Holiday reading list

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Recommended texts,novels, blogs, videos, articles & more

Renee Cornelius asked CORE staff to provide some of their favourites for your viewing enjoyment over the Christmas holiday period. Here’s the list, divided into categories for your convenience.

Something for everyone

Derek Wenmoth

Derek Wenmoth — Director e-Learning

Beyond Prototypes — The Beyond Prototypes report provides an in-depth examination of the processes of innovation in technology-enhanced learning (TEL).

Swimming out of our depth? — Excellent and challenging read that provides some penetrating questions around leadership and professional development with three NZ school case studies.

Karen Mehuish Spencer

Karen Melhuish Spencer — e-Learning Consultant

Learning Futures: Education, Technology and Social Change — Drawing on ten years of research into educational innovation and socio-technical change, working with educators, researchers, digital industries, students and policy-makers, this book questions taken-for-granted assumptions about the future of education.

Explore the video stores in Enabling e-Learning's Media Gallery.

Explore Māori Maps (in English or Te Reo) and connect with the ancestral marae of Aotearoa.

Tania Coutts

Tania Coutts — Blended e-Learning/Early Years Facilitator

iLearn Research and iLearn Research Report —These are great holiday reads on research around iPads in various settings.

EdventureGirl — A very cool website, and definitely a good one for holiday exploring and reading.

Allanah King

Allanah King — Facilitator—Blended e-Learning

eLearnings- Implementing National strategy ICT in Education — read it as an ePub on your Kindle! CORE's own book if you haven't read it already in the hardcopy version.

Ki te Aotūroa—Improving Inservice Teacher Educator Learning & Practice — You can download or order the hardcopy from Down the Back of the Chair for free — mine turned up almost overnight.

Michael Lintott

Michael Lintott — Digital Media Camera Operator/Editor

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (presciently written in the 1995) features so many themes that I see in my work for CORE: one-to-one devices, the importance of universal access to technology, homogenisation of education, 3D printing and Thinking in 3D, and a few more. It's a pretty hard Sci-fi novel and is about 600 (very dense) pages, but I enjoyed it and I recommend it to anyone wanting to read fiction with a very CORE edge to it. (Adults only.)

Primary/Intermediate

Anne Kenneally

Anne Kenneally — Blended e-Learning Facilitator

Daily 5 and The CAFE Book by Gail Boushey — two inspirational books that have the power to support transformation in your literacy programme. I used both last year and was overwhelmed by the shifts in reading right across the class.

The Book Whisperer and Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller — Both of these books are becoming increasingly read and recommended across NZ. We have recently initiated a presentation as a base for a book-chat around The Book Whisperer and will move onto Reading in the Wild soon. Please join us and share your reading journey!

Chris McLean

Chris McLean — Online Facilitator

This sabbatical report by Paul Irving, Principal of Riccarton School, which has just been added to Educational Leaders is well-researched, well-written, and a really worthwhile read. Useful for Primary and Pasifika sectors.

 

Secondary

Te Mako Orzecki

Te Mako Orzecki — TKI Channel Support Services, Content Editor

There are some great Te Kete Ipurangi sites for Māori-medium/secondary sectors.
Karawhiua — Great Māori-medium resource. Looks at four topics: Kapahaka, Waka Ama, Matariki, and Manu Korero.

Kei te mōhio anō koe? — A Science-based website with a Māori/English toogle.

Kia Mau — Also has a Māori/English toogle. This site has a Social Sciences/Arts focus, and comes with teachers' notes.

Māori

Janelle Riki

Janelle Riki — Facilitator

Creating culturally-safe schools for Māori Students — One of my favourites! From the Australian Journal of Indigenous Education.

 

 

Tamara and Beth

Tamara Bell — National Facilitator

This blog is awesome. I am an avid follower, as are many of the CORE Māori whānau members and I have learned a lot from reading it. Full of Te Reo lessons, with a strong focus on grammar, but also a lot of simple tips, examples, and humour.

