Post quake thoughts – a new reality for the EC world in Christchurch

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Damage to ECE centres in Christchurch earthquake

As progress is being made with re-establishing the early childhood services in Christchurch, it is becoming increasingly evident that nothing is going to be the same as it was pre-quake.

I have done a lot of talking and listening in the past couple of weeks—friends and family, teachers across sectors, Ministry of Education (MoE), managers, and EC leaders. What is emerging is that each group is now faced with unexpected dilemmas when it comes to thinking about early childhood care and education.

Recovery decisions in order to get EC services running again

Everyone is resigned to the understanding that rebuilding and repairing the city’s infrastructure is going to be a long-term project. While this recovery begins, decisions have been made around getting schools and EC services up and running. The MoE is supporting the education sector by promoting guiding Principles of Recovery From Traumatic Incidents, namely:

  • Normality
  • Communication
  • Inclusion
  • Consultation.

While these principles offer an admirable vision, I am troubled about whether the sector has the capability to realise these goals when people in the sector are working in such complex and pressured circumstances, both personally and professionally.

Some of the dilemmas being confronted by early childhood services

We are entering a new and uncertain environment. How will EC services continue to meet the changing needs of their communities? The following are just some of the dilemmas that the Christchurch EC community is facing:

  • Many families with young children have left the city. Whether they return or not is largely unknown.
  • Families have been displaced, and now live in different locations—their support networks have been interrupted, and they are no longer in easy access or proximity to their regular EC service.
  • EC staff are returning to work at the same time as juggling their personal childcare, travel, and housing dilemmas.
  • Many EC centres have not opened yet. Parents returning to work are under increased stress as they are desperate for an EC placement.
  • Emotions are very fragile, particularly as parents, who don’t really want to be parted from their children, drop their children off in EC services.
  • Workplaces have been relocated so that the choice of EC placement may no longer be situated in the most favourable location.
  • On the road, travel time has doubled—trebled—meaning, parents will face increasing stress when dropping off and picking up their children.
  • Affected secondary schools have reformed with schools sharing sites; this can result in one group in school between 7.30am–12.30pm, and the other from 12.45pm–6.00pm. Secondary teachers with EC children will face problems finding EC placements to suit their new working situation.

These dilemmas have very real implications for EC services.

Transitioning and financial management issues

Two of the big questions that I have been thinking about are:

  1. What does it mean for children and families transitioning to different centres? And,
  2. What are the implications for financial management of services?

Transitions: is there the support needed?

What about transitions?

How are children and families being supported to make the types of transitions that they now face, particularly as these are happening out of necessity not choice? Displaced children will be popping up in EC services throughout the country—are these services prepared to support not only the changes transitioning involves but also the emotional needs of the children and families?

Financial management: are new situations being catered for?

What about financial management?

Pre-quake, many EC services had made financially-driven decisions around their operations to cope with the 80% qualified staffing cap. Some had reduced their operational hours; others had implemented policies where attendance-options were limited to 6 hours per day or more (no less). These decisions are now going to conflict with the needs of families. Who is going to cater for secondary teachers (and possibly others) working half-days, beginning work at 7.00am, or finishing at 5.30pm? And what about the cost of additional travel-time for parents with children in EC? In my own case my daily travel to the workplace has increased by 1.5 hours per day.

Comments please!

I would love to hear the thoughts of others. Maybe there are some innovative ideas floating around out there— your thinking could really assist to overcome the new medical condition of ‘quake brain’ we here in Christchurch are suffering from.

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Towards a temporary virtual solution for schooling in Canterbury

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Shakeupschool wiki

Further to Derek Wenmoth’s earlier post about the desperate plight of schools in the Canterbury region following the earthquake, educators throughout New Zealand have swung into action to provide some temporary support to students, families, and schools.

Response to a plea for resources for students

A plea from GCSN project director, Carol Moffatt to put together some resources for students who currently do not have a school to attend, or who have left Christchurch to find some temporary accommodation away from the stress of the continuing aftershocks, has led to the development of the Shakeup School Wiki.

CORE Education facilitators quickly put together the skeleton of a wiki, and tapped into their networks of teachers, facilitators and other educators to populate the site.

