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He kōrerorero, he whakaaro

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He kōrerorero, he whakaaro
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He kōrerorero, he whakaaro
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2015
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Hook, line and sinker: Engaging Pasifika learners in Secondary Science

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Glen Tuala

Māori hook

As a young boy I used to go fishing with my Dad in the Manukau Harbour. Dad owned a small boat with an 85 horsepower outboard motor. It was supposed to be more of a secondary income stream than a recreational hobby, but most of the fish we caught he gave away to family and friends so I don’t think it was too much of a lucrative venture. As soon as he found a spot, we anchored and began preparing the lines by baiting the hooks. There was always a sense of anticipation at the prospect of quickly filling the chilly bin with schools of fresh flounder and snapper and on a good day we would often stop off at all my relatives’ homes to distribute the bounty on our return. However, on a slow day this excitement seemed to fade over the course of the expedition (along with the sunlight) and the silence in the water was louder than the quiet in the boat.

As educators, we may also go “fishing” in our classrooms every day, especially when we are teaching children who may not have firsthand experience in the knowledge domain that we are trying to teach or explain.

The Samoan proverb “O le upega e tautau, ‘ae fagota”, which is translated “The net is now hanging up to dry, but will be used again soon for fishing”, means that if at first you do not succeed – try and try again.

As a Pasifika secondary science teacher, it is fair to say that there have been days where the silence in the classroom reminded me of those quiet days in the boat with my Dad when the only thing that was biting was his sense of frustration.

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Time to put it down?

Posted on December 7, 2015 by James Hopkins

phone rudeness

This morning I had a fascinating conversation with a colleague who has two teenage children. We spoke about the need to show presence in different situations, and how that often means that the digital device in her children’s hands need to be put down. It seems obvious to those of us from Generation X and earlier, as, although we are at home in a digital world, our lives started before mobile technology was commonplace. Therefore, it’s fair to say that the values instilled around family time and being present within a situation or conversation are very much who we are. But … our learners and children of today may be quite different; they are not simply at home in a digital world — they are digitally native. Many 10-year-olds have never known a world without mention of Facebook (launched 4th February 2004) or Skype. Video chatting, Snapchatting, Instagramming, Tweeting and Googling are all verbs they have grown up with.

banned phones

So, is it not fair to generalise that young learners of the new millennium are unlikely to remember a world without touchscreen smartphones, video chatting, and social media? This is the distinguishing feature between being at home in a digital world and being digitally native. Therefore, I wonder just how can we expect our students and children to understand the concept of ’presence’ in conversation or activity, as one where a device is not an additional focus? Of course, most of us continue to model. I know many families (including my own) who ask that cell phones and devices are not brought to the dinner table. I know several who have ‘scheduled’ family time, time spent talking, engaging and sharing without the distraction of a laptop screen or television in the background. The initial frustration of adolescent children is to be expected. “Why are you taking my connections away?” “ Why can’t I have both a conversation with you and text my friends?” An adult response of ‘Because I said so…’ just isn’t going to cut it.

The counter argument could be to change our values and beliefs and allow them to evolve in the same way technology has. However I’m sure this would be met with greater resistance than we receive from learners at present. So, perhaps there’s a need for explicit expectations to be shared. It isn’t a case of who is right and who is wrong, more a case of two differing perspectives that both have valid reasoning and argument. The digitally native adolescent has every right to question the value being put to them, they know no different. Our value comes from a time where our life wasn’t as dominated by mobile technology. Isn’t it our job to explain so our learners and children can learn?

It becomes a question of the ‘How’ we share the explicit expectation. Using search terms like ‘Mobile Device etiquette’ brings dozens of blogs and pages designed to instruct people on how to behave in a ‘socially acceptable’ way, but the vast majority begin with ‘Don’t…’

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Making the shift to Innovative Learning Environments…what’s the risk?

