Community Hui

On Thursday 22 November a cluster-wide hui for whānau was held at the Campion College gym.

Representatives from the Noel Leeming Group, Finance Now, Connext Trust Tairāwhiti Cluster principals and Manaiakalani Outreach Facilitators presented details about the device procurement for our Tairāwhiti learners.

It was a great way to kick off the opportunity for families to purchase devices for use in classes in 2019.

More details are on our Tairāwhiti Cluster site.

Staff Hui T4 Slides

Toolkits

In Week 2 of term 4 the Manaiakalani facilitators from across Aotearoa hosted online toolkits that covered a range of topics.  

These online workshops were designed to support the effective use of technology and The Manaiakalani Kaupapa. 

All slide decks and screencasts of the workshops have been filed in one place for you to access here to learn from.

School Leaders PLG Term 3

Each term we have a leader from our schools meet together to learn from one another.  We call this a Professional Learning Group (PLG). 

In term 3 we had representatives from all but three schools and had a worthwhile day of learning, creating and sharing. 
For our School Leaders PLG we met at Awapuni School in their newly renovated school hall. A great space, thank you.
Below are some snapshots of areas we focussed on in the day.

Mrs Torrie in full flight with our School Leaders

 Barriers, Enablers and Deliberate Leadership Actions

Are our learners engaging deeply with cluster-agreed transformative digital pedagogies:
learn, create, share?

We dug into this question in pairs to see what the barriers and enablers might be in each of our schools. These ideas were shared on a collaborative sheet for all to see.

We then considered the deliberate leadership actions that could be used to help our learners towards the deep engagement we are seeking. 

One action, as an example, is: "Sit alongside staff who may come on board instead of expecting them to express interest in a staff meeting"

Class on Air

We looked at an example of Class on Air together 

Learn, Create, Share is unpacked to a great depth in these examples with the Visible Teaching on a site and then Visible Learning on individual learner blogs. In between this visibility, the walls of the classroom are opened right up with videos of the teacher actually teaching the learners in their class. The teacher reflects on the process and then repeats for another learning timepoint.

Teachers checking out Class on Air

Connext Trust Update

Jo Haughey updated us on progress with the Connext Trust. The Trust is currently working on recruitment with three positions being filled shortly and tagged to start in 2019.

They are also finalising device procurement for learners for 2019. The idea is that each learner in the schools can lease to own a device for their learning so that there is one type of device in schools across a year level. This brings equity and consistency - everyone knows how one device works, can become expert in this device and the teacher and learner can be confident that the device will work as expected - at least as reliably as a book.

Facilitators and Teacher in action

Create

We created potential logos for our cluster of schools. The images below are linked to the G+ Community where these logos are shared.

Next Professional Learning Group

We will have our next School Leaders Professional Learning Group (PLG) on 25 October at Gisborne Intermediate School.

Introducing Maria - Facilitator

I am excited to be in the Tairāwhiti Cluster, as a facilitator in The Manaiakalani Programme Outreach. I have come from working in the Kootuitui Cluster in Papakura, South Auckland where I was doing the same role. Prior to that, I was in senior leadership in the secondary part of a multi-campus area school.

I am working in four schools on a weekly basis. I facilitate in primary and secondary classes where I am modelling Learn, Create, Share and teaching teachers to use the GSuite of tools alongside other digital tools. Learners use 1:1 Chromebooks and 1:1 ipads in the younger classes and share their learning on blogs. The blogs are either class blogs for Y 1-3 learners or individual school-owned blogs for Y4 - 10 learners.

I am delighted to see the teachers and students grow in their knowledge and capability through the facilitation.  My goal is that I am no longer needed in that class as the teacher is empowered to use anytime, anywhere learning through the visible teaching on class sites and visible learning on blogs that I model.

Alongside the regular in-class facilitation, The Manaiakalani Programme Outreach promotes and enables schools to cluster through the use of Professional Learning Groups. Principals and School Leaders meet each term to share their practice, understand one another better and to develop trust as a group. I see the huge potential in these regular meetings and so enjoy the progress that is made as a group when people work together.

