authentic-context-digital-technologies

Recognising Authentic Context in Digital Technologies

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Photo by Phi Hùng Nguyễn on Unsplash

Earlier this year while wandering through the toy aisle at a store an item caught my attention. The toy, reacted to its surroundings, hurtling itself across the floor with more gusto and louder than the noise from the excited tamariki nearby. It interested me, because I could see the link to Computational Thinking,  which sits in the technology learning area within the New Zealand Curriculum.  If I were to code it I would break it down. A sensor, reacting to noise. The more noise detected meant more speed moving forward. It seemed fairly accessible for learners, they would be able to grasp the concept behind it.  A great metaphor for teaching in some ways – the more that was going on around us the faster we had to move and react.

Mindfulness

The more noise about a topic, the faster we feel we have to move to catch up. But what was the purpose of that toy? Apart from a great Christmas present to annoy a parent, I would have to do some thinking. The new Digital Technologies content can feel a little like this. As teachers, it is hard not to get caught up in the noise but if we allow this, then we miss the best part of this learning area is that we have the space to slow down. We no longer have all the answers or the best ways of doing or even the years of experience behind us to help us choose the best and most relevant parts for our tamariki. What I want to encourage kaiako to do now is to make the most of this opportunity to give back the time and space to our learners and let them find their own authentic context.

Redesigning roles

Kaiako are so used to being givers of knowledge. Able to tackle a task from a variety of angles, rearranging, reevaluating and finding new ways for our tamariki to engage. We have become so good at sharing resources that we know are tried and true, we know what lessons were a success and why. We can change and adapt them in different ways to help those students who need to see it in a different light or context. With the revised digital technologies content this knowledge is, for a lot of us, more foreign. Suddenly we are on the same playing field as our students and, for some of us, it can feel like we are at the beginning again. It can feel uncomfortable. The story of Maui and how he obtained the secret of fire helps us consider the benefits of approaching things in a new way.

His curious nature helped him to think beyond the comfortable norm. Māui’s bravery meant that he fearlessly acted on his hunch to explore beyond current circumstances. His steady tenacity enabled Māui to persevere in his pursuit of a new, more effective solution.

Renee Raroa (2019)

If you are familiar with CORE’s 2019 Ten Trends you will know that one of them is the Changing role of teachers. Where in the past teachers were expected to be givers of knowledge, now we need to look at how we can help our tamariki take risks, celebrate their mistakes as an expected part of the journey, and how we can help them identify authentic needs and help them engage with these needs creatively. The New Zealand curriculum states that;

“Technology is intervention by design. It uses intellectual and practical resources to create technological outcomes, which expand human possibilities by addressing needs and realising opportunities.”

NZC, Technology Learning Area

Technology is driven by our desire to create something that can help us. Our outcome could be something that connects people to the land, helps them embrace their culture, assists with communication or understanding. That leaves a wide playing field. How do we narrow down what our purposeful outcome will be? We do this by encouraging our tamariki to look around them  and identify problems they can relate to, are passionate about and connected to.

Authentic context

A colleague of mine told me a beautiful story about a kura she was working in. Conversations were started by identifying needs from people they knew, what ideas do we have to address those needs? This brought them to a discussion around how a peer was hearing impaired and as such the school bell was irrelevant for them. They explored this concept and began to talk about lights. The students talked about how lights warn us, convince us or help draw attention to something. From here developed a natural and purposeful inquiry that led to a prototype around how their school could code lights to flash and signal to their peers that the bells had rung. The context was authentic, meaningful for the students, and the outcome was purposeful.

An important discussion and starting place for delivering this content in an authentic context are the discussions around the ethical responsibility we have as creators. Just because we can create something should we? Kia Takatū ā Matihiko, The National Digital Readiness Programme, has a recurring theme around identifying the skills and qualities that help us engage with Digital Technologies. Mahuika, the goddess of fire is one of the characters showcased through the programme. She is a Kaitiaki, a guardian, and when we look for that authentic context to drive these learning opportunities, we need to check and ask ourselves some of these questions.

  • What needs do we have in our school or community?
  • What are our tamariki passionate or interested about?
  • What exists already and how does it work?
  • What are our initial ideas or prototypes?
  • What could the repercussions of this be? Is our design ethical?

These questions will need to be continually revisited, and at the beginning the outcome or destination that is driving this learning may not be yet clear. Technology in the New Zealand Curriculum has a spotlight section on authentic context which has multiple examples of what teachers have been doing in schools. A quote here from Aaron Duff that sums it up well.

