Reading Practice Intensive - Day 1

Today was an exciting day. I am participating in The Manaiakalani Programme's Reading Practice Intensive (RPI). Being a facilitator I have heard how the Manaiakalani Research Team have been developing this programme, so it is with great anticipation that I connected online this morning to start our 9 weekly sessions.

Delivered online, this is a pilot for the RPI programme that will be available for teachers across all clusters in 2023. Being online means that teachers need to have been through Digital Fluency Intensive (DFI) so they can cope with the environment as well as the apps used in the RPI such as Google Slides, Sheets, Google Forms, Jamboard, Blogging - for professional reflections and of course Google Meet.

One of the outcomes of the RPI is to develop a "common practice model".  This is stated in the MoE Literacy Strategy but there is no detail around this yet. The Manaiakalani Programme has decided not to wait for the MoE and is driving this work for our schools and clusters across the nation.

Because this is a pilot I will not be sharing any resources used in the 9 weeks. Our participation in the pilot is to be a critical friend and provide feedback as well as adding in our experience and resources we have.

The group of educators that are in the pilot are a powerhouse of practitioners! It is a privilege to be working with them.Our first task was to introduce ourselves in a digital bubble. Here is a copy of my slide I used as my introduction.

I really honed in on the purpose of the RPI as I'm sure there will be many questions from Principals about it and why they should send teachers to the RPI.

This is an online programme to build capability for teachers to do the 5 things really well with integrity and fidelity to the programme. And the 5 things are below. We have heard about these from the Research Teams at our cluster Research Reflections. These valued reading outcomes will be covered in the 9 weeks.

Connected Learners Share - Term 3 Online Staff Hui

Term 3 staff hui are based around the kaupapa of Share | Hanga. The Manaiakalani Programme harnesses the affordances of digital technologies to connect teachers so they can share. This extends the idea that as educators we are also learners.

The online staff hui in term 3 are an opportunity for teachers across all clusters in Aotearoa to connect and share their Teaching as Inquiry with others teaching the same curriculum level.

Small groups are formed where teachers can share strategies and talk about academic outcomes for their students.

The hui is designed to be conversational and whilst Google Meet is used to connect, the session is not recorded nor is there any presentation required. 

I had the pleasure of facilitating 2 hui. One was focused on Well Being for years 1-3 and the other on reading for years 4-6.

In both session we were able to share strategies and resources. There were many takeaways for participants as well as affirmation that their Inquiry was benefitting their students. Perhaps it is in this time where we can sit and reflect that we can take stock and see what is happening for our students. In the busy and complex school environment reflection time may be very scant.

One school had a collective inquiry into forming a common practice method for the teaching of reading. I will be following their progress as I take part in the Manaiakalani pilot Reading Practice Intensive (RPI). The RPI starts at the end of August and I will be blogging each week of the 9 week intensive.

Webinars and Recovery - PLD On Demand

 I have been on leave for 12 weeks recovering from surgery. Nothing too scary - a hip replacement which meant recovery time was needed to get moving again.

It was Winter and I was stuck inside.  After a few weeks I found myself wanting to think and use my brain again. There are only so many crosswords that can be done!

I subscribe to lots of website and get masses of emails giving the heads up about webinars. One I particularly enjoy and look forward to are the Google Educator Groups (GEG). The Australia/New Zealand Google Educator Group (Aus/NZ GEG) is particularly active. The webinars are a great way to keep up with what's new in Google and how to use it in classes.

The timing of the Aus/NZ GEG pretty good for us NZ'ers. They are usually at 5.30pm. But if that doesn't suit then you can find all the recordings here. I really like being able to use the recordings as I can rewind anything I need or speed it up past the the bits I don't need. 

There is also a wider Global Educator Group with Teach With Chrome webinars. Because these webinars are not in our time zone having the Recordings and Resources page is great as you can watch and learn on demand - PD in your pyjamas!

