Slidedeck set up with notes for those missing the Zui has been super helpful.

My big concern at the moment is connecting with those students who haven't been able to come to the Zui sessions. 

Film Booklets - Visual Text Analysis (The Lovely Bones, The Intouchables, The Perks of Being a Wallflower)

I feel rejuvenated. This term I've taught all new films (excepting my Y11 film study of 'V for Vendetta'..) and they've been chosen through a joint process between myself and my students. I gave each class a few options and they decided on the one they'd want to watch based on my description and the trailers we'd watched. 

This term I've used:

• 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' directed by Stephen Chbosky
• 'The Intouchables' directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano
• 'The Lovely Bones' directed by Peter Jackson

I've added the booklets that I created for these films and student analysis below. Each booklet has different film techniques and pictures taken from the film. Worksheets have been made by me and there are specific ones that will be constantly reworked and developed based on my student's needs. I've got Google Slides for each film as well that we've been working on as a class. I've added these as links in the titles of the films which are above the embedded booklet. Each booklet and slide deck has the creative commons licensing on - feel free to use and share alike if the worksheets I've made are of any use to you or your students :) Let me know what you think! 

'The Perks of Being a Wallflower'

'The Intouchables'

'The Lovely Bones'

Byte Sized PLD - Practical Sessions at WHHS

Next step in the eLearning PLD at Heights is creating practical hands on sessions.

After the Byte Sized PLD emails I've been sending out we were discussing how we needed to move towards more practical sessions as well as the emails.

Donella came up with the awesome idea of Byte Sized Practical and in the last week we've taken this idea and run with it. So... here's where we are now.

Sessions run by staff - for staff. Empowering on it's own and hopefully SUPER successful.

My hope is that we'll be having more people come along to these sessions in the staffroom and taking advantage of our colleagues sharing their practice. What would be even cooler is more teachers feeling confident to share their learning with staff in future sessions next term.


We don't expect staff members to sign up to these sessions - but hope that they'll pop in. Get what they need and carry on with their day.

Having these sessions in the staffroom will make it more obvious, informal and relaxed. Hopefully staff will feel more comfortable in this setting.

Having this bigger space will also mean we can have small break out spaces when needed for more in-depth discussions or collaborative group projects.

Perhaps soon we will have student sessions being run - for students by students :)

Encouraging Growth in Year 9 Students

Today I had two very interesting conversations with two groups of Year 9 students.

The first conversation was out of the blue... mainly because I was so interested with their overall use of digital tools for their learning in that class (I was relieving) and asked a few questions... which turned into a very deep and meaningful provocation where we discussed the concepts around equality vs equity and how we might rethink how we are fearful of stolen property as being our main concern about going BYOD...

The questions really just began around asking if they all used the network, google docs, google classroom... whether they feel comfortable helping their teachers with digital things or their peers in class. Whether they understood the issue around why certain teachers were more unlikely to use digital tools for learning compared to other teachers. Many of these questions were ones I ask of my own colleagues when we discuss around these big issues with future focussed learning.

How cool it was to hear these students articulate their frustrations and how interesting it was to try get them to change their thinking around what it means to be truly equitable compared to equal. How there are just different starting points for most people and why this is a problem.

Without saying anything about white privilege directly - this group of students were arriculating the issues I hear often from parents and staff. Lack of access, issues around security, managing behaviour, monitoring learning and student engagement, identifying next learning steps...

If our year 9 students are significantly aware of these things... how difficult would it be to change the mindsets of their whanau, older siblings... the community.

How our students are the future.

There was one moment today when they said something about how the future generation will have to sort it out... and I said, "The future is now." With a resounding sense of awe in the classroom as if I'd just dropped the mic... I then told them my name which I hadn't done at the beginning of the lesson and then the questions began to fire rapidly from the students.

Another moment when I was describing equity vs equality... and how I used both hands - one index finger on one hand, on the other hand the other index finger, significantly lower and then the pinky finger - naturally lower... holding this formation up - reiterating that picture of the fence and the boxes... difference between the equal and equitable opportunities. I used the analogy of the fence too and being able to see over it. We used it to discuss the issue around access without ever bringing anything up around racism or discrimination... a feat in itself... and these students discussed high level issues quite easily. The kinds of questions I would like my staff at Heights to knuckle into.

The second conversation was more of a just in time korero. I was a little late heading back to class after doing marking in the staffroom and some of my students were waiting by the Y13 area. I asked them all to come over and sit on the Y13 steps. A place they're not allowed to go yet.

We discussed what a privilege it was sitting there and how we might do our work there outside (partly because I didn't have a key for that room and also because it was nice and sunny). We had three seniors with us who were waiting for me to talk with about their happiness at completing their first exam essay for our class this year.

