Two free time tools that I use everyday

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My first job out of University was writing and performing comedy for a television show. On the whole it was as enjoyable as it sounds – mainly due to the people I worked with: Hori Ahipene, Lyndee-Jane Rutherford, Rawiri Paratene, Dave Fane, Dave Armstrong, Cal Wilson, Raybon Kan, Jemaine Clement, Oscar Kightley, Pip Hall, Paul Yates, Robbie Magasiva, Jackie Clarke etc. However, I don’t know if Rawiri Paratene forgave me for my excitement that he was the Play School presenter from my childhood when he is one of the best actors, writers and directors (amongst other impressive life achievements) in Aotearoa with an impressive resume for film, theatre and TV.

But what wasn’t fun was having to write up my invoice each week to account for my hours each day – what hours did I work on Monday? Did I leave early on Friday and come in on Saturday morning – or was that last week? I would look over my diary and try to work it out.

In my second life (post-children) I have worked as an Instructional Designer for over 15 years and like a lot of jobs I need to look at how I spend my time and how to make the best use of my time.

Below are two short videos of two free time tools I use every work day that help with accountability and productivity; and how I use these two time tools.

Yast

Kia ora – Ko Rochelle tōku ingoa. My name is Rochelle. I am going to talk you through how I use Yast. Shout out to my friend Ben who introduced me to this and which I have been using for over ten years ago. Also a disclaimer – I am going to show you how I use Yast and how I would show a friend.

This is not to say there are not other ways you could use it and this is just for the free version. You first of all need to create an account which is very simple – it just requires your email address. I won’t show you that in this video but I assure it is quick and simple.

I use Yast everyday – it is great if you are either a freelancer; or have several jobs or need to keep track of the time you spend on different aspects of your job.

You can create folders – or categories –  and have tasks within them. You can make it as detailed as you like. The best aspect of it it is it is really simple. You click on what you are working on and when you finish you click off it.

If you forget to click off it – you can adjust it. The other aspect I like is at the the end of the month – or whatever time period you choose you can select and see how you spent your time and report that to others.

So that’s how I use yast. I am sure there are other ways you can use it and as I say this is just the free version.

Pomodoro

Kia ora – Ko Rochelle tōku ingoa. My name is Rochelle. I am going to talk you through how I use Pomodoro.

I encountered the pomodoro method on Barbara Oakley’s Learning how to learn course. The science behind it is that humans tend to work best in chunks of time – 25 minutes and then to have a 5 minute break and carry on.

I work from home and it can be tragically easy to carry on working and it means you don’t allow your brain the possibility of the aha moments – you know the solutions you have when you stop and have a cup of tea or go and hang out the washing.

The other bonus is if you are feeling particularly uninspired about a task – you can say ‘only ten more minutes and I can have a break’ it helps you stay on task’.

This carries on for several hours and then it schedules a 15 minute longer break. And after this break – back to the 5 minute breaks. Now you can also pause both your working time or break time if you need to.

As you can see you can use other features – such as adding a to do list however I tend to use it in its simplest form and that is what suits me – I just like getting on with it.

Ngā mihi

Image credits:

Sunset Home Office by Viktor Hanacek on Picjumbo

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Four effective ways to learn virtually in real time

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uke playing
Photo of Uke n Duet. June (right) teaches her mokopuna via Skype)

Learning online has its advantages — access to experts who you couldn’t connect with face to face; no travel time etc; also, you may not be able to meet in person due to location or time constraints.

Below are four effective ways to learn virtually in real time that are used in my personal and professional life; usually on a daily basis:

1. Find an expert to teach you

Use real-time video technology to teach you using Skype, Facetime, Google Hangouts, Messenger etc

My mother started teaching my tama pōtiki/youngest son the ukulele when he was 6 years old (the musical gene skipped a generation). He is now 10, and they practice three times a week — before school from 8.00 – 8.20am — nothing unusual apart from that he lives in a small North Canterbury town and she lives in Nelson. They do this by using Skype or Facetime.

