Before attending the GAFE Summit, I had heard about this cutting edge school called Point England in South Auckland. It is part of the Manaiakalani cluster of schools (11 in all – primary and secondary) that have made significant efforts in digital learning with impressive results. They use a 1 to 1 student owned model, high quality network infrastructure including wifi access outside of the schools, and a resolute commitment for students to learn/create/share.
I was fortunate to be able to chat with two of the leading lights and attend a workshop presented by another teacher at the school (see previous post).
Dorothy Burt is the Head of Manaiakalani Professional Learning and Development. After she had given her presentation on the Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy I collared her to learn about her views on effective professional learning. From her experience, the following are important:
- identify lead teachers who will work with other classroom teachers to model eLearning practices in their classes
- regular staff meetings with eLearning focuses
- twice a term host ‘Teacher’s Toolkits’ where teachers can sign up for various mini workshops hosted by other teachers in the cluster.
These aspects correlated well to what I had learned from my Masters thesis all those year ago (click here for an executive summary) so great to know I was on the right track back in 2006!
Dorothy also mentioned lessons learned from the 1 to 1 roll out of Chromebooks. These included the importance of the student owning their own device (they pay it off at $3.50 per week over three years), and teachers needing to be able to get their hands ‘dirty’ with tech support so they can troubleshoot technical issues.
Russell Burt (yes, they are husband and wife) has been teaching in the area since 1991. Currently the principal and convenor of the Manaiakalani schools cluster he is a leading light in eLearning. We chatted about a range of topics from professional learning, volume purchasing of devices, role of the Board of Trustees but I was most interested to learn of what he thought other schools could learn from the Pt England experience. He identified 7 aspects:
- Leadership
- Clear strategic direction with student learning as the aim
- Internal infrastructure (wifi access points, cabling, servers etc within the school)
- External infrastructure (Internet provider, bandwidth of external ‘pipe’)
- Device procurement (getting the best deal)
- Professional learning of staff
- Community involvement
So, great to have the opportunity to converse with these two inspirational educators and one of the many benefits of attending events like this GAFE summit – the chance to chin wag with other educators.