I talked to them (once inside) about why we were ot there. How it's important to make the right decisions to follow ourselves and be the best possible us we can be rather than following others paths... I asked them why I got them out there... how it was important that they realise that they need to change their attitude to ensure they can achieve that privilege in the future. Because every single one of them can. They just need to realise that what they do and say could have an impact on their lives in the future.

Two very different conversations. Both incredibly powerful. I hope I've planted some mind seeds today. :)

In fact... I truly wish I'd recorded today's lessons... for rewindable awesomeness.

Byte Sized PLD: Powtoon and Storyboard That - Video Tutorials

This week I did a couple of hilarious video tutorials... they're rather long but I suppose they help to see just how easy they are to use.

A colleague asked me if I could do some videos on different comic making apps there are that might be useful for her students.

Here they are:

Powtoon - Video Tutorial

Finished Product

Storyboard That - Video Tutorial

Finished Product

Definitely some better tutorials out there - but these were pretty hilarious. Check them out!

Let me know what you thought of mine haha

Byte Sized PLD: TES Teach (Formerly known as Blendspace)

Kia ora koutou,

Blendspace is a very cool tool and I was stoked to be asked by Jiji last week about the programme. He asked if I could create a video to help him learn how to use it after hearing about Blendspace at his Mindlab course. 

Blendspace is owned by TES, a UK company. It's been instrumental in my own teaching and learning. Really cool programme to help build collaboration in your departments, help get students collaborating on different ideas and concepts and ultimately an easy way for students to have a wealth of research in one place without going down too many rabbit holes on the Internet.

Here's the video tutorial I made below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq8lx355JDc

Here's the link for our TES Teach (Blendspace) board for Byte Sized PLD: Heights Edition. 

Let me know what you think!

Also... Last week I got an email from Amy Lin, one of the co-founders of TES Teach (formerly known as Blendspace), to update me about the new iPad app that they've created for Blendspace. It looks pretty cool from what I can tell so far! I look forward to seeing the Android version on the app store soon too. 

Their new Twitter account is @Tes_Teach so go ahead and follow them there as well. 

Ngā mihi nui ki a koe,

Alex

Encouraging Minute Change with Kotuku Tribe

At last weekend's #edchatnz conference I mentored a small group of NZ educators and our little 'tribe' was called Kotuku. Throughout the conference we were spoken to about the idea of possibilities. Our group's pitch was around 'Encouraging Minute Change' so we created a hashtag called #MinuteChange which we've started using already since conference finished. The whole idea around it is that for many change is seen as hard. Grant Lichtman (my favourite EduCrush) says that "Changing schools isn't hard. It's uncomfortable." This has been something I've personally held onto for a long while. 

I shared with Kotuku Tribe about what we've been doing here at Heights with our inquiries and goal setting. I shared later on about how a few weeks ago I started 'Byte Sized PLD' as a way to begin encouraging minute change here at Heights. It wasn't until the end where the group really began to flesh out their idea that I shared this and it seemed to accelerate the move towards the HOW they would encourage their minute changes into action. 

So - we began discussing how we might encourage minute changes. It begins with us. We have to decide this is the time to make those changes. For many of us we've been making small changes to develop our pedagogy for a long time. For others, perhaps it's time to realise that there is a need to change our pedagogy to suit our students in more depth. To have the learner at the centre of everything we do and ensure that we aren't just encouraging the whakaaro around credit farming. That the LEARNING is more important than the credits or what we're 'doing'. 

As a result. The hashtag began. Let's all start using it. Whether you add it as a tag in your blog like I have or begin using it to think about the small changes you make in your practice. Small incremental change becomes MASSIVE transformative change over time. 

What did you do differently today? (WIDD)

WIDD: I shared #MinuteChange with our staff here at Heights and hope that there are more kaiako that begin making minute changes in their practice. 

We live in an exciting world. Lots of awesome changes. So much potential for awesomeness. Let's get ahead of the awesome and BE the awesome. 

Byte Sized PLD: Google Extensions (OneTab and Screencastify)

Kia ora koutou,

Today I thought I'd share a couple new bite-sized tips for your weekly PLD around the most time-saving Google Extensions. You'll need to sign in to your Google Chrome browser to use these - I've added a video below that might help. 

Last week I talked about the incredible Chrome Web Store. Below are two fantastic Google Extensions that are found in the Web Store. Try the Extensions out and let me know what you think.

• OneTab: Collates your tabs. Maximises your time and research finds. Awesome Google Extension to help teach students and ourselves the value around saving important links for later!! 