However, it is important to set yourself up to succeed. Having several sessions face to face before you begin (if possible) can be really beneficial. This is what my mother and my son did for her teaching him the ukulele.

2. Find your tribe

I love going to exercise classes because I push myself harder when others are around, and it also gives me a set time to focus on this. This can also be the case with learning something new.

virtual meeting

One of the most popular parts of the Te Reo Māori online course — Puāwai (Beginners) — are the weekly webinars (using real-time video conferencing technology — in this case, Zoom). It is an opportunity to learn in a supportive environment with others who are the same level as you, and also, often have similar learning goals (teachers wishing to use more Te reo Māori in their classrooms and at home, improved pronunciation).

Whakataukī (proverb) Ki te kotahi te kakaho ka whati, Ki te kapuia e kore e whati
— (Alone we can be broken. Standing together, we are invincible).

3. Work together

My colleagues and I talk every day and work on documents and mahi at the same time — although we are based all over New Zealand.

The video example below is of my colleagues and I using Padlet (online cloud-based software) to brainstorm. However, we also do this with Google Docs, Sheets, etc.

4. Ask for help and teach others

You can ask for help — and show the person you are asking exactly where you are stuck by screen sharing on your chosen video technology.

I have been training a colleague in Wellington by this technique (cheaper, quicker, and easier than flying to her). My team and I also screen share to clarify work or to assist each other at some stage every week.

The video example below is of my colleague screen sharing and showing me which code to change.

So, could you:

1) Find an expert to teach you?
Is there someone who could share their knowledge with you, your family — or your classroom? (for example, is there a grandparent who could share their expertise?)

2) Find your tribe?
Is there an online course that appeals such as Te Reo Māori online courses — Puāwai (Beginners)? Could you and some colleagues and friends organise to study together?

3) Work together?
Do you use padlet or Google docs to collaboratively work together? These can be helpful both for teams that work virtually or in the same physical space. It also means notes can be easily shared and not stuck on a whiteboard or in someone’s notebook — plus the cloud-based options automatically update and you know that you are on the latest update (unlike with WORD).

4) Ask for help and teach others
Try using screen sharing (on Skype, Facetime, Google hangouts etc) if you would like advice from a colleague or friend but they are not physically close by. Or can you assist?

 

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boys in education

Let’s hear it for the boys — engaging boys at school and home

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the ways boys learn

Growing up, I was surrounded by Girls can do anything stickers (bright yellow with pink writing) to encourage and motivate me at school and to do as well as males. Times have changed — when I went to University, over twenty-five years ago, females already accounted for over 60% of the students in the Marketing Department and in my year the honours class was 80% female.

Now, as the mother of two tama, I want to start the conversation — sharing stories and resources of how teachers and whānau can support and engage boys at school and at home, to be all that they want to be.

How can we make sure all our tamariki fulfil their potential?

Anaru White (a teacher for many years, and now a CORE Education facilitator) and I have started this ongoing discussion and asked for ideas from colleagues (Jo Robson and others) as well as on Twitter.

Podcast: Let’s Hear It For The Boys — encouraging boys to succeed at home and school

[showhide more_text=”Show transcript of podcast” less_text=”Hide transcript”]

Let’s hear it for the boys — engaging boys at school and home – Anaru and Rochelle

Anaru: Kia ora tatoa! My name is Anaru White. I work for CORE Education, and I’m here with Rochelle Savage, who also works for CORE. Kia ora Rochelle.

Rochelle: Kia ora Anaru.
So, today, we decided to discuss how teachers and parents can teach and support and encourage boys at school. And, my perspective is mainly that of a parent, and your’s, Anaru is someone who has worked as a teacher and also who works as an educator.

So, when you were teaching, or working with teachers in school, what do you think works to encourage and support boys?