The response has been overwhelming, and shows how “many hands make light work”, and “many heads are better than one”—the benefit of ‘crowd-sourcing’!

The place technology has played in this disaster response

As well as the impact of the people, the use of technology has also enabled very fast and very far-reaching support to take place. Whereas in the Napier Earthquake, people donated books to help refurbish local school libraries, in Christchurch, people from all around New Zealand, and probably beyond, have created a rapidly increasing resource through providing links to their regularly used sites.

They have also begun to plan units of inquiry or opened up their own school websites and LMS systems for others to use. Secondary schools, whose servers with all their courses are still out of action, are able to join with other secondaries to utilise their course work for students.

Language resource example
Example of Language resource

Maths resource example
Example of Maths resource

Need for future reflection

This response to emergency-need should later be reflected upon by all schools to really capitalise the opportunities that e-learning can provide for our students. This is their world, and increasingly will be the way they will work.

If 24 hours can create this type of resource, imagine what is possible given due time and our best educators’ input.

Want to view or contribute?

To view or contribute to the wiki visit http://shakeupschool.wikispaces.com/

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A blended way forward: Response to the earthquake and Christchurch schools

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Many schools are likely to be closed for some time following the Christchurch earthquake on 22 February 2011. At the present time 18 schools have been identified as having serious problems, representing more than 10,000 students. Dozens of other schools are also affected, but to a lesser extent.

St. Andrews College after the Christchurch Earthquake 22 Feb 2011

Finding a solution is complicated because of a range of issues, including:

  • There are a number of schools that will not be able to open in the foreseeable future, meaning those students will require alternative accommodation.
  • A large number of students have already fled Christchurch with their families, some are enrolling in schools in other parts of New Zealand, and others are simply not attending school at this stage.
  • Some parents are experiencing anxiety about their children attending school in the short term for fear of being separated in the event of another quake. Others are desperately keen for their children to be able to attend school because of the childcare role it plays, so they can return to work.
  • Teachers also are impacted, with many having left Christchurch in the wake of the quake, and are therefore not likely to be able or want to return to work in the immediate future.
  • Access to electricity and internet is a problem in some areas, so online programmes may be a part of the answer, but not entirely.

Thus, the solution will need to be creative, flexible and offer a sustainable way forward. This will take some serious thinking and coordination. A blended approach must be considered.

We have some excellent pockets of innovation in New Zealand in terms of what is being done within the school sector with distance education and online learning. CORE Education is working with others in the Greater Christchurch Schools Network (GCSN) to explore a blended solution that may bring together the strengths of…

  • Te Kura, with its track record of providing correspondence materials
  • The Virtual Learning Network (VLN), with their extensive experience in providing online education via combinations of synchronous and asynchronous tools
  • National and international online projects
  • International online education programmes from Australia and Canada
  • Online resources and curriculum in WikiEducator
  • Ministry of Education funded online support programmes such as wickEd and StudyIT
  • Local teachers with specialist knowledge and expertise
  • The national network of teachers who have skills and knowledge in this area, who may be able to contribute in a range of ways.

The Ministry of Education is, understandably, taking a considered approach, as they ascertain the exact nature of the problem, numbers involved etc. Whatever they decide to do, we want to be prepared so that there are a range of options available to those affected, and that these options may be presented in such a way that they might provide opportunities for a continued ‘blended service approach’ beyond when the immediate concerns of solving the issue of access to learning for the displaced students (and staff) have been addressed.

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Feel the fear – and do it anyway

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If Hillary had concentrated only on glacial ravines, would he have ‘knocked the bastard off’?’ Would Armstrong have taken his great leap if he had worried about his oxygen failing?

And can schools embrace the learning opportunities presented by the web, by ultra-fast broadband, if they focus only on cybersafety?

Sir Edmund Hillary, Neil Armstrong

Is preventing access the way to go?

We’re only a few weeks into the new school year, but there has been a slew of stories in the media about cybersafety – sexting, Facebook bullying and the like  – and we see the inevitable banning of technological access as a result.  A recent talk I gave at a local college to launch their e-learning professional learning for the year, saw excitement among staff but also concern about student safety and online bullying. A 2010 report, commissioned by the Ministry of Education, reminded us that “Preventing access in schools to mobile technologies or firewalling some sites does not teach effective and critical uses of these technologies that students have ready access to outside of school” (Wright, 2010)

Despite all the potential and promise that technology might offer to educators, to what extent do we still have a deficit model of technology?