Beth Dixon — Regional Facilitator

This resource really encourages the learning of Te Reo. The explanations are contextual so the learner can see how each phrase or colloquialism can be used in specific situations. I also receive emails now too, which is fantastic!

We both recommend upokopakaru.

Pasifika

Manu Faaea Semeaatu

Manu Faaea-Semeatu  — National Pasifika Facilitator

The Coconet TV is a virtual village that connects Pasifika people in an online community space. Check out video clips of Pasifika artists' short films, information about each of the Pasifika cultures, songs and dances of Pasifika cultures. Highlights includes some hilarious fashion and lifestyle tips with a Pasifika twist.

Inspired by the artform of spoken word poetry, this digital story highlights the collective voices of secondary school Pasifika students and their learning experiences connected to teachers' perceptions of them. A powerful example of student voice.

Anae (2010) Anae is the one-stop shop to read about how Pasifika methdologies have been articulated in the research of Pasifika Education. Identity is explored and the concept of Teu Le Va explains how Pasifika researchers work collectively in relationship spaces.

Celebrating Gifted Indigenous Roots: Gifted and Talented Pacific Island (Pasifika) Students, Faaea-Semeatu (2011). Rather than focusing on a deficit model of Pasifika underachievement, Faaea-Semeatu (2011) explores a culturally affirmative model through the concepts of Pasifika giftedness. The cultural identifiers are notions that are inherent in Pasifika families and communities and schools may not necessarily see the strengths of their Pasifika learners in the classroom, because Pasifika giftedness is more readily seen at home and in Pasifika communities.

Early Childhood

Ann Hatherly​

Ann Hatherly — National Facilitator, and the Early Years Team

Key competencies, assessment and learning stories— This DVD has just been released by NZCER. It looks at the way Learning Stories are being used in schools to assess Key Competencies. For ECE teachers it will provide a fresh take on Learning Stories and narrative assessment. Highly recommended.

Samskaara Academy — A Facebook page I love to 'like'. Samskaara Academy is an eco-friendly early childhood centre and school in Coimbatore, South India, which prioritises holistic and authentic learning. Their Facebook page profiles their approach well through photos and small descriptions.

National Quality Standard PLP's notes— If you know the Australian early childhood academic and consultant Anne Stonehouse's work you are bound to enjoy this. Anne writes a short provocative piece each Friday called 'What do you think?'.  A quick read about everyday issues for busy teachers, which really make you think!

Whakawhetu — Sometimes our best support for the future of education comes from looking to the past. This report helps us do precisely that. It provides a well-researched and rich picture of traditional Māori child rearing practices with lots of pointers on how we might better cater for Māori children in educational settings today.

Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley — If you haven't seen this video yet I suggest you put your feet up with a glass of whatever pleases you and reflect on what Ken suggests needs to change in early childhood education in Aotearoa/New Zealand starting 2014.

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What can we learn from PISA 2013?

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Derek Wenmoth ponders the PISA Results for 2012

Reactions to the recently published PISA Results

The recent release of PISA data for New Zealand (top-line results here) has led to a wide range of reactions from teacher organisations and principal groups, to social commentators and government.

Some have responded by questioning the reliability of the PISA statistical methodology, while others point to social and economic conditions that impact on the results. Read in isolation such responses may be regarded more as excuse making or political positioning, but when viewed together in the broader milieu within which our education system operates, we gain an insight into the complexity of issues with which educational leaders must grapple — at every level, from those leading learning at the classroom level, to those leading schools and those leading the national level support and policy frameworks that guide this effort.

The 2013 rankings reveal New Zealand slipping from seventh to 13th in reading, seventh to 18th in science and from 13th to 23rd in mathematics. No one likes to feel they’re ‘failing’ in what they do, and the first response may often appear defensive. It’s ironic that when the previous results were announced a lot was made of New Zealand’s position in the top five countries in most areas. Now we read that ‘while we have dropped in most areas, we’re still in the top half of the OECD’, pointing to similar drops by other countries including Finland and Australia.