Anaru: Well, Rochelle, I think that one of the most important aspects is finding what motivates students. And, probably, one of the best place to start is about those relationships with your students, and in this case, obviously with boys in the classroom. And not just in the classroom, but also outside of the classroom as well. And, for me, those relationships, they need to be genuine; it’s about finding those genuine interests that boys have. And that’s just taking the time, to listen to them, to be patient with them. And also, just creating those opportunities to be able to form those relationships, and for me, it’s especially those opportunities, the ones that empower them for them to show what their interests are for them to really grab something, and take the lead as well. And, there’s also there’s been a bit of talk about boys needing boundaries, and yeah, I kinda get that as well, but I bring that up as a bit of challenge for us, Rochelle, as we talk about boys in this podcast and podcasts to come, and, also, those out there as well around those boundaries that boys need, or perhaps don’t need as well within the classroom.

Rochelle: Excellent! I just wanted to expand upon what you were saying with regards to genuine interest. It’s something that in my observation as a parent is that I’m really impressed with my children’s teachers when they suggest challenges to them, and give them enough time for them to rise to the occasion, which has been great in terms of— one son’s teacher had asked him to be an MC for the talent competition. And, he really liked the idea. She gave him enough time — he decided to write his own links, what he was going to say, and he practiced them —, and he loved it. And I just applauded her because it came from her observation of him, and it also enabled him to embrace a challenge. Another example, in terms of a lot of boys that I’ve seen, is presenting in assembly. Like, something that is fantastic nowadays at school is that children present at assembly from 5-years of age, and there’s the two of them together, like there’s notices from people, introducing songs — all of those aspects, and the girls do a brilliant job, but my goodness, the boys, I have just seen them shine in a way that I don’t often see in other aspects of schooling. And, they often have people in the palm of their hands. Like, it’s just wonderful to see. The challenge is that we don’t want to generalise about all males or all boys or all girls, but, a lot of boys seem to, when they’re given the opportunity really are great orators.

Another example is, my tama’s teacher has introduced inquiry projects that the student chooses the topic and the boys have just excelled at that. They’ve just absolutely embraced it. And, the other week at assembly I saw three boys getting awards for their assignments, and they were things like Minecraft, they were soccer stars, they were Ford cars, they were things that interested them —

Anaru: “Yes, tapping into those interests”

Rochelle: Absolutely. And sometimes also, you can suggest them (as a parent) to the teacher. Another example is that my son’s in a rural school, so they’ve got what would classically be intermediate as part of the school, and so, when they go off to Technology, he’s left in his years 6–8 class, and the teacher has set them projects to work on. And one project that she set was working on a Jurassic Park idea, which involved him and another boy basically creating this park (Jurassic). So, they had a set amount of money, and they had to buy these dinosaurs. And he showed it to me, and said, “Mum, I’m going to bring it home!” And looked — What are you going to spend on dinosaurs? What are you going to spend on amusements? What are you going to spend on kai? How are you going to set it all out? And he talked all the way home, when we were walking home, and just talked non-stop about it — and that’s quite unusual for him. Like, normally, with him, it’s the classic trying to get him to talk about his day. Every single Thursday when he did this, he would just talk non-stop about it. And he was keen to bring stuff home from school. And, again, that’s the teacher thinking, What might inspire, what might interest, what might connect? And again, it comes back to those relationships and knowing that interest.

Anaru: Exactly. And willing to take risks is a big thing, I believe as well.

So, Rochelle, the supporting of boys by knowing them is also important by parents as well?

Rochelle: Absolutely. For me, it is a balance in life, but it is also trying to walk the talk, isn’t it, in terms of, it’s not just saying, “How was football?”, it’s, if you can, going along to football. This weekend was a classic example of — we had my oldest son’s football game; we ended up having an adults vs the children — or me and the dads — as I like to say it. But, I know that he enjoyed me giving it a go and me being on the team, and being actively involved in things that matter to them. So, we go and shoot hoops, and we go and kick a soccer ball, and sport is something that I do enjoy, but I’m not particularly great at hoops, I’m not particularly great at things, but it’s giving it a go. Or, something we’ve also been doing recently, is playing an online game together. And I’m not particularly good at it, and I don’t particularly enjoy — I’ve never been a gamer, and it’s not particularly my thing, but my children love it, and, actually, what I do is, I build up my army, and get my youngest tama to do my battles for me, because he’s really good at it and he enjoys it. But it also opens up those discussions about —

Anaru: Dialogue.

