Day... whatever of Lockdown - Father's Day/Te Whare Tapa Wha

 Day... whatever of Lockdown

I'm not sure what day of Alert Level 4 that is for Tamaki Makaurau but I'm confident we are well into our second week now.  Yesterday was Father's Day and it was a change of pace and also approach as ordinarily we would have had a big family celebration, some kind of event out and then a lunch or dinner at a restaurant.  With the realisation that this couldn't happen, I committed to cooking a dinner.  Now this doesn't sound like an incredible event (or maybe it shouldn't be), but I am a terrible cook so this declaration of love and commitment to our Dad was going to be quite the extravaganza.  We settled on Lasagna for the main course and some Lemon Friands for the dessert with Haagen Daas Blueberry Ice-cream.  Everyone in the house agreed that this was an acceptable approach given that we also have the world's worst oven (while we wait for the kitchen renovation to happen).  

Now you might be wondering why our Father's Day dinner is appearing on my professional blog.  Here comes the connection... I have been looking at the wellbeing model te whare tapa wha.  I think the dinner with my family was a good example of something I did over the weekend that supported both my own and my whanau's wellbeing.  

Here is the overview below of the model....

The Maori holistic model of health, te whare tapa wha, reminds us all to take care of all of the different aspects of our lives to support our wellbeing. 

What is te whare tapa whā?

Te whare tapa whā is a model of the 4 dimensions of wellbeing developed by Sir Mason Durie in 1984 to provide a Māori perspective on health. The 4 dimensions are:

• taha tinana (physical wellbeing)
• taha hinengaro (mental wellbeing)
• taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing)
• taha whānau (family wellbeing).

With 4 walls, the wharenui (meeting house) is a symbol of these 4 dimensions. The wharenui’s connection with the whenua (land) forms the foundation for the other 4 dimensions.

Image credit: Mental Health Foundation, NZ

By nurturing and strengthening all 5 dimensions, you support your health and wellbeing, as well as the health and wellbeing of your whānau.

How I see the Father's Day dinner...

As I was cooking the dinner, my eldest daughter Jaime joked that she'd never seen me cook a Lasagna before.  Given that she's 14 years old the joke was that I cook as often as we seen Haley's Comet.  So I felt quite proud that I was giving this a go, and also that I was doing this with Jaime.  We joked a lot in the kitchen about the mess (I should really have taken photos), how long it took - over 3 hours, and also the fact it would have been loadsssss easier to buy a lasagna from Countdown.  Oh well... it was the gift of giving and love that's also important in this experience.  

Amazingly, the lasagna was delicious and everyone enjoyed the jokes at my expense.  Maybe... (just maybe) we give something new a go next week on the kitchen front.  

I think my wellbeing focus today needs to be less food.  

I ate through the pain last night.   

Time and Place - Maori Achievement Collaborative

 Time and Place

I love that feeling of finishing up a meeting and walking away thinking... that was such a good use of time!  In a word - buoyant!  

Earlier in the year three of our Board were fortunate enough to attend the New Zealand Schools Trustees Association Conference in Rotorua.  In the last session of the day I meet the Principal from Mangere East and we started chatting about our Bilingual classes and different suggestions for:  professional development, networking,  support agencies.  Stephanie suggested I reach out to "MAC - The Maori Achievement Collaborative.  This is a non-profit organisation, a professional learning and development pathway by principals for principals focussed on changing education outcomes for Maori students.   In all:  "Leaders helping leaders to become better leaders!".  Tini, Maria and I meet with Phil Gordon for our initial 'getting started' meeting and I felt really inspired.  

Phil, Maria, Tini and I shared our hopes and aspirations for Te Whanau Puawaitanga, and Maori (all the students) at NWS.  We had some really positive korero across a range of topics and I reflected on Tini's comment as we finished up the Google Meet:  NWS is in the right space, right time for the next part of the journey. I had a real sense of it all coming together!  

Thank you Maria and Tini for your passion and commitment... the following feels appropriate. 

 Celebrating - Innovation and Learn, Create, Share

Day 6 of Alert Level 4 Lockdown and I'm finding a rhythm in my day.  My little bubble has settled in a routine - exercise, work/learning, lots of eating, and games in the evening.  Tonight my people are playing Connect Sports and I feel a little lack lustre after getting my first vaccination.  I've headed off to my bedroom to scroll through our class sites, blogs, and to check out what everyone has been up to in Distance Learning land.  

I am delighted and incredibly proud of all the amazing - Class Sites,Blogging, Learn/Create/Share, Innovation, and great learning that's been implemented.  

A shout out to:  

• Helen and the Room 7 class site.  The graphics are fabulous and it's really easy to navigate the site.   
• Flo is literally the Google guru, and I've just joked to Maria that it won't be long until Manaiakalani is offering our Flo a job!  Very cool to see what you have done with Padlet and also Google Data Studio Flo.  In fact, I can't wait to see what you come up with tomorrow!  
  
