DFI - Rangi 2

Whiria te tangata

Whiria te ako

Anō nei te hīkaka me te hihiko o tā mātou nohotahi ki te Kura o Ōtaki. Hāneanea ana te noho ki Akomanga 1 ki te kura nei me te mihi nui ki a koutou e kaha manaaki ana i a mātou o te kaupapa DFI. Kua roa te wiki! Kātahi anō kia whai wā ki te whakarite whakaaro me te whakairi ki taku rangitaki. Ko te ūpoko o taku pōhi i tēnei wiki, he kupu whakarite mō te wairua pai o tā tātou ako ngātahi i ēnei wiki tata. 

Akomanga 1 - Te Kura o Ōtaki, o Korowai Whakamana, e mihi ana.

It's been another awesome week with our Ōtaki DFI crew. We have been so well looked after here at Ōtaki Primary School and are greeted by a raucously happy staffroom between sessions - and I get why they're called Digital Intensives. We make the most of every minute of our time together and time flies.  Ngā mihi nui ki tēnei kura manaaki i te kaupapa  o Manaiakalani. 

The title of my post this week captures this week for me, the essence of what a digital-intensive should be about. Weaving people and learning together. 

He aha aku akoranga hei āwhina i taku mārama atu ki te ariā ako me te kaupapa o Manaiakalani?

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

We discussed connectedness and for me, it elevates fundamental values at our kura like whanaungatanga and taha whānau. The understanding that everything we do online or in person has power and will touch more than we may have ever previously imagined. This is something that both scares and inspires me as a teacher. A class is no longer defined by the four walls of a room or school. The world is our classroom. We could connect with students in Japan and exchange stories of the Matariki or Subaru constellation or hangout with students in the Chathams collaborating in marine biology.  How might we apply these concepts as we rethink or retool our kura for the Information age? 

When discussing empowerment in learning I think of how we whakamana our students to choose how, when and what they learn. Where students lead their learning, using a multitude of media to research, present and publish. The SAMR model encourages us to critically reflect on our practice. Is the Chromebook more than just a word processor? Can it not be a portal through which students can innovate and create? 

                                      Image credit: Sylvia Duckworth, via @DavidGuerin

Then there is visibility and transparency. If we truly empower our students with agency, how will they share, present and publish learning when they're ready? In a Kura Kaupapa Māori setting, this type of inquiry runs pretty deep. Pouako feel a tremendous responsibility to uphold tikanga or practices of knowledge sharing which influences their teaching, especially in a digital environment. These tikanga and traditions bring to the heady chaos of rapid digital change, the calm of knowing that some things belong only in the physical and spiritual wānanga space.  Finally, ubiquity. How can learning be made accessible anywhere for anyone? Google applications and cloud-based storage have certainly helped answer that question. 

The Manaiakalani model is perhaps inspired by educators like the inspirational Sugata Mitra and his global school in the cloud vision now known as SOLEs or Self Organised Learning Environments. Digital platforms where the learning is largely driven by students who develop BIG questions they collaborate to answer. Global schools that can be accessed from the most remote parts of the world. When several of our students returned from a tour of Silicon Valley, they returned with stories of how Google and other giants were already thinking about no-internet devices so that anyone, anywhere could connect, create and share. We truly are at the edge of an exciting stage of evolution in learning and knowledge sharing. Are our students ready? Are we ready?