Rochelle: Yeah, exactly. So, it’s something we’ve got in common. So, at the moment, apparently their friends think it’s quite cool that I’m doing it. I’m just waiting for when that changes, but at the moment that’s a good thing…

Anaru: …Roll with it.

Rochelle: And also it means that we can have those discussions in a natural way about safety, because, what it is, it’s a very small local group, which, a local man who’s a grandad set up, and the only people that can be in the group are if you know someone. So, it’s all children my children’s age, a little bit older, it’s some of the parents whose children are playing. And we talk about why you don’t let anyone else in. I said, you know, If someone came to our door, and knocked on our door, would you just let them in without asking questions, and, if you didn’t know them, would you let them come and sit in our kitchen? And they were like, Well, probably not. And, I said, It’s the same thing.

So, if you can actually find … I guess, it’s trying to find things, even if they’re not your things, interests, and engage with them, because they are then more likely to engage with you on things that you want them to engage in as well.

Anaru: Exactly.

Rochelle: So, what else, Anaru, works well to support boys at school do you think?

Anaru: Well, probably building on what you’ve just said, Rochelle, and also, I suppose, in the unique and also grateful position that I have to, as a former teacher, working alongside schools and obviously boys themselves, is the importance of relationships, taking those risks, looking at those opportunities, and being genuine, but also, what falls out of that are those authentic learning contexts, which you’ve just talked about as well. And from there, when boys see the purpose, and see the Why?, from there they will be able to get engaged and to be motivated. And I think that self-motivation is a big thing as well. And from there comes all that kind of discovery and sense of purpose and achievement as well.

And another thing that I really like to talk about is the whole idea around silence. To me, silence is golden, and when a boy is asked a question — or, when a male is asked a question — and, again, we can fall into generalisations here, but a lot of the time I know from my experience, there’s a bit of a process when there’s science, and that process is important, because it is a cognitive process, and what’s happening as well. And it’s also a good idea when you have those discussions and have those dialogues in your classroom or learning situation, Who is doing the talking the most? Where does the balance lie within the classroom? Teacher talking vs the students talking, etc. Likewise in group work. And, I think, Rochelle, I think it’s one of the things that you are going to talk now about the kind of work that Celia Lashlie has done…

Rochelle: Āe! I think you raise a really good point where something I’m trying hard in all aspects of my life is to have those gaps. I think, it is again a broad generalisation, and I don’t want to – not all women – but, I think a lot of women work things out by discussing them, while men sometimes can do that, but they’ll often go away and have a think and then come back to it. And some practical suggestions that Celia Lashlie’s book, “He’ll be Okay — Growing Gorgeous Boys into Good Men”, which a lot of parents I know of boys have bought and read, and I highly recommended it if you haven’t read — I’ve re-read it again recently, and she’s just got some great practical suggestions. One of them is, like what you’re saying, If you ask your son a question, she suggests, preferably when driving or doing an activity, and one thing is, just wait for the answer as long as it takes.

Anaru: Wait time.

Rochelle: Absolutely. And, I think her example in the book is: she sort of said to her son, “What’s your favourite fruit?” And, she thought he hadn’t heard the question, and it was like, to her, this crazy length of time, and she desperately wanted to jump in, and say, “Is it apple? Is it banana?” — offer suggestions. And I think, as women, we need to pause and allow them to have the time, as long as it takes. And, in the end, her son said (I think it was), “Pineapple”. And that’s the thing I’ve noticed with my tama, when you’re driving along, and if you do ask a question, sometimes, just also wait and wait and wait, and if you’re patient, they’ll answer.

