Ngā Matapakinga | Discussion

In the latest CORE Ten Trends under the cultural theme, is the trend, Cultural narratives where it reads:

Localising the curriculum & culturally responsive practice: In New Zealand each educational setting is charged with co-constructing a localised curriculum with their communities to enable learning that is meaningful, relevant, and connected to students’ lives. Culturally locating your educational setting is pivotal in creating a culturally responsive curriculum that resonates with the aspirations of mana whenua, whānau and their tamariki. No matter the setting, one common theme reverberates – a sense of belonging, identity, language and culture are at the heart of Māori student success as well as success for all learners. (Page 62)

For more discussions on the Ten Trends, see CORE Ten Trends group in edSpace. Note: You'll need to join this group before contributing.

The Ministry has also just released, Leading Local Curriculum Guide series to deliberately help schools steer their curriculum and assessment review and design decisions as you strengthen your local curriculum. There is also a series of FREE workshops being hosted around the country to support you, Click on the city near you and you will get into the registration site.

Is this a journey your school, kura or Kāhui ako is currently on? What interests or concerns you most?

I think it's a matter of progress - as was the progressional development from the chiselled rock, to papyrus, to the feather quill to the computers we use today. 

Yes to a focus on Computational Thinking and I like the diagram below (shared in Kia Takatū ā Matihiko pīkau (online course) in Computational Thinking: International perspective) which outlines the concepts and approaches needed for computational thinking. Having said that, I agree not all students will go on to be computer scientists (or programmers), but it doesn't hurt to think like one.

I think there are also specific elements of programming that a computer does, and may well need in the future. ie: sorting data, comparing variables. While text-based programming languages differ slightly, they still have those elements/rules in common. That's not to say computers might function very differently to how we understand them to work today...

I'm just starting my learning here too, so a good debate to have, thanks Anne 

Kia ora everyone. Thank you so much. These are incredibly valuable and I will definitely draw from what you have shared. A HUGE help! Will be forwarding on to start the conversations again very shortly.

I read this with interest. I do believe that the human element of design is absolutely essential and the language that we use is often dehumanising. I guess I hadn't really thought about the word 'user' and how much it could make us forget that the user is a person or people. For me, the important thing is around thinking about accessibility - how can all people, with all their varying needs access and interact with the technology, the digital outcomes we create? My wee hobby horse at the moment is 'alt text' and I talk about that a lot with teachers when we discuss DDDO. The other thing is thinking about who designed and created the digital outcomes that already exist out there, who owns them, how have they shared them, for what purpose and what rights and responsibilities do we have when we choose to use them in our own designs and creations?  Our discussions have included legal, moral and ethical issues around copyright and Creative Commons. Many teachers have very little understanding in this area and I feel that we have a responsibility to encourage them to find out more and upskill... which means we have to as well!

So, you're telling me I don't ever have to bend down to do my laces again lol? That is SO COOL!

Fantastic segway into DT | HM progress outcomes that all start with, "In authentic contexts...with end-users in mind", thanks so much for sharing Jacky, I could see a load of ideas bounced off from this.

Definitely Marty McFly's Back to the Future is truly coming to reality, the similarities are uncanny!

For some really unauthentic ideas to inspire creative design, why not try Chindogu - the art of 'un-useless' Japanese inventions. 

I'm just diving into the Pīkau (DDDO for PO1) in Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko (National Digital Readiness Programme) and saw this interactive map fromhttps://digitaldivide.nz/ showing the correlation between social-well being and digital inclusion in New Zealand. This could be a good starting point for discussing the map data with colleagues about the digital opportunities that your school community may experience. The questions in the Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko Pīkau asks,

Does your school community have good access to digital devices and digital connectivity?
What sort of prior digital experiences will students arriving at your school have?
Are your learners ready to move beyond being digital consumers to being digital creators?

  Does your school community experience a digital divide?

#16

If you're finding you have lost your groups, your profile details and lost your way... then do a quick search for your name in edSpace. There might be two of you.

If that's the case, simply click on my profile and message me and I'll delete a duplicate account you don't need anymore. This will help save confusion. 

Image source: Public Domain Picture: Seeing double
By: U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Master Sgt.Kevin Gruenwald, Courtesy: US Air Force

Earlier this year Clive Francis and I did a workshop with the MOE advisors in Auckland. It was a 'demystify and unpack/ the curriculum content' workshop and one of the activities was the Jigsaw activity.  It has proven, over the last year at subsequent workshops, to be an excellent activity for getting teachers straight into the content and exploring the context of DT & HM within the Technology Learning Area. The very fact that they have to produce something to share back with the rest of their group means that they explore with purpose rather than just clicking around the site without really finding out what it is all about.