The New Zealand Curriculum points the way—but through what lens do you read it?

NZ Curriculum

The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) advocates for e-learning as a way to “open up new and different ways of learning” (e-learning and pedagogy, NZC). And yet, for many schools, it is the very ‘opening up’ that is so challenging. School leaders understandably have to balance the opportunities for learners presented by, for example, Web 2.0 technology, with managing parental expectation and the duty to keep students safe.

Perhaps a marriage of the Key Competencies and digital citizenship might offer a potential pathway through the minefield. The NZC is littered with phrases that clearly align to the potential of e-learning; for example, the “active seekers, users, and creators of knowledge” (Vision statement, NZC) should arguably be “confident and capable user[s] of ICT” (myLGP: Learn, Guide, Protect – Netsafe) in order to create and seek knowledge for themselves.

Most importantly, the Key Competencies of managing self, relating to others, and participating and contributing clearly align to the importance of students becoming confident in the way they manage challenges online, in the way to they relate to, and communicate with, others in cyberspace.

Looking for opportunities while managing risk—not prohibition—the key to developing integrity and responsibility

Embracing the teachable moment, managing risk rather than banning access, and looking to the opportunities rather than the dangers are approaches far more likely to foster students’ integrity and responsibility. Especially when they will inevitably have to face cyber challenges without adult supervision.

Like Hillary and Armstrong, perhaps those schools that interpret the NZC through the lens of digital citizenship have found a way to navigate the possible risks and dangers while maintaining their focus on a greater goal – that of students being able to fully participate in the digital world.

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The merits of the professional punt – the iPad in learning

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The use of Apple’s iPad in learning environments is a topic that is already eating column inches. Yet pinning down why something new might be worth testing or investing in is often difficult.

Use of iPad in learning

So it is with much anticipation that I watch two groups of teachers pushing the boat out.

iPad tests by BLENNZ excites

Firstly in Wellington, two teachers from the Blind and Low Vision Education Network NZ (BLENNZ) have begun to document the use of an iPad with students who have low vision. They are at the “toes in the water” stage and have only facilitated taster sessions (the iPads are personally owned by the teachers) but the initial footage is raising enough excitement that the documentation was shared across the whole school. From chatting to the teachers, it is one of those scenario’s that when you know the student, and you see the level of attention and engagement, it makes your heart sing.

iPad research in literacy skills

At the other end of the country, the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the the Blind (RNZFB) is in the initial stages of a partnership project with BLENNZ where they are purchasing four iPads as a resource for an action research project around access to literacy skills. Again it’s a punt, the technology is relatively new, and there is no research base from which to draw evidence with any longevity.

But just as Toni Twiss committed her eFellowship to investigating “the use of mobile phones in classrooms“, someone has to break the ground, and the more that do, the more variables we can bring together.

iPad suited to the school environment

The iPad is a big step forward to the school environment

My own first impression on handling an iPad is that it is sleek, light and will fit neatly wedged behind a lunch box in a school bag. These may sound like flippant observations, but in the land of assistive technology, such attributes are a good start.

For those of us who spend much of our day trying to support the adaption of learning spaces, the advent of technology that is flexible, functional, and good looking is enough to make us cheer.

For so long, technology solutions have been clunky, weighed a ton, and often the learner had to sit apart from their peers because they needed an extra desk to set up all their gear. Plus, assistive technology is notoriously “specialist” and uncollaborative because no-one, other than the learner, knows how to operate it, and by default it becomes the exclusive domain of the learner with the disability, a great model for inclusion!

What other stories and thoughts out there?

So to anyone out there reading this, I’d love to hear if you are using an iPad in the classroom as a tool for you, and/or with your students, or if you have stumbled on interesting stories from colleagues or from reading around.

One of my current favorites, covered by the New York Times describes the the introduction of an iPad into the world of a young boy called Owen Cain. What I love about it, is that it demonstrates how if the adults alongside learners are bold and prepared to take a bit of a punt, all sorts of unexpected learning opportunities can happen – check out the video and see what you think.

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