• Screencastify: Video making tool. Google Extension. Quick, easy and painless. Could be used for heaps of different assessments and as a learning tool too!

Here are the slides I made for quick and easy explanation in how to sign into the Google Chrome browser - as well as how to use these two apps. 

Signing into Google Chrome and Google Extensions via Chrome Webstore - Slides

Signing into Google Chrome and Google Extensions video: 

https://youtu.be/nUgqeHGznUQ?list=PL_yc0U1SGjCIpQQ4uBQrRDqUiqg8zo8-K 

Hope this was helpful! 

Nga mihi ki a koe,

Alex

Byte Sized PLD: Google Chrome Browser and Grammarly

Kia ora koutou,

This week for your bite sized PLD - I thought I'd share a couple tips and tricks with eLearning. 

Google Chrome browser

Google Chrome is easily the best browser to be using with Google Apps for Education (Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms etc). If you only have Internet Explorer (the one with the Blue E logo) on your computer... it might be time to download Google Chrome. 

You'll find it runs much smoother and has better capability with using GAFE tools - even just Gmail! The link to download it is here. There are a bunch of tips and tricks to go with using the Chrome browser for example, signing into Chrome so that your bookmarks and extensions appear for quick and easy access. 

Grammarly

Grammarly is a VERY cool little Google Extension. It works within the Google Chrome web browser and is super easy to use. 

Whenever I'm typing something, the little Grammarly extension is checking my spelling and grammar and helping check what I've written. Perhaps issues around privacy - but for the most part students and staff would be using this app at school where we'd be using it for classwork. 

To access it - go to the Chrome Web Store - and search up 'Grammarly'. The link here will take you to this page directly. Under Extensions - you'll see the Grammarly button and you just need to click 'Add to Chrome'. You will need to click 'allow' a few times for it to be enabled. You'll now see that there is a little green G in the top right-hand corner of your browser. 

There are heaps more tips and tricks with using Google Chrome - let me know if you want some one-on-one tutorials or flick me a quick email if you need help :)

Ngā mihi,

Alex

Byte Sized PLD - Kahoot and Plickers (Gamification)

Kia ora koutou,

Last week I was fortunate to sit in on a korero between Adam, Ryan, Manu and Jiji where they were discussing their use of a couple of new apps in their class. Kahoot and Plickers are great tools to gain formative assessment data on student's understanding using quizzes and are incredibly engaging. This week for a bit of bite sized PLD I thought I'd share these two apps with you. I've added links and how to videos as well - so feel free to skip over my written explanations if needed :)

* Kahoot! - Kahoot is super simple to use - in fact there are a tonne (currently 8.9 million) of pre-made quizzes to choose from. Making your own quiz that are relevant to your own learning in class are just as simple - most questions are either multi-choice or true/false styled questions. The students absolutely enjoy this app and from our korero last week it was really cool to see how it was being used in different departments.

The link for teachers to set up Kahoot is: https://getkahoot.com/ and the link for anyone playing the quiz is: https://kahoot.it/ 

 Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC_9zE53Wmo

How it works: Set the quiz up on the projector, make sure you've clicked 'Show Game Pin Throughout' for the students late to getting to start (particularly once they see how cool it is!), and if any student creates an inappropriate nickname for themselves you can delete it so they can enter a more appropriate one. Students read the questions on the projector screen and answer on their devices using the assigned colour or shape answers. Scores are calculated by speed of correct guess and correct answer. Scores are shown after each question and at the end of the quiz too. If you use it often you can collate a series of awesome data for your students about their understanding of main concepts within their learning. Students will need to be using their devices to play this - so make sure your class has the appropriate use forms and (in future BYOD forms) signed.

* Plickers - Plickers is a new tool for me but one that I'm very excited to get started using. The best thing about this app is that only the teacher needs a device. It's quite lo-tech in that sense which is good particularly if you don't have that many devices in class. Adam and Ryan have both used this app in class - Mary observed it's use last week so if you have any questions - check with them. Plickers unfortunately doesn't have the same pore-made quizzes available but it seems to be quite quick to create single questions for each round of Plickers.

The link for Plickers is: https://plickers.com/

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bejiz2HzUz8

How it works: Students have a numbered card which kind of looks like a QR code that is allocated to each student's name. Their cards have four options - A B C D - and each time you turn the card around the shape of the Plickers code changes. When using the Plickers app on the teacher's phone, you scan the room and collect the students answers with their raised cards. Each student's name is recorded along with their answer. At the end of the quiz (and perhaps as you go?) you get a series of results of student's answers and you can see a trend as to their understanding.

Let us know how you go!