To react negatively or politically is to miss an opportunity for improvement

To respond only to the headlines, or to simply quote the ‘rankings’ to defend a particular ideology or political stance, is to miss the opportunity to learn from what the PISA data tells us. Over the next 12 months we’ll see the more in-depth reports released, based in further analysis of the data, and providing more specific insights into the achievement areas of literacy, numeracy and science. There’s a lot the data will be able to inform us about in terms of links between socio-economic status and achievement, or what areas specifically within the mathematics curriculum (or science, or literacy) are strengths and which are weak, for example.

The other useful thing about such a rich data source is that we can begin to explore any comparisons between what it reveals in terms of NZ students’ achievement in these international results and what our own, domestic results are telling us (NCEA, national standards, Bursary etc.). If these are consistent, then our response will be quite different than if we discover there are inconsistencies. This should also help us identify specific areas that we need to target for interventions such as targeted professional development, or resource allocations etc.

The key thing will be to take sufficient time to make a considered and informed response, and to avoid any sort of ‘knee-jerk’ reaction (although that will be a challenge for New Zealand given that 2014 is an election year). Rather than using the results for political points scoring, it would be great to see a genuinely cross-party and cross-sector approach to resolving what we need to do as a country, for the sake of all of our learners, now and into the future, regardless of which political party happens to be in government.

What can our schools do with the report findings as we plan for 2014?

As we plan for 2014 it’s likely we’ll see a number of responses at a national/policy level, including more targeted provision of PLD, even before the review of professional learning and development is completed, with a special focus on science being called for.

Within our schools we need to be encouraging more in-depth engagement with the PISA findings with our staff and communities in order to understand what an appropriate response should be. Even more important, our response should be to think more critically about how we are using data more broadly — not only the PISA data. As educators, we are collecting data regularly from a wide variety of sources — our challenge with all of it is to consider how we are using it to inform what we are doing with the programmes we offer, to ensure that student needs are being met, and student achievement remains the focus. The PISA results provide a challenge to consider what we’re doing in the areas of literacy, numeracy, and science — but what about our programmes in the arts or social sciences? Where is the data to show how we’re supporting achievement in these areas for instance?

Let’s not fall into the trap of laying blame or making excuses. Let’s use the challenge of the PISA results to become more intentionally engaged with data in our schools, in the way we collect it, interpret it, and make plans based on the evidence it provides — across all areas of the curriculum.

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Granted — The Tu Tane Programme, ChromeBook ease, and the liberation to learn

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Māori Grant: Tu Tane

By guest blogger, Tim Gander

The Tu Tane programme and the Māori grant

We originally applied for a Māori grant to assist and develop the effectiveness of our Tu Tane programme. The Tu Tane programme has become an important part of our boys’ education and personal growth, it provides them with a sense of identity, pride in themselves, and pride in where they come from. It allows boys to develop an interest in their culture, tikanga, and reo.  The programme aims to begin a rite of passage, in which we encourage our young men to move towards becoming good men, by reflecting on their own whakapapa to look forward to where they want to go and who they want to be. As a staff, we found that the important values, beliefs, and elements of personal growth are often given lip service but our communities and country do little to address this. The main focus of Tu Tane is developing key values in our students through practical and theory lessons that are backed up through the ‘7 stages and 7 ceremonies’, closely following our own tikanga and that of our community. The course relies heavily on community links with input from whanau in the form of 'Tane Uetika' — our mentor ceremony. During this year we have worked on several areas ranging from personal identity, relationships, societal attitudes and values, identity, sensitivity and respect, challenges, and social/cultural factors. The programme runs directly in line with the New Zealand PE/Health curriculum, beginning in year 10 and supported through to the senior years.

To support this initiative CORE Education provided funding for a set of ChromeBooks through its CORE Māori Grant. We chose to invest in ChromeBooks because we use Google Apps for Education, and the devices allow safe and easy access to all of our learning resources and opportunities, as well as the ability to connect to the wider community.