  
  
• Robin so clever to use Fale points to celebrate, reward and create a sense of fun and competition in your programme.  Let's hope Kowhai step up their Blogging game!  
  
  
  
• Our wonderful Learning Assistants are all underway with commenting on the students blogs (Room 11, 12, 13, 21 and 22)  and they are enjoying the opportunity to connect with our students via this platform.  

So much to celebrate today.  Well done to an amazing team.  

 Learn, Create, Share

I missed yesterday's Lockdown post, but in my defence I've been feeling a bit poorly as I've had a head cold.  I spent most of yesterday working my way through a Neon (TV) series I've had my eye on.  But here I am today... back into it!  

I've just been in commenting on our Senior/Matamua class blogs, and I'm super impressed with Room 21's - Learn, Create, Share.  I was also really inspired by Chloe and her bravery to give the Toolkit on Minecraft a go (Learn) and to share it on her blog.  So here I am sharing the story on what, I've been giving a go! 

Second confession.  I'm a terrible cook. I also have a woeful oven (does that sound like an excuse) at the moment while we are waiting to move and renovate our cottage... but that's another story, for another blog post.  I digress...  What I was going to say was that I have been inspired to try and learn a new skill a day over Lockdown.  Now I decided baking isn't my 'thang' and in fact, my family would thank me for not trying out any new recipes (mean aren't they).  I did however decide that I wanted to learn how to 'braid'.  As in hair braiding.  I love watching Youtube videos of amazing hairstyles... and I often think, I'd love to do that on my girls.  

I'm quite late on arriving at hair braiding (and fancy stylz), as my girls are 11 and 14 and I'm not sure the 14 year old will actually agree to me doing it any longer.  But hey, as the saying goes... never too late!  

So for the last two days, I've committed time each day to find some new YouTube clips and to practise new hair braiding techniques.  Rewindable learning is the best.  The ability to stop and watch something over and again is super helpful - I LOVE it.  

So I'm going to be as brave as Chloe is and I've posted a pic of my 'Dutch Braid' - first night attempt, on my model (Lily).  

Thanks Chloe.  Learn, Create, Share!  

Here is a link to Chloe's Minecraft post

Feedback welcome on techniques to make the braid tighter?  Or any Youtubers that you think I have to check out!

* I also think that if I do this everyday for the entire Lockdown that I'm bound to get better :-)

 Lockdown - Alert Level 4.  Here We Go (Again)

So much can change in the blink of an eye!   Today marks the third day of Alert Level 4 Lockdown for Auckland.  

I am going to use this "opportunity" to get up to date with my blogging and to commit to a daily blog.  Let's see how I go with that! 

Reflections... What a week! In the words of Ron Burgundy, "That escalated quickly." But there is a #winoftheweek to be found everywhere.

My wins of the week are:

* Family time - you can't beat it.

* Sunshine (18 month old puppy) is enjoying having us at home, and over the past two days we've been out for 2x, 2 hour walks.   * Photo credit to Lily, who took this picture of Sunshine for one of her Distance Learning tasks.  

* The amazing responsiveness from our school community to adapt to the sudden changes.  

* Our teaching team has have 'pivoted' so quickly to move to online connection and learning.  

* The NWS Senior Leadership Team - who get on and do their thing.  Everyone doing their bit for the collective good

* Catching up on some admin that I've been remiss with over the past few weeks.  

* Sean is back into the swing of yummy lockdown dinners.  Tacos tonight.  

Look after yourselves,  I special thought to our Lynfield College Community at the moment who are right in the middle of the COVID-19 hotspot!

Be kind, be strong, be you.  

Google Accreditation - Week 9 DFI.... survived....

 

Google Accreditation - Week 9 DFI... Survived...

Completely fried! That's how I feel as I sit to complete my final blog post for D.F.I.  Today was 'External Recognition' day and this was an opportunity for the participants of the 9 week Digital Fluency Initiative to complete the Google Level 1 Education Accreditation certificate.   

... I passed!

...Relief

The exam is a mixture of multichoice and scenario (using the Google Suite) based questions. The test was as intense as the course for me (not helped by having a head cold and feeling a bit flat at the end of a long term)!  It starts with the multichoice questions and I had to be careful not to overthink those and to follow good exam technique...

1) Which are the two obvious choices you can rule out

2) Read the question carefully - consider how many choices it is asking you for...

3) Select the 'review question' button and take the opporting to go back and check the answers (if time allows).  

Tip - Ignore the countdown timer for each question.  You have enough time to complete the exam with plenty of time to check and recheck your answers... if you aren't over it by then :-)

Once you are through the multichoice questions you are into the scenario or practical application questions

• Google Docs
• Spreadsheets
• Classroom
• Calendar 
• Sites
• Bookmarks
• Forms 

There were ten scenario questions with a number of requirements to complete in each question.  I felt I made a solid start in the google docs/forms and calendar sections but I did need to take some time in the Bookmark section. I haven't previously set up a bookmark folder and added pages in, so I needed to take my time in this part of the test and step myself through this process logically.  