The other really practical advice she gives for parents is, to talk about the day at night. And she was saying, for whatever reason, boys often don’t love that whole let’s sit down face-to-face and have a big discussion. Like, that’s not a thing that’s just not a good time if you’re a boy. However, at the end of the day, and it’s all dark, and this is something that I try and do usually nightly — it doesn’t always happen, but I try really hard to make it happen — where, turn the light out and we lie in the dark, and we talk about their day. And sometimes it’s prompted where I sort of say, Tell me something really interesting about what happened? Was there anything bad, or frustrating, or annoying, or something you want to talk about? And we also do, Is there anything else? And, something I also love is that my sons also ask me about my day, which is just really nice. It’s a lovely healthy relationship thing. But the best thing about that is that I actually find out more in those five or ten minutes at the end of the day than I do at the whole rest of the day. And I find out the really crucial stuff: Who did they play with at lunch time? Was there a lunchtime that they actually spent by themselves. I found out about the emotional health of my children, and really, that’s what parents want to know. I think that most parents are much more interested in, How is my child feeling than, how is my child doing academically at school. So, that’s such a great practical suggestion.

And, I know that you’ve read the book. What practical suggestions for parents or for teachers did you like?

Anaru: Well, it’s exactly that: the book was really practical. And, I guess that it comes from Celia’s background. And, within the book, she talks about the different stages that boys go through, as well, and also what to expect at these stages. They’re just common behaviours etc. And, also, she relates it back to stories with her son, but also reacting with some other males and boys obviously from her prison background working within prisons and the stories from there. And also, part of the project that she did with a number of boys’ schools up and down New Zealand as well, which is good, because it’s obviously targeted, which is what we’re talking about here, and it’s also New Zealand-based as well. It’s also good to have those New Zealand stories as well, that we can relate to.

Rochelle, any other suggestions?

Rochelle: I’ve thought a lot about why girls often excel above boys at school — and, again, not all girls, but this is an observation of mine on how can we better support boys at school. As we’ve discussed, there’s not a simple answer, and for this podcast, our key aim is, opening up the discussion, providing resources we’ve found helpful, asking those out there, What are some other resources, and people have very kindly shared some of their thoughts and their resources. For me, I think, a critical aspect is trying to encourage a love of reading.

Anaru: Yes.

Rochelle: Something else that has worked, and I’ll put a link also below this podcast, to something I’ve written previously, in a blog with regards to — how do you do that? How do you encourage a love of reading? And the latest things that are working really well, particularly for my tama potiki, he is really enjoying audio books. He enjoys reading, and he’s now getting into Harry Potter, and books like that, but really, he sometimes just wants a break from actually reading. But, it’s that love of stories, and it does so much, I think, academically. And this is something that we can do. And it’s hard; it’s not always for a lot of parents who say, I’m trying, I’m trying!. But, I guess, the main thing is, don’t give up; just keep on trying. And, parents and I share authors that our sons love. I go into bookshops and tell them, this is what my son’s like, this is his age, what do you recommend? For me, this is something that can help academically, and also, it’s a lot of fun, to have a love of reading.
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Join the conversation

Anaru and I would like to continue gathering ideas on how parents and teachers can continue to support boys to fulfil their potential. If you have a resource or a story to share – or an issue you would like us to explore — please leave a comment below or tweet us: @rsavagenz or @anaruwhite. Or, join the conversation on #BoysInEducation.

 

Some resources:

Book: http://www.celialashlie.co.nz/boys-work
Blog: https://eduwells.com/2016/03/19/helping-boys-learn/
Audio interview: Parenting with Joseph Driessen — girls vs boys
Blog: 11 Ways to grow great readers: A parent’s perspective

 

Image: boys playing on Kaikoura beach — by the author.

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virtual meetings

Top tips for working in a virtual team

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Every day I ask my colleague Lachie, ‘Kei te pēhea koe?’ and he usually answers, ‘Kei te pai’ before we begin work together. Nothing unusual — apart from that he is in the North Island and I am in the South Island. We have a weekly meeting with our boss, nothing unusual apart from the fact that she is in Wellington and we are throughout New Zealand: Whakatāne, Picton, Christchurch, Dunedin.