Kahoot, Plickers, MindLab and Heights

Yesterday at interval one of my colleagues was sharing his experience of  using Kahoot during his extended House Tutor Group session.

The other colleague in his dept was talking about a PLD conference they went to and referenced Plickers.

Our other colleagues were asking questions and learning about these tools.

I really liked Adam's use of Kahoot and how he'd used it to get the students to learn more about each other as a digital scavenger hunt. Specific details about his students was loaded in as questions like ' Who is in the Pasifika group?' etc

When helping Manu understand how and why you'd use Kahoot, he said it would be cool to use it for students to figure out exemplars of work - Achieved, Merit and Excellence - and the right answer being the mark he'd give the piece. I loved this suggestion because it was something I hadn't thought about before. Even though Manu would be using it for art pieces, Adam thought about how he could use it for compositions and pieces of music and I thought about how it could be used for writing or static images.

I liked that Ryan was sharing his learning about Plickers as we often talk about the fact that not all of our students had devices which made it difficult to do some of the cooler learning. Plickers, as Ryan explained to us, was great because the cards acted like QR codes and were corresponding to student's answers. If the students used the same numbered plickers cards, then you'd have a really good set of results and data to use. I definitely need to investigate Plickers in more depth.

Jiji was asking me about his MindLab assignment. As part of the July intake, he is just starting his first assessment. We've had a couple really short sessions on his assessment and tools he could use. I showed Emma how to use Screencastify on Sunday for a few hours along with some other tools and she'd shared her learning with others this week at Mindlab which is awesome!

A student mentioned the new APs and the awesome WIFI signal we have yesterday and said "It's all thanks to you, Miss".

Exactly what I needed to hear after a stressful few days after recieving an unwelcome letter from an old friend.

It was just so cool being part of that korero yesterday. It reminds me that there are people at school interested, and like Manu mentioned about wanting to do that kind of thing more often, it's the lack of time to experiment with new ideas and the need to share that is most important.

When I really open my eyes - there is heaps of collaboration going on at Heights. Love that. :)

Byte Sized PLD - The Beginning

On Tuesday I started something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I mentioned it briefly in the last post but thought I'd elaborate on it now.

Over the past two years I've been experimenting with different styles of PLD: Wide focus with all staff, small groups, workshops and one-on-one sessions.

What I've found is that for those in the early majority and late majority - the wide focus sessions work fine. The late majority tend to ask the most questions and stop the flow of the learning but at least they're getting involved and trying to learn. The laggards sit there doing next to nothing, often refusing to participate or watching others participate and sometimes giving very negative responses.

The early adopters and innovators get frustrated with this style of learning as often they aready know the majority of this kind of PLD - and if not, they pick it up fast and go and do their own research at home or during the session... the early adopters are often relied on to answer the questions of the late majority and are the ones who try and inspire the early majority to activate them into becoming early adopters.

During the small group sessions, most people are engaged as they've come to the session prepared with questions and ideas for what they want to learn more about.

During the workshops and one-on-one sessions, colleagues are supported with facilitation and direct help and support when needed. Colleagues have found these the most effective and often use the learning from the sessions in their own classes much faster than compared with the wide focus sessions.

Because our eLearning PLD has been few and far between and the issues around organising a space and time to organise PLD for staff... although it could easily be done through using GForms (for staff to choose their sessions) and GDocs (for us to create and collaborate on ideas) and GSlides (to create the sessions and share the learning with all of the staff)... I decided it was time to implement 'Byte Sized PLD'.

The main reason for Byte Sized PLD is because there is a lack of time to learn new things. If I deliver a short and sweet weekly email with links, ideas and shared examples of new use of tech in class by colleagues then perhaps our staff will feel more empowered, confident and ready to engage with new learning when they need it or have time for it.

On Tuesday I sent the first one out with links to some of the learning I did in the break at the PPTA Māori Teacher's conference and at Connect Day in Hamilton. I think I'll also share these Byte Sized PLD emails as posts on here too. Could become a really cool way of sharing and acknowledging the awesome work our staff at Heights are doing.

Just hoping I keep up with the weekly emails!!

MTC and Connect Day: Update

Sometimes I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle trying to get people to find that passion to learn something new. I decided yesterday to implement an idea I've had for a year called ByteSized - a quick and simple edtech update for staff. I am absolutely aware of the time constraints we all have as teachers - but a weekly emailed update could be a simple and effective way of getting people involved with upskilling, in their own time without too much input and direction from me.