The trickiest part for me was the spreadsheet and initially I got myself all confused and in a tizzy.  It was the to the point where I had to stop, have a biscuit, a quick break and some very firm self talk that I needed to calm myself down and go slowly.  Once I had my 'head' under control, it was fairly easy to step myself through the requirements. 

I thought there was some interesting 'language' choices in what the questions asked you to do, which I felt could be a bit of a trip up if you weren't reading the questions properly.  Jeremey described the test as a 'logical' exam... and upon reflection I think that's also a good way to describe what it is asking you to demonstrate.

My exam technique clearly is a little rusty and it was good (if painful) to put myself back in a 3 hour test space.  It was a reminder to me about what my own children are going through weekly at College.  I am going to be a lot more supportive and sympathetic when they are complaining about testing week at school!

D.F.I has been an incredible experience for me and I've thoroughly enjoyed the past 9 weeks.  It's certainly taken me outside of my comfort zone as all good PLD does, and I've learnt so much.  A big thank you to Jeremy, Dorothy, Vicki and Jakub for their support along the way.  NWS gave Jeremy/Dorothy a box of chocolates each and explained that each chocolate was for a question asked.  Jeremy cheekily suggested that each chocolate was for one of my tabs that is open!

...maybe when I am feeling brave, I'll give Level 2 Accreditation a whirl :-)  not today though...  

   

Week 8 - Digital Technologies Curriculum

 

Week 8 - Digital Technologies Curriculum

Computational Thinking sounds like a very high falutin title doesn't it!   Week 8 for the Digital Fluency Initiative (D.F.I) was a deep dive into the 'new' Digital Technologies curriculum.  Which brings me to my first point... when is this not 'new'?  How many years do we say this is 'new' before we consider this to be an expectation for 'normal practice'.  Secondly, when you go through many of the achievement objectives of the 'new' curriculum, many of us 'old timers' would say... oh -  it's just that with a new title :-)  Not so scary after all. 

Dorothy, always gives us plenty of food for thought in her sessions.  Today's Connecting with Manaiakalani Pedagogy" was a look into 'Empowerment'. Increasingly, I understand and appreciate the power of language with not only the New Windsor staff but also across a community.  Language gives us the words and ways to share our thoughts and ideas, desires and wishes.  Language becomes more powerful when understood by a wider community that those just closest to you.  Power grows when you can communicate for more reasons to more people.  Simple ideas ar ethe best - always.  The more powerful your language, the more independent you become, and the more you contribute to the community.  It was good to discuss the language choice of 'Empowerment' over 'Agency'.  I've used 'agency' many times in my vernacular over the last couple of years and it gave me pause to think about educational jargon and also the rationale on why Manaiakalani had opted for the later. 

I also had some deep reflection on the statistic of the average income in a Decile 1 community - $19,000 per annum.  When you take a second to really think of what that looks like for a family and the choices (sacrifices) that a whanau would need to make to survive on that you get a real sense of the daily struggle.  Dorothy was so correct when she said - how clever are those families to live on that!  Absolutely - making that dollar stretch across all the needs of a family would involve incredible creativity, resilience, and fortitude.   In addition, I have a renewed passion for the importance of equity and removing barriers!

I loved the Future of Tech session - I am a total Sci Fi geek and I get excited at the prospect of the future.  I remember being completely blown away by the film the Minority Report when it first hits our screens and I consider myself to be one of the early adopters to any new tech going!  I love the latest gadget and I'm usually at the front of the line for any new releases.  Driverless cars can't come fast enough for me.  I do understand the displacement of jobs and industry but I am aspirational  and optimistic that humans are clever and we MUST evolve and adapt.  I for one am not scared of change.  

Arghhh the angst of the Moral Machine activity.  Can I just let you know Dorothy, Jeremy/Jacob this raised some very contentious dinner conversation on Saturday night.  Choosing between whether the dog or cat would live....  wow - the volume got loud :-) No spoilers on the rest of my decisions!  By the way....I would choose the dog! I also realised I'm one of those annoying people that simply can't make a straightforward decision. I was looking for loopholes in every scenario, so that I would not need to commit to a decision and how I could give everyone a chance to survive (face palm).  

Check it out and see what I mean... link

Thank you for your ongoing patience with supporting us towards the Google Accreditation process in Week 9.  On Friday night I started one of the tutorials and I am going to dedicate some time over the next couple of days to prepare for both the 'Classroom' and 'Sheets' component of the exam.  

So... I'm wondering did Austin go back to Pt England talk about the teachers that he taught Scratch to?  After a short demo and trial using Scratch I had an appreciation of how invested Austin was in the games he had developed and the level of sophistication in his coding - mind blown!

Roll on Week 9... I'll be sad when D.F.I is over!  I'm also well into the flow of my weekly Blog post now and like everything it's a discipline that you work on with practice!  Now to keep it up.