Currently, I commute to Gisborne on a Monday and head home to Auckland and my husband on a Friday. The phone gets a lot of use in the evenings and at times it is hard but we are making it work.

We have recently had our first grandson, named Joshua, so will be trekking to Taihape to visit more often.

Introducing Cheryl - Facilitator

I am a facilitator working in the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme in Tairāwhiti, New Zealand.

In 2018 I have been working in 9 schools in Gisborne providing a programme of in-class support for 18 pilot teachers. Before joining the Manaiakalani team, I had been a long-serving staff member of Awapuni School.

What excites me about the Manaiakalani programme goes back to what I saw when I visited Pt England School many years ago. Russel and Dorothy Burt had by then clustered some local schools together and were leading the way by using the Learn Create Share pedagogy and building partnerships with whānau to access devices for their children.

Since then I have used the affordances of digital technologies to break down barriers to learning, engage ākonga, motivate and sustain motivation, offer choices and allow learners to work at their own pace. The use of digital technologies brings meaning to collaboration, connecting, critical thinking and communicating.

Seeing the growing confidence of teachers and students this year in using devices to Learn Create and Share is the best part of the job. The creativity that is shared on blogs is exciting and viewable by a global audience.

"Tech gives the quietest student a voice"

Jerry Blumengarten

@cybraryman1

Nau Mai, Haere Mai!

Nau Mai, Haere Mai! Welcome to this blog. Here we will share announcements and progress of The Tairāwhiti Cluster of schools supported by The Manaiakalani Trust and The Connext Trust.

What is The Tairāwhiti Cluster? In 2018, 12 schools in the Gisborne region joined together to engage in The Manaiakalanai Programme Outreach. The Manaiakalani Programme Outreach is an opportunity for communities to partner with The Manaiakalani Trust to embracing a Learn Create Share pedagogy, shared digital infrastructures and affordances. Including;

• Professional learning facilitation
• Regional programme coordination
• Device procurement systems
• Independent research analysis
• Access to curated resources
• Supported knowledge sharing across all Manaiakalani Outreach schools. 

Photo by Connext Trust.
Learn-Create-Share in action at Makauri School with Facilitator, Cheryl Torrie.

How did we get involved here in Te Tairāwhiti? In 2018, The HB Williams Family Charitable Trusts’ invited The Manaiakalani Programme Outreach to present this opportunity to our schools. The trust announced that they would contribute $1.2 million towards the delivery of the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme in East Coast/Gisborne/Wairoa. Expressing that “strategically supporting schools, teachers, learners and their whānau through a collaborative, evidence-based model with a focus on empowering young people” is central to this decision. Read more in this public statement by JN Williams Memorial Trust and HB Williams Turanga Trust: Manaiakalani Outreach Programme, 1 May 2018.

Which of our schools are connected with this opportunity? The initial year of the programme saw 12 schools engage as early adopters. See The Tairāwhiti Cluster Site for a list of those schools currently involved. The Manaiakalani Programme Outreach is supported by three locally based facilitators; Maria Krausse, Cheryl Torrie and Renee Raroa. Check out their introduction blogs here soon. In 2019, three more outstanding educators will join the facilitation team! Watch this space for announcements.

So, how can I be included? In 2019, all schools and kura from Pōtaka to Wairoa are invited to express an interest in partnering with The Manaiaklani Programme Outreach. Please get in touch with Renee at renee.raroa@core-ed.ac.nz for more information. If you are at a school outside of those currently partnering or are a community member interested in upskilling your digital fluency, you are welcome to join in on professional learning opportunities, sign up at bit.ly/ManaiakalaniToolkits.

Manaiakalani is a nationwide learning community for effective teaching and accelerated learning of students, teachers and whānau through creative sharing in a global digital world.  Check out www.manaiakalani.org for more information.