 “Authentic learning is not discovered in a textbook, but rather at the crossroads of contemporary societal issues and student passion.”

The challenge with using textbooks, and online resources is that although it can be a wonderful way to initially engage and build confidence around new learning, it tends to take away the authenticity. As soon as you give tamariki a problem to solve you are removing the potential to drive and connect children in a meaningful way. In saying that, your students may well share the same passions as others and sometimes we can be shaped and influenced by seeing examples of innovation. Many schools around New Zealand have embraced taking risks in this space and you can see lots of examples in the resource section of Technology Online or connect yourself with other educators in Aotearoa in spaces such as Ngā Kiriahi. The collaboration available from other tamariki and kaiako can inspire us and help shape our own authentic contexts.

Looking at the potential

What else could authentic context look like? One of the Kia Takatū Meetups this year was held at the Wigram Air Force Museum in Christchurch. Because of the unique opportunity this presented, teachers wanted to give back to the hosts and look at how that partnership could be strengthened, both for the Museum and for the participants. The teachers were invited to create a digital outcome to help with an identified need. The Air Force Museum wanted to engage with educators and their schools more, allow their visitors to interact with the exhibitions and also to have their voice and ideas listened to. They wanted schools to be able to connect with their history and allow more accessibility to more New Zealanders.

Photo by Rick Mason on Unsplash
Photo by Rick Mason on Unsplash

The range of responses from our digital creators was impressive. Some of the ideas and prototypes included, a virtual guide, interactive exhibitions, and the creation of LEGO planes that moved and behaved like some of the ones they currently had on display. The idea of using virtual reality to allow access to planes that are no longer open to the public was another discussion point that began to ignite ideas and excite learners as they began to see the potential for various prototypes.

Connection to place

Aotearoa is the perfect place to start connecting tamariki to the technology learning area within the New Zealand Curriculum. Our connection to our physical environment and meaningful ways we can express our culture and identity provides a wealth of starting points for these conversations. There are some incredible technological opportunities currently happening in Aotearoa that you could talk about with your tamariki, and if they were interested you could reach out and get involved.

Image by Nita on Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0
Kōkako by Nita on Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0

The South Island Kōkako Charitable Trust has recently put out a Facebook post asking for help creating a device to help them locate the once thought extinct South Island Kōkako. You can read more about the Cacophany project here.

This report about a drone eliminating a hornets nest also ignited my interest, as the Department of Conservation currently has a focus on pest control. These ideas are but to name a few and they are definitely biased towards my own personal interests and ideas. So when you start this with your own children think about identifying what is already in your community, and what things are exciting and inspiring for your students.

Thinking back on our hurtling toy, I wonder if we can change the metaphor? Stop and appreciate the quiet, the long pauses where the thoughts start to take place. The action will come, but your job is not to know where you’re going at the beginning, or even halfway through. You may even find the outcome changes constantly the more you find out about it. But the learning is in the journey and with teachers sitting alongside their ākonga. We will make mistakes and we will have lessons that flop. But the opportunity to grow from these mistakes is something to remember, embrace and most of all enjoy.

References

Renee Raroa (2019), CORE blog, Whakatōhenehene. http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2019/04/whakatohenehene-disruption.html

CORE Education. (2019). Ten Trends. http://core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/ten-trends/

Technology Online. (2019) Technology Spotlight https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum/Technology

Ministry of Education. (2019). Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko. https://kiatakatu.ac.nz

Technology Online (2019) Technology Spotlight http://technology.tki.org.nz/Technology-in-the-NZC/Planning-programmes-and-units-of-work/Spotlight-Authentic-contexts

Ministry of Education. (2019). Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko. Ngā Kiriahi. https://ngakiriahi.kiatakatu.ac.nz/

The New Zealand Curriculum Online. (2019) Technology.Digital technologies questions and answers http://technology.tki.org.nz/Technology-in-the-NZC/Digital-technologies-support/DT-questions-and-answers

The Cacophony Project (2019) https://cacophony.org.nz/using-cacophony-project-technology-find-south-island-kokako?fbclid=IwAR36Dcga4kiELIefaP82D8CiRItud_8JLaUgb6K91STloeeciA8unUGl7mA

The South Island Kōkako Charitable Trust (2019) Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/SIKCT/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARA46AuUn0sbBBQw7l-gkP8oGRzNLRFWxvJcg0anBZWrRkMH51UX-GyomZhWg5VNxGZ6pddkCrzYcqCJ

New Atlas (2019) https://newatlas.com/drone-spray-hornet-drone-volt-france-asian-hornet/43642/

Department of Conservation | Te Papa Atawhai (2019) https://www.doc.govt.nz/about-us/our-partners/our-regional-partners/wasp-wipeout/

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Two boys sit at a table looking at a computer screen

Time to get real with reporting

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How relevant is a six-monthly report by the time it gets home?