Judging by the 20 minutes after yesterday's email and looking at Kate's awesome Slides on Google Apps and Extensions - shows that perhaps this method of bite sized chunks might work because there were lots of anonymous alligators, moose, koalas and so forth popping up to have a look at it.
What I'd like to see next is getting staff to make the same goal setting journey as we ask of our students.
To improve my own PLD - I look for free, cheap and simple ways to learn about things that are interesting for me. I have no qualms travelling wherever I need to. No ties, no dependants... makes it a whole heap easier. I have big goals for myself individually, as a teacher and personally. Always have - but sometimes I get lost in the process of the journey and forget my next step.
After the Māori Teacher's Conference and the pivotal keynote at Connect Day - I feel more purpose in what I'm doing. Being recognised around the country for what I do for other teachers and to improve the quality of reo Māori being shared online in a public space... Marcus Akuhata-Brown's korero absolutely had me in awe. I wish someone had videoed it so I could replay it every morning to wake me up and get me ready for the day.
I'm still thinking about my experience at these two conferences and a better update will come soon.
Big goals:
Attend GAFE summit
Get Google Certified
Get Confidence to ask THAT question I keep putting off....
Figure out what's going on with why I'm feeling increasingly more stupid when I talk. Stuttering, losing train of thought, ideas not connecting.
Investigate Masters study...

Byte Sized PLD - Google Apps and Extensions, Upcoming Conferences and Resources

Morena Koutou,

I was thinking it might be good to share some of the new things I learnt during the holiday break while I was presenting at the PPTA Māori Teacher's conference and the Connected conference in Hamilton. 

I'll write up everything in a bit more detail on my blog later on but here are a few bite sized chunks for you. 

• Google Apps and Extensions: awesome presentation using Google slides by Kate Norton - check that out here
• PLD opportunities: 
• #EducampAKL: free professional development run by teachers for teachers - 30th July (this Sat) from 10-2 at Aorere College. More info here - check out the Smackdown slides here if you can't make it
• EdChatNZ conference: $30 - hosted by the new school Rototuna Junior High School in Hamilton. 12th-13th August. AWESOME learning. AWESOME presenters. More info here
• Using Twitter as a Teacher: presentation slides I shared at the PPTA Māori Teacher's conference - found here

NZ resources:

• Ako Panuku: free resources - teachers can register to receive printed resources and all resources are available to download on the site - more info here
• POND: awesome site for sharing resources and finding relevant resources for our NZ students - more info here

Hope you all have a great week,

Alex

MindLab: Applied Practice - Week 27 - Trends and Issues in Education (Activity 3)

A definition of a trend...

My first thoughts are the trends set out by Core Education and the development of them over the years. Some of the main trends include gamification, collaborative learning environments/innovative learning environments/modern learning environments, learner agency, equitable access etc

Below are the Ten Trends collated by Core found here: http://www.core-ed.org/thought-leadership/ten-trends 

Trends seem to be aspects of education that we need to be developing over a period of time. Networked communities, equitable access and digital fluency are aspects in education that can't be fixed overnight. They need time, strategies and problem-solving to find the best solutions that help each individual school develop stronger awareness around these issues. 

Issues on the other hand are problems that we might not necessarily be able to fix but ones in which we could find strategies to help become less problematic for those in our school communities. 

Issues such as poverty impacting on the ability to have equitable access, resistance to change impacting the need to create more evolved ways of assessing students through design thinking and cross-curricular assessment. There are MANY issues in schools that can't be solved by individual teachers and need to be a collaborative, joint approach where we work together to find possible solutions to help lessen the impact of the issues in order to try keep ahead with possible trends. 

Visser and Gagnon (2005) state that a term is something that "refers to the statistically ovservalble change or general orientation of a general movement."

Wilson (2012) says that an issues "point to unresolved concern, questions and tensions that arouse...."

Trend Analysis

Global trends: The world is changing faster than at any time in human history (Youtube Video)

http://tinyurl.com/TMLtrendsROT

Collaborative Task:

Evaluation at a Glance:Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools 

Issue One: 'Shifting the focus to student-centred learning'

"In the most successful schools, the trustees, leaders and teachers have an uncompromising focus on fostering students‟ interests and strengths, and on addressing their learning needs. They understand that their role is to serve students. Their philosophies about how students should experience education are lived out in rich learning programmes, thoughtful management of the curriculum, positive school cultures, and in effective leadership and governance practices. A synergy and coherence exists between these aspects that contribute positively to the whole experience of being a learner. Importantly, there is an ethic of care for students‟ current and future success." (ERO, 2012, p. 7)

“Importantly, leaders cultivate teaching communities that are focused on improving student success. They do this through an intensive focus on understanding the connection between teaching actions/decisions and students‟ engagement and learning. Leaders support teachers to share “collective responsibility and accountability for students‟ achievement and wellbeing” (p.120). Students are at the heart of school business.”  (ERO, 2012, p. 10)

Individual task:

Contemporary issues or trends in NZ or internationally

Trends in NZ:

• Makerspaces
• The development of spaces inside classrooms that provide the ability for students to use design thinking, imagination and maker skills to create something new and consistently evolving.