The team I work with at CORE Education — The Learning Experience team, who work with content experts to create online courses — are spread throughout New Zealand — Whakatāne, Picton, Wellington, Amberley, and Christchurch.

Lisa Richardson and I discuss our five top tips for working in a virtual team in a podcast. These tips are:

  1. Make sure you have the right (digital) tools in order for your team to be able to work together
  2. Making sure you have team protocols in place.
  3. Have good induction processes + meet face-to-face when you can
  4. Schedule in fun (virtual coffee)
  5. Technology fails — have a plan B.

[showhide more_text=”Show transcript of podcast” less_text=”Hide transcript”]

Top tips for working in a virtual team – Lisa and Rochelle

“There are days when I feel like, we are The Jetsons.”

“It sounds like a little thing, but it’s actually really invaluable.”

“Schedule in fun!”

“The magic thing about that is it’s the ability to all be in the same document writing at the same time.”

You’re listening to a CORE Education Podcast. Pushing the boundaries of educational possibility.

 

Rochelle: Kia ora koutou katoa, ko Rochelle Savage tōku ingoa.

Hello everyone, I’m Rochelle Savage, and with me today is Lisa Richardson, and we’re from CORE Education. Today our presentation is on Top Tips for Working in a Virtual Team, which is what we do, day after day.

Lisa: So, working remotely is not by any means a new concept, but because we’re able to work so collaboratively these days over the internet, there are days when I feel like, we are The Jetsons.

And we work together daily, yet we’re spread across the country, and most of us work from home.

Rochelle: So, how do we do it? Well, the important thing is, is to have the right tools. And as Lisa said, it’s the kind of situation we couldn’t have imagined, possibly, sort of five, definitely ten, fifteen years ago. As I often say to my children, my job didn’t exist when I left University, it didn’t even necessarily exist ten or fifteen years ago.

Lisa and I are part of the learning experience team at CORE Education, and we work with internal and external content experts to create online courses. Predominantly using the learning management system in Moodle. And we’re spread throughout the country, but what we do is we work on, often, the same documents.

And so, first of all, here are some of the tools we use to help us. One of them is a shared calendar. We have a shared calendar for leave, and knowing when people are taking leave, but we also can see each other’s calendars. We use Gmail, and so I’m able to sort of go in to a colleague’s calendar, see when’s a good time to book in an appointment, see when they’re busy, see if I can call them.

Skype — Skype is something that actually I use, almost, all day long. I often work with a colleague up in Whangarei, and what we do is when we’re working on a course, we will call each other, and then we’ll keep the line open, and when we’re working on a course we’re often working on separate paths of the course, but we’re able to ask each other questions, advice, talk to each other, and when we started out we used to have the video on, and we would see each other in Chat, but because of bandwidth and just to save on internet, what we’ll do is we’ll just have it without the video on, and just have the audio on.

We also use Hangouts as well, as another option. And the thing I also love about Skype is when you’re working together, you can very quickly drop links of documents you’re working on into Skype and the other person can click on them, and I often do that, but we all do that if we’re feeling a bit lazy with “have you got that up? Great — just pop it in there, thanks.”

Jostle is another is another thing we use which is an internal work system where we actually get to see what other people are doing, and it’s really helpful for staying in touch as our company is spread throughout New Zealand.

And the learning management system we use, well, one of them, is Moodle. And that’s where we build most of our online courses.

Lisa: So CORE uses Google Apps for Business rather than Microsoft, although we do have people who work in Microsoft, but the backbone of CORE and how we work collaboratively is with the Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. And for us, the magic thing about that is, it’s the ability to all be in the same document, writing at the same time. And also to be able to see who’s cursor is who’s — it sounds like a little thing but it’s actually really invaluable. So we can be in a meeting, if you click on the person’s little icon, you can actually immediately be taken to where their cursor is, if they’re saying “hey, look at this”, or “this bit’s wrong”, or “I need some help here”. And it’s also quite trippy to watch five people concurrently typing in a document and creating it before your very eyes while you’re sitting there by yourself. So that’s pretty cool. It’s also free, which is, and built to be able to be used from anywhere really, so I’ve never not been able to get into Google Docs, which is great, even on the crappiest internet.