Yr 4 student using sentence structures to help them articulate their learning.
5yr old using Seesaw to share learning about creating a repeating pattern.

Adapting assessment practices to gather evidence of 21st Century outcomes/skills is becoming urgent!
Providing timely personalised feedback to students which lets them monitor their own progress and develop self-regulatory skills is becoming a high priority!
Connecting with parents/whānau to develop genuine collaboration to help build insights about student’s learning progress and challenges is vital!

Although this is easier said than done, and can feel overwhelmingly challenging, it is also achievable. One strategy is by leveraging digital technologies. “New possibilities for diversifying collection and judgement of evidence Smart technologies allow online, anytime, anywhere, and on-demand assessment” (Murgatroyd, 2018). The benefits by far outweigh the current six-monthly reporting model. Digital tools add to curriculum/assessment alignment challenges by enabling “just in time” assessment close to the learning and an opportunity to engage, deepen and extend the learning conversations.

What’s driving the need for this change? The CORE Education 2019 Ten Trends identify these societal influences when it comes to real time reporting:

  1. Demand for more timely, personalised feedback
  2. Greater emphasis on formative assessment and reporting
  3. Technological developments

Building assessment capabilities

Yr 4 student using sentence structures to help them articulate their learning.
Yr 4 student using sentence structures to help them articulate their learning.

Teachers need to build their own and their students’ assessment capabilities so that they can develop and bring to life formative assessment using digital technologies in their learning environment. Actively involving students is an important part and provides opportunity to develop the language of learning. “The evidence is unequivocal that self and peer assessment practices are strongly associated with student achievement.” (Hipkins & Cameron, 2018). We need to allocate time in our learning programmes for peer to peer assessment conversations and how we respond appropriately to feedback from teachers and peers.

The call for reporting on progress in real time will allow the learning gains of every student to be acknowledged.

Have you considered the following?

  1. Do learners know what is expected? Are they clear on the purpose?
  2. Do learners know what quality looks like? Do they know where they are at with their own learning progress?
  3. Are learners comfortable with giving and receiving feedback? Peer and self assessment/reflection?
  4. Can learners articulate their learning clearly and concisely?
  5. Can they manage their own learning by responding to feedback that was designed to move them forward?

Some practical strategies to get started with learners:

5 year old student using a support sheet to develop digital literacies to share learning.
5 year old student using a support sheet to develop digital literacies to share learning.

If you are starting out with developing the language of learning so students can articulate their learning you might want to support them with sentence structures.

  • I was pleased when…
  • I found out…
  • I now understand…
  • I worked hard to…
  • I practised…
  • It was hard but I managed to…
  • It was interesting when…
  • I used to…but now I…
  • The next thing for me to work on is…
  • I wondered if…
  • Sometimes I need to remember…
  • I tried…
  • Today I learnt…
  • I am proud of…
  • My question is…

Support students to develop digital literacies to move towards becoming digitally fluent (they can choose the digital tool fit for purpose). They will learn different ways to share their learning and the digital tools that enhance this. For example if you are using Seesaw you can develop how to use the different in-built tools (camera, video, voice recording, drawing, labels, links).

Deepening the learning conversations

Relationships between home and school are important! How can we get parents/whānau to engage in more meaningful feedback and conversations beyond responding with ‘that’s cool’ or a ‘like’. We want online conversations to amplify our face to face conversations. Students are our best advocates to move the online conversations to foster collaboration. Once the students have developed confidence with the language of learning they can ask for specific feedback. The following example shows how Clifton Terrace Model School in Wellington launched a school wide approach to deepen learning conversations through students posting on Seesaw.

deepening-learning-conversations-0-2

deepening-learning-conversations-2-4

deepening-learning-conversations-5-8

The next steps

Allow time for students to read the responses and  scaffold how to respond. Initially this could be a “thank you”, then move into using the Key Competencies. How do we respond to positive feedback? How do we respond to constructive feedback?