It is through these 2 groups that I have kept up to date with the accessibility settings on Chromebooks. I am evangelical in spreading the good word about accessibility settings for Chromebooks. I always show the classes I am in the Dictation and Select-to-Speak settings. Dictation works in edublogs which is such a good way to get students to complete their blog post if they are slow typists.

I have a lesson to support the use of Dictation and Select-to-Speak titled “Let Your Chromebook Do The Mahi For You”. I did this lesson with a year 4 class recently as the teachers has a number of diagnosed Dyslexic students and ASD students. It was an immediate hit. The teacher reported that the next day the students used Dictation without any prompting. She reported that the students said they liked it and it was easy to use.

Introducing Janine Bava - Tairāwhiti's New Facilitator

Welcome to Janine Bava - our new facilitator for our Tairāwhiti Cluster. She started as a facilitator in term 2, 2022 bringing a wealth of knowledge, effective practice and skills with her. 

Janine has been teaching at Awapuni School here in Gisborne for 10 years. She has been part of the Manaiakalani programme in several ways. 

Janine had in-class support for a year. She and her team quickly took on the Manaiakalani kaupapa of Learn Create Share. Her team developed a learning site for their year 5 & 6 students that was visible and contained rewindable learning. 

Janine was also a Manaiakalani Innovate Teacher in 2021. Her inquiry was around inclusive practice in the classroom. Her site is here for you to explore.

We wish Janine every success in her new role and we know that she has so much to offer teachers in our cluster.

Learn | Ako Staff Hui Term 1 2022

In this term's staff hui we worked with school to develop the visibility and rewindability of their class sites. 

The staff learning was to explore and use tools to  level up something they had planned for their class in the coming week/s to make it rewindable.

When using 3rd party apps it is a changing landscape. This is exemplified by the paywall now on Screencastify. We have been strong and constant users of Screencastify over the years but this paywall changes things a lot. Having a 3rd party app Like Screencastify integrated into our Drive makes it so user-friendly for students - and teachers. It is a shame we have lost the functionality of this app.

Mote is another excellent 3rd party app that now has a paywall so we have gone back to suggesting the use of an online audio recorder for voice recording. There is some light at the end of the tunnel with Google developing a Screencasting app for Chromebooks. Watch this space!

Knowing this we included Loom as an option as well as Quicktime for Mac users. 

I subscribe to Richard Byrne's Free Tech for Teachers blog so I can keep up with what's the latest and greatest. Worth subscribing to for teachers.

Orientation - Class Sites for Visible Teaching & Learning

 Part of our Orientation day is to support teachers to build a class site that will lead learning in their classroom for 2020. 

The Manaiakalani Programme hinges on class sites that provide visible and rewindable learning. MOre about this can be read here. Class sites can be created so that teaching is visible and learning is visible and rewindable. Class sites are the enactment of the Visible, Ubiquitous, Connected and Empowered kaupapa of The Manaiakalani Programme. 

Our programme for this session can be viewed here on our cluster site.

Participants are supported during this PLD session to create a class site that they can build on and develop as the year progresses. Participants view each other's sites and provide feedback. The sheet with site details and feedback are on our cluster site here.

Orientation 2022 - Connecting with Manaiakalani

Orientation 2022 took place on 25th January 2022. The Orientation day is an opportunity for teachers new to our cluster schools to connect with the kaupapa and pedagogy of The Manaiakalani Programme.

Schools are invited to send teachers for this PLD opportunity so they can experience the Learn Create Share pedagogy as they learn about the Manaiakalani Programme. This is a collegial space where they can access support and develop a deeper understanding of The Manaiakalani Programme and what it offers them as a teacher in a school in our Tairāwhiti cluster and especially as a teacher in a 1:1 digital environment.

Details of your Orientation Day can be found on our cluster site here.

The participants will create an online profile which brings together learning about being Cybersmart, learning about digital tools and then sharing their creations. 

Their online profiles are included in this presentation. 2021 profiles from participants are included as well.