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Tamara Jones

cliff-edge

Photo by epSos.de under CC

Many primary schools throughout New Zealand are espousing a shift to Innovative Learning Environments (ILE). ILE refers to the multifaceted and interrelated aspects of teaching and learning in a school; the pedagogy, organisation, teachers, learners, content, resources, community…basically, the whole shebang.  An OECD (2013) report defined ILE a lot more eloquently as, “an organic, holistic concept — an ecosystem that functions over time and in context and includes the activity and outcomes of learning”.

The shift to ILE will require many primary teachers to make significant changes to their practice, and with any change, there exists risk. But what are the risks involved with a shift to ILE? And is it worth considering that teachers’ perceptions of risk may be a fundamental barrier to change? If the onus is on the classroom teacher to integrate digital technologies in learner-centric pedagogies, and collaborate with colleagues in flexible learning spaces, I would argue it just might be worth bearing in mind.

Acknowledging Risk (not resistance!)

The term risk has been used many ways and in various contexts for many years. In the corporate world the term ‘risk’ is commonplace; risk management, capital risk and systematic risk all focus on the identification, assessment and prioritisation of commercial risk. In the education sector the concept of risk is only beginning to be acknowledged when discussing innovation and change. But what does ‘risk’ really mean? Is risk real?

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That teenage feeling: Social Media in 2015

Posted on December 1, 2015 by

Social Media

From the beginning, some relationships are wrought with contradictions and ambiguities. They never quite find a secure foothold in our lives, and yet they can linger in the background and exist in ways we may celebrate one moment and take for granted in the next. If they survive long enough, these relationships form an arc that evolves with us over time to reflect who we are as individuals and in the context of our communities.

So goes my relationship with social media.

To call it a love/hate kind of relationship would be inaccurate. Rather, I’d say the nuances are a bit more complicated, and certainly resembling characteristics of what it means to experience a kind of adolescence in a digital platform.

On one hand, I very much rely on social media to stay connected to my friends and family both locally and overseas. Even if I’m not in regular contact with many of them, it’s good to know that I can reach out to these people if I need to.  I’ve let a lot of email contacts wither into old tombstones in my contact list, while something like Facebook keeps not just a steady vigil, but a media rich shrine. I know that I’m not entirely comfortable with this, and yet I’m not sure what the best alternative is either. That’s the ‘other hand’, and one that I’m definitely uneasy with: social media can also be a playground for a strange new kind of voyeurism and exhibitionism.

There’s the allure to the relatively new phenomenon of what writer Clive Thompson describes as ‘ambient awareness’ – knowing what’s going in someone else’s life without actually engaging directly with them. So, you might have missed the weekend community BBQ, but don’t worry, thanks to a plethora of social media channels, you can experience it all with vast quantities of evidence strewn in great detail. The trouble is, the ‘detail’ often covers vast surface levels, rather than anything very thoughtful or deeply engaging. How many of us are increasingly living our lives this way? We’ve made room for these little portals in small increments, gradually engaging more and more with a variety of media and through social connections that would otherwise not have been possible. If we stand back and look at our digital behaviours from afar and compare them to what they were even five years ago, we can get a better sense of their impact.

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Once upon a story time

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Andrew Penny

story time

Do you remember story time on ‘the mat’ when you were a kid at school? I certainly have fond memories of the teacher telling stories, some from memory, but most often from a book. We all had our special places to sit and habitual behaviours that seemed to help with concentration as the story was being read. It was a time, usually in the afternoon before the home time bell went, when the whole class was relaxed and focussed on what the teacher was saying.

To be continued …

As a teacher, I too, continued with this tradition. At teachers college I learned about the benefits of reading to my students, but, at the time, I never really thought about the way this seemingly simple act of storytelling had such a positive effect on the students. Story time had the affect of unifying my class. Sitting together as one; quiet, listening, and with imaginations in full swing, watching the action unfold in front of the mind’s eye.

I enjoyed watching the students’ reactions out of the corner of my eye as I read crucial parts of the story. I remember the groan of disappointment as we finished a chapter that left us all hanging in suspense — to be continued the next day! And I was always impressed with what the students could recall about the story, even if we had had a break from it for a week or so. The story also created many opportunities for lively discussion that often promoted learning opportunities in several areas of the curriculum.

Several chapters later

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0800 267 301