The principles of effective reporting and information sharing from the Ministry of Education clearly indicate the requirement to move to using digital technologies that enable parents and whānau to see their child’s progress on-line in real time.

To engage further in this conversation go to: https://edspace.org.nz/discussion/view/102871/ten-trend-real-time-reporting. You will find out about what other schools are doing around the shift to real time reporting. Join the conversation and share your thinking or what strategies you are using to approach real time reporting effectively. Will making a shift to real time reporting be a more effective use of teacher time and be more beneficial for students than a six monthly report?

Images taken by Katrina Laurie at St Anthony’s School (Seatoun), all rights reserved.

References

CORE Education. (2019). Real-time reporting. Retrieved from http://www.core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/ten-trends/2019/real-time-reporting/

Hipkins, R., & Cameron, M. (2018). Trends in assessment: An overview of themes in the literature [Ebook]. Wellington: NZCER. Retrieved from https://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/Trends%20in%20assessment%20report.pdf

Ministry of Education. (2019). Principles of effective reporting / Reporting to parents & whānau. Retrieved from http://assessment.tki.org.nz/Reporting-to-parents-whanau/Principles-of-effective-reporting

Murgatroyd, S. (2018). New approaches to the assessment of learning: New possibilities for business education. In A. Khare
& D. Hurst (Eds.), On the line—business education in the digital age (pp. 141–155). Switzerland: Springer

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It’s better to be on the bus than on the road!

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“If you feel overwhelmed and confused by the global predicament, you are on the right track. Global processes have become too complicated for any single person to understand. How then can you know the truth about the world, and avoid falling victim to propaganda and misinformation?”

Yuval Noah Harari, introduction to part IV of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

on-the-bus

In response to my indecision about how to face a particular challenge in my career, an old friend of mine once suggested, “it’s better to be on the bus than on the road!” I took that to mean that it is better to be a part of the change than simply allow it to ‘run over’ me and be overwhelmed by it all. An unfortunate consequence of the current state of relentless, exponential change, both locally and globally, means many of us feel we’re ‘on the road’ at times, simply watching everything pass us by and feeling helpless in what to do about it.

Being ‘on the bus’ holds much more appeal for me than being on the road – for a start, from the bus you get a different perspective of the challenges you face. You get to see more of the other things going on – from the various sights you’re passing to a view of the horizon. In addition, you do all of this with others – realising that you’re not alone in facing these challenges and that together, you’re in a better place to both appreciate the good and to find solutions.

In times of accelerating change it’s easy to fall victim to a ‘stable state’ mentality, thinking that if we simply wait a while everything may return to a state of ‘normal’ again. In a world where developments in technology, climate change, threats of war and political uncertainty all contribute to feelings of anxiety and indecision, it is more important than ever before that, as educators, and as responsible citizens of the world, we need to understand a return to ‘the stable state’ isn’t a likely scenario. We need to see ourselves as being ‘on the bus’, engaging our collaborative and critical thinking capabilities to help us make sense of it all, and to find solutions to the challenges we face.

Being ‘on the bus’ doesn’t imply a physical place to be – it’s a mindset. It involves resilience, fore-sight and critical thinking. Resilience because we need strategies that will allow us to cope with the feelings of uncertainty and threats to our personal comfort and security. Fore-sight because we need to be able to see beyond the present and be aware of what is on the horizon, and of the actions that are likely to make these things a reality. And critical thinking because we are living in a ‘post truth’ world, where what we are being exposed to through the media and other channels, requires us to be able to exercise the ability to critically examine and evaluate the factual evidence to form views and change our behaviours based on that.

Fundamental to this is ensuring we are well informed, that we have access to the information required, and that we view it from multiple perspectives. It doesn’t require too much searching in the popular media to find that for every opinion claiming a certain ‘truth’ or certainty, there is an equal and opposite point of view. Our view of foresight shouldn’t be based simply on what the latest guru or ‘influencer’ tells us we should believe. Our response requires us to draw on our ability to delve beneath the headlines and their simplistic message. We must take a critical stance that weighs multiple perspectives and tackles issues of complexity with an appropriate response.

There’s another benefit of being ‘on the bus’ – we are with other people. This is critically important, as our journey into the future must increasingly be regarded as a collaborative one, not something we’re left on our own to contend with. The strength of the collaborative group is that we’re able to debate and discern things as a collective – to challenge the status quo and at the same time, be there for each other as the change impacts us differently. Of course, this will work best if our ‘team’ doesn’t consist solely of like-minded individuals forming a sort of ‘echo chamber’ that reflects simply what we want to hear and what we feel comfortable with. Authentic change will require us to learn to work collaboratively in settings where we feel uncomfortable, and where a part of the solution will lie in being able to resolve differences and work through multiple perspectives.