We also use a couple of other things. So we use a lot of audio and video in our courses. So for audio we mostly use SoundCloud, and we use this both for podcasts, but also for our language learning courses that CORE runs, and we can embed them into our courses.

YouTube, obviously, along with the rest of the world – it’s a great platform. We can embed those directly into our courses as well. We, ah, sometimes document as a team if we’ve done something really cool, we might actually make a little YouTube, private YouTube video of that, in terms of a little professional development about how to do a particular thing.

Adobe Connect online webinar software that CORE uses, which is, we’re running a course and the participants will come together. They’ll come together in Adobe Connect in their online space. They’ll have their video on, and ask questions, and give presentations and so it’s emulating that live classroom through the use of Adobe Connect.

 Rochelle: So if Top Tip One is make sure you have the right tools that you use, in order for your team to be able to work together, such as we discussed: shared calendars, Google Docs…Top Tip Two, for a virtual team, is making sure you have team protocols in place.

Like in a face-to-face team, it’s really important to have your own particular protocols. So a Top Tip is, what are those protocols, and to make sure everyone who is inducted knows them. When we want to contact each other, what we’ll often do is a series of steps.

So first of all, most of us have Skype open all day. So first of all type “kia ora”, or “hello”, or something in there, “morning”, and the other person knows that you want to get in touch with them, and then when they reply, you will call them. If they don’t respond, and often most of us will respond reasonably promptly, or say “I’m in a meeting”, or “I’m busy”, or “Talk to you in an hour”, and it’s pretty urgent, which isn’t that often, then you escalate it up, so you might email them and say “we need to meet about such-and-such”, and if you get no response from that then you escalate it up, and you’ll text them, and if you get no response from that, then you’ll call them. Those are the, sort of, the series of stages. That’s pretty much the case, isn’t it Lisa?

And we all follow that, and it’s really good because then you know you’re not interrupting someone, and it’s also because we do work remotely. There’s nothing more frustrating, I find, is when I’m right in the middle of something quite complicated, particularly technically, and I get an unexpected phone call that isn’t urgent. We’re very conscious of not invading other people’s spaces unnecessarily because if you’re in an office, you can look across and I can see Lisa, that, you were right in the middle of something and you had your headphones on, and you were, you know, frowning intently and concentrating hard — I wouldn’t come up and sort of shake you and go “Lisa!”

But because I can’t see you, because you’re working somewhere else away from me, then I want to make sure it’s important that I interrupt you and I do it in the correct way.

Lisa: So, so far we’ve been talking about the digital tools that we use, but when you are a remote worker it’s really important to meet face-to-face when you can, and this is so you can establish that human connection. So in our team we honour this by making sure that when someone joins CORE they have a really good induction — so they’ll be flown to Christchurch and take part in a really comprehensive day of meeting people and meeting their team, understanding the company, understanding how, I guess, what the culture of CORE is like and they take a lot of pride in that.

For us, we also use things like conferences as key events to meet up. So we’ll all go to the conference, and the last conference we went to we actually hired a house together instead of staying in a motel or a hotel, and it was really awesome that we got to spend that additional time together, have a few blazey conversations around the dinner table, or over coffee in the morning before we went to the conference. For us, that time together, it gets really exciting, you know, to actually see people in the flesh.

Rochelle: One of the things that we talked about before was that, um, where you Skype on a daily basis , and with Skype, obviously you have the opportunity to use video, and even though we mainly where we’re working together — don’t turn the video on anymore, we still do on special occasions, or if we just want to say hello, or, I had dyed my hair blue once, true story, so I showed everyone that day, and, one of the things that is really nice about the video is that you get to see insights into people’s lives. Like, we’ve all seen each other’s home offices, and houses, and we get to see at times each other’s partners, and I mean, for one of my colleagues, um, when I met his wife, I was, “Oh hi, how’s it going?”, and then I realised I hadn’t actually met her in person — I’ve met her via Skype maybe fifteen, sixteen times, so in my head we’ve met, but we hadn’t, and we’ve had conversations and that, but we actually hadn’t met in person.