The benefits of ChromeBooks for our programme

On the day that the ChromeBooks arrived the boys opened them and booted them up — it only took about 2 minutes from the time that I put the sealed box on the desk until the first boys had logged in and were browsing the web — almost unbelievable. Previously, we had spent countless hours attempting to log on to school computers with numerous software updates, lost passwords, and wasted lessons in an attempt to be connected and online.

Part of the allure of ChromeBooks is the amount of control the teacher or administrator has over the devices. Once the machines were logged into the domain and into the console I could control the user experience from anywhere in the world — making sure students were always safe, secure, and focussed on the set task!  By encouraging the students to unbox the devices it gave them a real sense of ownership. They were able to log in straight away with an existing Google Apps account, or create a new one on the school domain if they had not used one before. I had decided to create a wifi hotspot from my laptop so that the first time the boys turned them on they wouldn't have to worry about wifi passwords and network restrictions.  I was skeptical at first, but I had 15 Chromebooks working at good internet speed from one connection on my Macbook Pro, and some boys were even streaming some content from a recent lesson I had posted on Google+!

Links, connections, and identity

It is critical for students to establish 'Whakawhanaungatanga' where they make links and connections with each other, and encompass the concept of inclusiveness. Students are encouraged to reach out to those around them and include the community in their kaupapa, thereby enhancing 'Te taha wairua' by acknowledging, celebrating, and showcasing cultural capabilities and distinctiveness. A specific example of how the ChromeBooks have helped facilitate this process is 'Ko wai ahau, no hea ahau?' — Who am I and where do I come from? My Identity'. The boys researched and talked to whānau about their whakapapa, and through Glogster they created a page about the journey of their lives from their past to the present. This was then presented to the Tu Tane class during the 'Tane Pepeke' ceremony. The class developed a far greater level of trust and respect for each other, and the ChromeBooks granted the students the freedom and ability to create ‘enhanced’ profiles with embedded content personal to them, increased motivation, and allowed deeper understanding of where they were from, and ultimately, where they were going.

Although the enhanced way of working with ChromeBooks was introduced relatively late in the year, there was still a positive impact. We are hoping that in 2014, because students will be able to collaborate and communicate from the start of the year, there will be a greater impact. For example, by using the devices from the start of the year, next year’s students will be able to maximise the Google+ community for Tu Tane, and share with Whanau and ex-Tu Tane graduates. We would also like to combine the work we are doing in the senior school, with web apps, Google docs, blogging, and Google+ with our Tu Tane programme. Opening up these opportunities to connect and co-construct with the younger boys is likely to enhance cultural distinctiveness, illuminate creative potential, and support successful educational pathways for them.

Liberation to learn

Learning is a collaborative process, and the students are more likely to succeed when they feel supported and have an opportunity to share their work. The introduction of the ChromeBooks has given us the ability to strengthen community links because students have been able to make contact with people, and share their work easily at school and at home. The most overwhelming thing we have noticed when working with the ChromeBooks is that it is not ultimately about the technology. There isn’t a significant ‘wow’ factor involved; it is just a tool that works to enhance the learning experience and opportunities available.

To put it simply — the boys just get on with the learning and have wider opportunities available.

Tim GanderTim Gander is Assistant Head of PE and Health at Gisborne Boys High school. He enjoys the day-to-day challenge of teaching a wide range of abilities and ages in a variety of settings. He is aware that effective teaching is not only about the use of technology, but also how the technology supports teaching, learning, and building relationships. He is passionate about engaging students and whānau in a collaborative learning journey, and believes that the integration of technology and adapted pedagogies enable a greater depth of learning, understanding, and encouragement.

Tim is a Google Apps for Education certified trainer and facilitates professional learning with teachers through his blog, PLN, and face-to-face. In 2013 he fully immersed three senior NCEA classes in Google Apps and found the experience to be positive for all, originally flipping the classroom to overcome resource issues, then utilising Chromebooks to maximise learning opportunities. He is in the final selection for the Interface magazine “Innovative use of ICT Award” with his Google Drive and Social Responsibility project.

Tim has also been awarded an eFellowship award for 2014

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