Te Hiku Newsletter

 

This year I have introduced a term newsletter to the Te Hiku Cluster. The idea is to share some of the great work that is happening across our schools and celebrate the successes. Also to share some tips, tricks and up and coming google updates and new products. I have also shared them with our trust members and on our cluster site. The feedback from teachers has been very positive and the principals have given good responses. I need to look at how I can get this out to the parents, community and share it further to celebrate with the world.

July Auckland Hui

The highlight of our July Auckland Hui was the half day spent at the new Auckland Google Headquarters. They are very flash and tell a beautiful New Zealand story. Steve gave us a tour around and explained the story behind the design and then presented to us the updates in Google and whats new. We also did a lot of work around Edublogs which was good to look at lots of tips and tricks and sharing of resources created so we are not recreating the wheel. The soap boxes which cause so my stress and anxiety where a great mixture of fun, interesting and creative presentations from all the team. They are a good way to get to know each other. Friday we where based a Stonefields School and went over the research and up and coming events for the future. The reading workshops based similar to the DFI model look great for teachers to learn about quality reading lessons and pedagogy of reading. I would love to do the course to keep update and knowledgeable. We said a sad goodbye to Cam who is moving on to bigger and better things look out for her in the future of app designing. She will be missed for her fun and bubbly personality but most of all her innovative ideas and future thinking. The other great thing happening next school holidays in Rarotonga is the Google summit that Dorothy has organised which looks exciting and a great way to learn the culture of the magic island. I have registered myself to go and be part of an exciting event. 

Term 2 Toolkits

This time I decided to try a practical paper folding shape online toolkit. In the past this has been a very popular workshop being hands on and involving lots of learning around geometry.The challenge was would it be as popular online. It had been quite a while since I had facilitated this workshop so I went hunting in my Math resources and found all my paper folded shapes. I then had a practice to make sure I could follow the instructions and give support to the teachers. My next job was to look at how we could amplify and turbocharge this practical workshop with technology. The Jamboard was a good collaborative idea so all the students could be sharing the ideas together. Also the use of photos, screencastify and video to capture the voice and hear the students' understanding. I set up 2 screens so I could see everyone and manage the pace and complexity of the workshop. Unfortunately it was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. I lost some teachers who struggled with the paper folding and following the visual diagrams. It is definitely a workshop that is better face to face. I did receive some feedback that was positive, a principal who had to relieve a lot due to the influenza hitting and low staff numbers, she said she used the workshop a lot as it went across all year levels and you could pull parts out and the students really enjoyed it. Maybe next time I will not try to do all the shapes while online.