Anyway, one of the difficulties most of us have is being able to know exactly what the content and meaning of Hangarau Matihiko are, as we cannot read Te Reo. This is a question that comes up a lot when we do these workshops, and in fact, came up in the two Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko meetups we did last week in Auckland. Many of our ākonga in EM schools are Māori and our kaiako are keen to meet their needs and deliver a culturally responsive curriculum. 

In this Jigsaw activity, one of the options for exploration is for those kaiako who have enough Te Reo to read it, to look at Hangarau Matihiko and feedback to the rest of their group their understanding of it. 

When Clive and I did the workshop with the MoE advisors, I recorded the group who looked at Hangarau Matihiko as they shared their thoughts. Please bear in mind though, that at this point, they were looking at the draft documents. 

https://soundcloud.com/robeanne/dt-and-hm

Since then, some kaiako have shared their thoughts on the actual curriculum content but unfortunately, I didn't capture their ideas.  The general response is how difficult it is to capture the essence of the difference because of the nature of the language and the way that Te Ao Māori is embedded in it. Some have commented, that just as in the English curriculum content there is vocabulary that they don't understand. 

Thanks for sharing all these gems James, I'm going to share this with my schools. I'm currently working in a school that is wanting to implement Play-based learning in the juniors and scaffold to project-based, student-led inquiry in the rest of the school, hence the question, What is an authentic learning context?

I see at Halswell School is extending the Play-based approach into the year 4/5s in a team approach. I'm thinking to stay 'brave' and letting go to focus on students' passions would be much easier with a supportive/collaborative teaching environment. 

My wondering is, how is this balanced up with the expectations for 'breadth and depth' of the curriculum, or in some cases in schools a need to 'track' coverage? Is there some tension here? 

if you are quick this is an amazing - cheap - eLibrary of electronic books. Humble bundle regularly posts great collections.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/make-electronics-2018?hmb_source=humble_home&hmb_medium=product_tile

I have a question - I am working with an Area School and they are struggling desperately to get a specialist DT teacher.  I know that at NCEA they can access Te Kura and for those students who want to specialise but how do they really support years 9 & 10 to get what they need to get to that point in the first place?

The lego challenge is always a favourite!

It really shows how oral language and precise instructions play a crucial role in computational thinking. It's not just the person giving the instructions that needs the language to express the process but also the person listening who needs to interpret the instructions so needs to have a clear understanding of what the language means. We have discussed how it brings in mathematical language - e.g. perpendicular, right angles, parallel etc and also English parts of speech e.g. prepositions - next to, beside, on top of, underneath and descriptive language such as colours and shapes. 

Perceptions also come into play so that brings in the user interface - if someone tells me that they have created a plane - what is my perception of what a plane looks like compared to theirs and does having that image in my head help or hinder as I try to follow the instructions? 

My takeaways from Ulearn18;

This year seemed like there was such a positive spirit around from everyone despite the doom and gloom of pay and conditions negotiations. The teachers I worked with were hugely engaged and excited about what they were doing and the possibilities they were exploring. 

As others have said, the stories were powerful both in the keynotes and in the sessions and conversations I was involved in. 

I was deeply moved by Hana O'Regan's keynote and her challenge to us all to examine the narratives we are telling consciously and unconsciously in the worlds in which we live. How what we say and do has an impact on the people around us and how deep-seated and entrenched a narrative becomes if we don't challenge people's views. 

It is hard sometimes as an "off comd'un" (as they say in Yorkshire - someone who is an immigrant to a community) to feel confident to challenge NZ Europeans who are 3rd and 4th generation and espouse views that are of that very narrative that damages so many of our tamariki. I know that I need to learn more about the history from the perspectives of Māori and colonists so that I can be strong in those discussions and conversations.

I am lucky that I have so many amazing colleagues who have that expertise and wh I can work with to deepen my understanding of the language and tikanga. Time to get back to "The Great War for New Zealand" which has lain dusty under my bed for a few months (partly because it's too heavy to read in bed! and partly because I just haven't had time) so that I can use that place-based knowledge of the Waikato as I work with schools in my region.

Kia ora James, I'd love to be part of an informal smack-down kind of virtual opportunity to talk about Play based learning. A lot of schools are heading in this direction for the juniors and wanting to find segways into the rest of the school (Makerspace etc), so I'd be interested to see what this could look like over different levels.

Maybe we could gauge some interest here and invite people to add their names to a Google form, see who'd like to attend/lead or facilitate an activity or session...and have to acknowledge the amazing @vanschaijik for her passionate leadership of online learning opportunities too.