Engaging with resources such as CORE’s Ten Trends provides a useful way of starting this journey. They have been developed with the intention of providing information about some of the things that are currently challenging educators and the contexts they work in, providing some insights into the things that are driving these changes and offering prompts to begin the process of reflection and action at the local level. Importantly, the trends link back to a central core of five key themes that apply across the whole of society, so that these changes and their impact can be seen in a wider context than simply education.

My challenge to readers of this blog is to use the Ten Trends as a way of ‘getting on the bus’, to understand more of the things that are impacting the work we do, and combine with others to critically engage in forming a response that is appropriate in the contexts in which you work, in particular, a response that will ensure you are preparing the learners you are working with for their future, not just as ‘workers’ but as citizens who themselves will be able to influence and shape what happens in this world we all inhabit.

CORE’s Ten Trends 2019 have been released.

Read them online or download the document now!

 

Photo by Pau Casals on Unsplash

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Ten Trends in education 2017

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CORE's Ten Trends 2017

CORE’s Ten Trends for 2017 are now available to view and use for personal reflection, research or as a catalyst for staff discussion.

Every year our team at CORE invests time drawing together ideas from a range of areas to create our Ten Trends. There’s a lot of value for our staff in doing so as it ensures we are keeping abreast of current trends and developments and thinking about how they may impact on the education sector. In addition, when we share these with the wider community of educators, they provide a catalyst for further exploration, debate and discussion in staffrooms across the country – and further afield.

We believe these trends are a way of assisting educators and others to gain a broader perspective on the changes taking place in our schools and society. Every day we are challenged by new things happening and new technologies driving some of this – and this exponentially changing world can often be overwhelming. By taking some time to examine the trends, and to examine both the positive and negative impacts of each, we can be better prepared to respond to the changes that may occur, to understand the drivers behind them, and to work in ways that ensure a human response is made.

This year we’ve placed a greater emphasis on explaining the importance of the five central trend areas in our diagram. These are really the domains in which the things we identify as trends are having an impact – and where we are seeing the changes occur in our educational institutions and in society generally. For each of these five domains we have focused on two things that are illustrative of these trends – one of which is impacting on our lives in the immediate future, the second being a little further off, but worth watching!

Another change this year is that we have decided to publish our trends as a PDF document that you can download from the CORE website. We’ll still be publishing them electronically on our website – including video material, but we’re now publishing these in PDF format in response to feedback received over the past couple of years from educators and school leaders who are keen to use them for research or as conversation starters with staff.

If you’d like to be a part of some wider discussions around these trends,  I encourage you to join the Ten Trends group in edSpace, our new online community space, where educators from across New Zealand are taking time to engage with each other in discussing things that matter to them, their learners and their communities.

Derek Wenmoth interviewed by Anaru White about CORE’s Ten Trends 2017

Links:

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Big Data and analytics can change education in three positive ways

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big data

Big Data is described as the huge sets of electronic data that is available for analysing, whereas Analytics, according to Wikipedia, is "the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data."  New technologies make it all possible, as they provide massive storage for any kind of data, enormous processing power, and the ability to handle virtually limitless concurrent tasks or jobs.

What does this mean for education?

Analytics profoundly shape the educational reality that they measure. What is measured and reported through the use of infographics or dashboards becomes more important than what is not reported. All levels of education are becoming data-driven organisations. ‘Big Data’ and the use of analytics can provide insights into some of the gnarly challenges associated with improving equity and excellence.

The key thing is human assumptions underpin data collecting, analysing, interpreting, and reporting, and these assumptions are then applied to the tools and analytics. For example, in the national and international analytics it is assumed that literacy, mathematics, and science achievement are essential life skills and signal that a country is preparing young people for the future. One problem with this is that readers of the reports may ‘forget’ things such as literacy is of service to the curriculum (and is not the curriculum). For example, in New Zealand, student success is about students being “confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learner” (and achievement both leads to and is because of student success) (NZC and expanded in ERO indicators).

For learning organisations to be data-driven organisations, all assumptions should be transparent and checked to ensure that they align with the purpose of education and the outcomes we want for our young people:

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