So as long as the right culture is in place, you, you actually could be an even tighter team that a traditional team that works in an office, and I, I actually think this is true. Where I’ve worked in offices before and you can be right beside someone and you just get on with your day. And you go to your office, you say “hello”, and you might chat a bit at morning tea, but it doesn’t get that in depth but I would say, for most of us who work together, we know about the right amount of each other’s lives, and families, and what’s going on, and that’s really nice, and I think, also, it’s really important to have that, because it can actually be quite lonely.

I think one of the things about a virtual team, a Top Tip, is find a way to combat loneliness, because for myself, in my own situation, my children are at school, my husband is at work, and I’m in my home office, working away by myself, and it’s actually only those Skype calls and the other team that often can be part of what I’m doing, or otherwise I’m just tapping away, working away, for sort of six, eight hours by myself. It is important to, to do that. So another message is to have fun. And connected to combat loneliness, and another Top Tip, having fun, Lisa came up with a fantastic idea. She suggested where, normally, when you’re in an office and you bump into someone, and you have what you call, you know, those water cooler conversations, or you have morning tea, or you go out for coffee, and we don’t do that, we just tend to carry on working, so she suggested that, twice a week – at the moment it’s Monday and Thursday morning from nine till nine-fifteen – we meet as a team, virtually online, and we discuss a really interesting question, and she’s put that to us. And there’s been some hilarious ones. Like, one of them was, recently, was “Have you ever fantasised about having a name other than the one you were given” and so we all discuss this, and it was great, because we all found out things about each other, that, you just wouldn’t normally know. And also I then discussed it with my family at the dinner table, and it was great, and I think that, it’s really, really important is that you don’t just constantly talk about work. It can be very easy in a — people joke about virtual teams, like, “oh, how do you get any work done at home?”. And I would actually say the opposite is true. I would say it’s very easy to just carry on working and just to be very efficient, and not sort of stop and chat, and so, it is very important schedule in…schedule in fun!

Lisa: One of the final tips is that the technology fails all the time. As much as we like to think it’s, you know, that our world is now built on it, it does fall over quite often. We always have a plan B, and because technology and deadlines are really not friends, they’re kind of frenemies really, and we will combat this by, uh, we actually build in false deadlines, before the actual deadline, when something is due to go live or to be completed, just to give us some wiggle room in case there is a problem with technology. The most frustrating thing we find is actually when Skype doesn’t work. Ninety percent of the time it’s amazing, it’s—it’s great, it’s the backbone of how we work, but when we have a bad Skype line and we’re trying to have a meeting with five people, which happens a lot, and it’s not working, it is the most frustrating experience. In that case we will either move to Hangouts, or if that isn’t working we’ll phone in, go back to the old mobile, just in order to get that meeting done, if it’s — or we’ll just say “Hey it’s not working, let’s just reschedule”.

Rochelle: So, Tēnā rawa atu koutou, many thanks everyone. We hope that we have given you some insight into how we work as a virtual team. Give you some ideas of how you might work, if you are a virtual team, or would like to be a virtual team.

You’ve been listening to a CORE Education podcast. Pushing the boundaries of educational possibility.

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Bringing your child to the parent-teacher interview

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The changes in teaching and schools can take some adjusting for parents, as it is a different from what they experienced at school. Anaru White discusses with Rochelle Savage her experience of taking her children to the parent teacher interviews last year after the school had invited everyone to do so.

Listen to podcast: Bringing your child to the parent-teacher interview (opens in new window)

Have you, as a parent, taken your child to a parent teacher interview? What was your experience? Have you experienced this as a teacher? What are the pros and cons from your perspective? I welcome your comments.

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