• ILE/MLM
• The need to create more student centred spaces that allow students to feel comfortable, engaged, interested and flexibility to make choices as to where they sit and learn best. 
• The mindset of modern learning environment/innovative learning environments whereby kaiako are developing stronger awareness around their pedagogy and the changes needed to ensure stronger perspectives around ....?

Issues in NZ:

• Assessment
• The need for more open perspectives within how we assess for our students. 
• Equity
• The need to be more aware of the inequity in NZ with students and their access of digital tools to enhance their learning. 

There are HEAPS of really cool blogs out there - check out the NZ educator blogroll on www.edblognz.blogpost.co.nz

Loved this example: https://riharinz.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/change-for-my-teaching/

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Class Notes

Further reading:

Education Review Office. (2012). Evaluation at a Glance: Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools. Retrieved 18 May 2016, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Releases2/The-three-most-pressing-issues-for-N

KPMG International. (2014). Future state 2030: the global megatrends shaping governments”. KPMG International Cooperative: USA. Retrieved fromhttp://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/future-state-government/Documents/future-state-2030-v3.pdf

National intelligence council.(2012). Global trends: Alternative Worlds. National Intelligence Council: US. Retrieved fromhttps://globaltrends2030.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/global-trends-2030-november2012.pdf

Classroom Environments and Organisation

Back when I was at Massey High in my first two years of teaching, we were in Professional Learning Communities where we chose the learning area we wanted to focus on as a collective. The five of us English teachers decided we wanted to focus on seeing whether a change in classroom environment could affect student engagement and attention in class.

We planned a little about needing fabric to cover the bare walls and creating cool posters for our students to reference for their learning. Rushing off to Spotlight with my mentor and buddy teachers was easily one of my best memories as a first year teacher. Am definitely a fabric geek. Haha.

We found heaps of cool stuff there, including a roll of black fabric with shiny silver stars. I still have the remains in my back cupboard now.

So we worked in each others classrooms, helping each other fix and make better our environments we worked in each day. True collaboration and what I loved about my colleagues at MHS.

By the time we got to my class - we were knackered but we managed to get quite a bit done and created strips of the black and silver starred fabric for one part of my wall. Sometime later I created my 'Dreams are Free' wall letters. I still have these too, they're on top of a pile of resources which are constantly waiting to be put up around the room.

Under that phrase I got students to make shapes where the wrote their goals and hopes for their lives. Each class did that and stapled them on the wall - it was a beautiful way to create student ownership in the space. It helped to motivate them too with little help from myself.

In that room there was a lino floor. It was awesome for kids on a wet day to slide on.... lol but more importantly I loved the click of my high heels on it. I wear flats now... The lino floor was great because we could move the desks out of the way easily, change the environment for different modes of learning quickly and did heaps of debates, role playing from the novels we read and dramatic readings of poems students wrote.

I was hardly ever sitting at my desk. You could barely see my desk at the time... I was still figuring out my organisational system...

Which is my next focus.

As my fifth year of teaching concludes and I move into my sixth - it feels good to have finally controlled or lets say begun to tame the monster that is paper at high school.

On my desk after the day you might find piles of student work, a bit of rubbish or student texts to read. But it's a quick five minute tidy now as I finally have things organised - not just so that I'm the only one who can find anything... haha

On my desk lays my teachers planner, my laptop, stationary, timetable and a bowl for my keys. On the table beside mine sits the projector. I've resigned myself finally to the fact that it remains a stationary object and probably won't get put on the roof as my class is one of the classes that could be pulled down if the MOE declare we have too many buildings.

On my left is a 8 box bookcase laying on its side. On top sits two purple tray organisers (three really because I needed six trays) - that are labelled for each class and my HTG. In these trays go my student's unfinished work.

In the eight boxes of the bookcase sit students folders for portfolios or workbooks after marking. In one of the boxes I have teaching resources and another for my readings to do and learn about.

Behind me is the whiteboard and the back cupboard. It is an awesome space but needs an absolute overhaul. When I had to move from my previous class I moved everything out, made it absolutely tidy for the new person to move in and chucked the stuff from 1980... When I moved into my current class - it was an absolute mess. I couldn't put my stuff anywhere so I ended up smushing it in with everything else and even after a small tidy a couple months ago to fit the PI drums in and organise the beanbags - it is still a massive mess. I would love to use that space more effectively but I need a bit of time to sort it.

