Two Years In...

Kia ora,

Time flies when you're Education Programme Leader. One minute I catch myself thinking I'm still new to this role and moments later I feel like I've been doing it forever. Technically it has been two years and one term since I took on the role so I thought I'd share some thoughts and reflections on this time period.

In the spirit of full visibility I am sharing my original scribbles. The first one shows the brainstorm I made while convincing myself that taking this job was the right choice after stepping out of the classroom a year earlier.

I've enjoyed being in class with students and still believe that supporting them to be at home in a digital world is a vital and incredibly fulfilling task. Something that has been difficult is not getting to know students as well as you do when you have your own class. While I don't miss writing reports etc, it is hard to support learners when you don't know them as well as you feel you could.

The reason 'missed opportunity' is there is because I had the chance to step up to this role way back in 2016 (I think). I always wondered what it would have been like so I'm glad I did take a chance.

One of my favourite parts of the job is the opportunity to be creative. I've loved organising poetry slams and podcast episodes as well as student toolkits and film festivals. I appreciate the flexibility that my job offers and the fact that I still have the energy to come up with creative ideas. This was not always the case when I was still in the classroom.

As you can tell for the circling, storytelling was a big part of why I took the job. I really wanted students and teachers in the cluster to have the chance to tell their stories. Through my own personal writing projects I've realised how empowering it is to tell your story and how important this is as a reflective process and something that helps you move forward. I helped create a short film where students tell the Ako Hiko story and what it means to them. The more recent podcast episodes have also been focused on students telling their own stories, something that we've also started looking into with a survey that over 400 of our learners filled in.

The bottom right scribble talks about multiplying others. I'll leave that for the next section...

This second picture shows some thoughts from pretty soon after accepting the job that loosely come together to create a vision statement. The Ako Hiko Education Trust has the vision of accelerating student achievement by increasing access to digital learning but this brainstorm was more about me having a clear idea of what I was bringing to the table.

Having read Multipliers a number of times, multiplying others was also a priority when starting this role. I feel like I've helped to multiply and empower students through teaching them about being Cybersmart, podcasting, offering the chance to be Ako Hiko Ambassadors and taking part in various projects including student toolkits, film festivals, poetry slams and coding challenges. Supporting students to utilise their blogs as a way of sharing has also contributed to this.

Something that I've found more challenging is multiplying teachers. Through in class facilitation and coaching on the Digital Fluency Intensive I'm confident I have multiplied and empowered teachers but it's difficult to know how impactful you're being. I'm always striving to be of more use to teachers and often wonder if I'm being utilised as much as I could be. One way I'd like to empower teachers is by encouraging more sharing. Google Currents is on the way out so I've stopped pushing this but I have created a Google Group for all teachers in the cluster and have started sending a monthly update to keep everyone connected and informed. I'm hoping that this role modelling of sharing may normalise it and encourage others to share more too. I'm currently thinking of how we can use our staff hui and Inquiry PLG time most effectively in this respect.

Shifting to Edublogs was a good chance to multiply and empower lead teachers in terms of their admin responsibilities and I think all our schools are now in a position where they can take care of the admin processes internally. A next step for me is, now that admin is taken care of, supporting lead teachers to be real drivers of the learn, create, share pedagogy in their schools.

By far the most difficult group to multiply has been whānau. We created three workshops in 2020 but only had two sessions at a school before lockdown kicked in again and momentum was lost. Having said that, the Kanorau Digital programme is available online to our families. As well as promoting this opportunity, my focus has shifted towards how we can support our schools to connect with their communities and how we can allow time and space for schools to share these ideas.

The third year...

So my big takeaways from this reflection and some next steps include:

- PLGs and staff hui - how can we use this precious time to encourage useful sharing that will help accelerate student achievement?

- Storytelling - continue to use the podcast to share students' stories. How can we reach a wider audience with this?

- Whānau - how might we support schools when engaging with their families and provide opportunities for schools to share ideas?

Ambassadors' Coding Challenge - A Story Of Empowerment...

Kia ora koutou,

It's been a while! In previous bog posts I've talked about some of the new(ish) ideas that I've implemented since becoming Education Programme Leader for the Ako Hiko cluster of schools. I've often struggled to get uptake and buy in to new ideas which has been frustrating but interesting to reflect on. With this in mind, I have been absolutely delighted with the introduction of the Ako Hiko Ambassadors.

Let's take a moment to delve into how this started. Interestingly, rather than it being something I dreamt up from scratch, it was a conversation with some of the lead teachers from our schools that planted the seed. A good example of how ideas are far more likely to stick and get some momentum when they came from a collective consciousness rather than an individual brain.

So each school selected two students to be ambassadors in 2021. Our first meeting was face to face but then lockdown happened and we didn't get much done for the rest of the year.

Then 2022 rolled around, with some new ambassadors being chosen. This year we have met twice a term via Google Meet and the ambassadors even requested a third Meet in Term 1 so that they could collaborate more effectively! It was during this fruitful term that the ambassadors came up with the idea of a Coding Challenge for the cluster.

Between the ambassadors a Google Site 

was created, posters designed and

resources created. The ambassadors were assigning themselves to jobs, promoting the challenge in their schools, working on their tasks in their own time and sending (cybersmart) emails to the group. This was super exciting! Students were being empowered having the opportunity to connect with other students outside of their school and also by leading an initiative and promoting it within their school

But in the end participation was disappointing. We left the challenge open from week 5 until the end of term and only had 8 students submit their projects. All entries were from the same class so I feel like the goal of empowering students by being able to connect with others from across the cluster wasn't met. A chance to further empower and connect our learners missed.

One reason is the obvious point that schools are busy and this was another extra being added on top at the end of an already busy term. I do know that some classes took part in the challenge but did not get round to adding their projects to their blogs or filling in the Google Form in order to share their project.

This second point has made me reflect on the sharing process. Mainly...

- Do we need to scaffold students into actions like embedding projects onto blogs and filling in the form?

- Is enough time set aside for the share part of the learn, create, share pedagogy?

This second question could be a whole blog post in itself. I know that there are amazing examples of learn and create happening in our classrooms. My ponder now is what percentage of this activity is being shared beyond the walls of the classroom? i.e. How much is visible for someone like me who may never set foot in that classroom?

In conclusion, there are two big ideas floating around my skull at the moment. Thoughts, ideas, questions and wonderings about these ideas are more than welcome. Get in touch if anything resonates with you or if you have any suggestions...

1) How might we provide new opportunities for our learners without them being 'extra things' for teachers to fit in?

2) How might we ensure that students have the chance to share authentically beyond their classroom walls?

Ngā mihi nui.