The bookshelf in the corner by the cupboard door is probably my favourite item in the class. I found it on Neighbourly last year - a neighbour was giving it away. It's beyond cool. Towers over me but has been organised in such a way that all of my students have a space for their assessments to be held, extra shelving for who knows what just yet and above on the top shelf sits photos and other knickknacks brought in to brighten the class up, engage students like the lightbox or the Class Dojo 'Mojo' toy.

Last but not least is the bookcase at the back of the class. I spent a solid hour yesterday, with the help of one of my students, fixing it up and resorting it so that it looked better. Much more organised and hopefully students might stop putting their rubbish in there... :( In the bookshelf are a lot of books, novels, poetry, autobiographies - things I've picked up over the year at book sales and when our school library does a run through any texts that they don't want or haven't been read in a while. They're all labeled for my class library and organised beautifully - at the moment.

The one thing I guess I haven't mentioned yet is that my class is bare at the moment - excepting some QR codes and the back wall noticeboard half covered in blackboard paint and the other side covered in black paper. One more Cambridge exam and then I can put some things back up. But not everything - because it's too much of a mission pulling everything down again for exams three times a year.

At MHS they used our classes for exams too so it's not that I'm not used to it - but at MHS I had the fabric on the walls so could just pull the fabric off and everything came down.

A man came into class the other day - and he had a measuring beam tool that he placed in two spots in class to gauge the space. I straight away thought it was for the routers - why I don't know. But he said he was there to do the composite. The carpet on the wall. Yay! Because then I can put things on the wall! And pull them down easily!! :)

I just need to make sure that they take the beautiful mural in class down first before they do any carpeting over it. :)

My students didn't really get why I was so excited about carpet on the wall. But it will seriously (hopefully) brighten the place up. Which it definitely needs.

The tables - I think I've written before about the tables in our class. They're the old metal frames with new tops on. They're the kind of desks I had in primary school. I tried making them marginally better last year by putting whiteboard film on them. Which the students actually really liked because we could learn in ways they hadn't been able to do so previously. Brainstorming, planning, writing, drawing etc etc etc.

I took it all off before end of year and Cambridge exams last year. I need to buy some more. It was a really cool tool and I have to thank Alyx Gillet for the idea. :)

The issue with the tables is that they're bulky and difficult to organise into groups. They don't smoothly move around the class either but are easy enough to lift and shift and pack away.

I have some awesome trapezoidal shaped tables though. Just need one or three more to make a proper shape. Or series of shaped tables. Then I could get rid of the tables. But then they're needed for the exams. Hmm.

That's where the beanbags come in though. Beautiful for students to find their own space, outside, inside, to do their work.

I need more student input to make the class better. More time to fix it up. More funds saved to go and do so. :) All in good time.

MindLab: Applied Practice Week 26 - Professional Communities of Practice (Activity 2)

For this blog post we'll be discussing professional communities of practice. A community of practice to me means a group of people working together towards a shared goal. In this case, our November Mindlab intake cohort, colleagues and students at Heights, the whanau of #EngChatNZ and #edchatnz, PPTA whanau and those in my professional learning network. 

The questions below were posed to us this week around professional communities and while I'm only meant to write about two - I think a little bit of an overview is needed before diving in wholeheartedly on two particular ones. 

1. What is the organisational culture (collective values/principles) that underpins your practice? How would you contribute to fostering a positive professional environment in your community of practice?
2. What are the current issues in your community of practice? How would your community of practice address them?
3. What are the challenges that you face in your community of practice? How would your community of practice address them?
4. What changes are occurring in the context of your profession? How would your community of practices address them?

1. The organisational culture - collective values and principles - that underpin my practice focus are on the aspects of manaakitanga and ensuring that everyone in the class feels safe and respected. I contribute to fostering a positive professional environment in our community of practice in a similar way - by listening, being interested in what my colleagues are sharing, discussing with them on a sometimes surface and then deeper level about issues that are important to me and pushing them to find the talking points that most engage them as well. In essence, I like to develop conversations by being patient and waiting for the right moment to ask certain questions to see whether I can flip the conversation into more unsafe waters to test my colleagues' adaptive confidence and see where their confidence lies in certain areas - particularly around tech in class. 

2. The current issues in our community of practice include building confidence, being more trustworthy of each other, sharing resources and not being scared that someone will 'steal' it, encouraging a high trust model rather than a low trust model. Our community of practice are learning to work together, collaborate more often and build on their shared knowledge in many areas. 

3. The challenges we face in our community of practice include being unsure of how to ask for help and not wanting to be seen as not looking as if they're not the expert, being scared of standing up for what's right, being scared to stand up to those who are workplace bullies, being unsure about how to create leadership opportunities when being a leader and having a leadership position seem to mean a different thing. Our community of practice deals with these challenges in a variety of ways. The old way seemed to be to ignore all of this and attempt the 'fake it til you make it' idea. Some of that previous whakaaro is still around and it's slowly being chipped away at. Our community of practice is incredibly supportive, we support each other, be collegiate and professional all the while being there for each other. Schools can be very catty and toxic places - particularly being around teenage drama all of the time - adults sometimes forget how to stay cool in certain situations. We're lucky at Heights in that even though it's quite clique-y - there are clique jumpers who support and understand differing perspectives and will help provide those bridges to ensure more happier and calmer staff members in difficult situations. 

4. The changes in teaching at the moment is the introduction of technology. I say this with a heavy heart because I've been fighting a very long battle since I was 8 and now - we're finally here - where we can teach across borders, without walls and yet - people still want walls. People still want traditional. People are still scared of the new. This inability to be adaptive to change scares me. I've talked a lot about being 8 and playing the Encarta games and being a teenager and dealing with difficult situations. We had 21st century tools when I was at high school. That is teetering on ten years ago now. Ten years. We're still here. Arguing about wifi and infrastructure and cost and impact on student learning. Studies upon studies and studies and studies. Yet. Still. We're at this crossroads. Such a long long walk to where we are now. Still so much further to go. 

I really really liked the Stoll goals - displayed below. Very very cool. Reminds me of Lichtman's Pathway to Success progression. 

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Class Notes

Further reading:

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved fromhttp://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

Y12 - Party in the Car Assessment

Last night we received some pretty horrendous news. One of our ex-students passed away. We don't have full details yet but the ones that we do have so far made it difficult to teach today's lesson around driving and changing our behaviour in and around cars.

Last week was messy - we had students away on PE camp up in the Kauaeranga Valley - two trips meaning some were here when we looked at videos, some were here when we looked at techniques, some were here when we played the Film Technique game on Quizlet Live. Despite students coming and going, I felt truly positive about the direction we were all going in.

Until this morning. When I had the full class back. Today was messy. But... it worked. Somehow.

I started them all off with the Introduction I'd written on Google Classroom last night, got those who weren't here to play a couple games to learn Film Techniques on Quizlet Live, and the remainder who were here to continue with developing their brainstorms, filling in their introductions and thinking about the techniques and how they were used to 'effectively change the behaviour of (target audience) in and around cars'.

Homework today was simply to finish their brainstorms so that we could get started writing paragraphs on Wednesday. Hopefully they will do so and not write anything further so that we can use their reports for their writing portfolio assessment too.

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My Y12 EngA (Yellow) class started this assessment last term but only just finishing up their reports now. They've also had the gamification aspect of Quizlet. They actually chose for the Pink class which one worked better for them out of Quizlet and Kahoot.

It's interesting that juniors seem to love Kahoot and seniors like Quizlet better.

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Today I felt like I was doing blended learning right. Students were accessing their devices for the benefit of their learning and gaining knowledge on a just in time basis whereas previous to this the devices were used in a more structured way where I told them where to go and what to do. Seeing the students accessing the information needed, when they needed it was VERY VERY cool.

What did I actually do to make this work??

* I set up Quizlet a LOT faster than previously by telling students to get onto quizlet.live while I was opening Quizlet myself - students were waiting and asking for the passcode before I had it up on the projector.
* I had the introduction example on Classroom up on the projector in another tab.
* The game went faster than previous times as there were a smaller number of participants. They were able to play a couple of games and then got into what everyone else was doing
* I had the NZTA playlist from my channel as a link on Google Classroom which students were accessing as needed or using YouTube from their phones/devices
* I'd added the digital version of the film techniques on Classroom as well in a Resources post- which students were accessing as needed too
* Constant monitoring, helping, guiding, supporting and suggesting possible techniques for their chosen ads
* Printed copies of the report scaffold available for students

What might have helped to make this lesson smoother?

* Students checking Google Classroom prior to coming to class
* More teaching around using Google Classroom as a tool to find information
* Printed copies of all resources available for students
* Re-work the screenshots resource I made for the Yellow class?
* Re-work the Party in the Car resource booklet with clearer steps?

Overall thoughts -

This is one of my most favourite assessments in the Y12 programme and easily the best section of learning we do in the year. Because we discuss prior knowledge, learn together and from each other, collaborate and learn from shared experiences and discuss how target audiences are manipulated by Public Service Announcements like driving ads by the NZTA to change behaviours.

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Moe mai ra e tama. Fly high. Rest easy e tama. We all miss you. Watch over the rest of us.