This year, I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers for 2023. I was one of six teachers from around New Zealand who were selected to be a part of this group. 

We each identified a challenge that impacts our learners and used a Design Thinking Process to help us create an innovative tool to help us meet this challenge. This process included collaborating together both in person and online to share our project’s progress as well as feedback and ideas. 

Thank you, Dorothy, Matt, Jenny, and Justine for supporting me and giving me this amazing opportunity.

And of course, a massive thank you to Essie, Gabe, Jayne, Maiken, and Michelle. It has been a privilege to get to know you all this past year and grow together. We should all be proud of the work we have done and the projects we have created.

My project is called Te Ako Tahi – Learning Together and focuses on empowering and collaborating with whānau to encourage ubiquitous learning for junior students.

Click the links below to see my journey with my project this year:

This was our last chance to share our project by extending the invitation to Manaiakalani teachers across the country through an online toolkit. Once again we presented our Pecha Kucha but this time without the time restraint. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every opportunity to share my project and all the learning I have done.

 

The Taranaki Cluster celebrated a fantastic year with Manaiakalani by sharing some of the great practice that is happening within our schools. I was invited to share my MIT project once again but this time I was able to speak to my site and show people around.

It is a nice lowkey way of presenting but I can definitely see the value of Pechu Kechu for keeping the timing succinct! I also took this opportunity to promote the other’s projects and to encourage people to check them out! I am so proud of what we have all created and loved being able to share their projects further!

I was also privileged to be invited to lead a breakout session about how I use Learn, Create, Share in my reading practice. Fiona and I decided this focus would be a great idea as it aligns with one of our Cluster Goals for 2024. It was a lot of fun running this session and working with others in the cluster and I would love to do it again!

Click the links below to check out the slides:

This is it. The build-up of a year’s worth of work has all led to this moment. Presenting my project to a room full of principals is definitely a highlight of my career!

The Manaiakalani Principals’ Wananga was a wonderful experience. The two-day wananga included presentations from the Manaiakalani Research Team. It was fantastic to see how much the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy align with the incoming Common Practice Model. It really goes to show how we are on the right track, and with the support of Manaiakalani we can make a real difference in the lives of our tamariki. There were many great takeaways from the research team that we can bring back to our cluster and our school which is all very exciting.

I was also privileged enough to sit in on the cluster meetings and join in on the discussions. As a school and as a cluster we used our data from EdPotential to set goals for the next year. It was an interesting process. I was also very excited to hear from Meryn and Fiona that one of our goals will be focusing on engagement with whanau and that my project can be a great example to other schools in our cluster! 

Presenting my project went really well! In fact, all my fellow MIT presentations went splendidly. I am so proud of us and all the work we have done! 

 

In case you’ve missed it!

The Te Ako Tahi – Learning Together site is officially online!!!

Click the link below to check it out!!

The Bay of Islands Summit was a fantastic experience and a great opportunity for me to grow as a professional. The summit was held at the beautiful Bay of Islands College, where Manaiakalani teachers from across the country were invited to learn about innovation with technology, effective teaching practices, and cultural experiences. 

Before the summit, the MIT crew flew up a day early for a quick practice of our presentations and to help set up the goodie bags before we spent the afternoon exploring the local area. We enjoyed our trip out for lunch and to visit Rainbow Falls which was a little more brown than rainbow at this time of year. 

We then spent the first day of the summit attending various workshops and presenting our guest speakers with a certificate. This was a great opportunity for me to upskill and gain new ideas for my classroom. 

My first workshop reviewed some of the Core Business from the DFI and gave me some great ideas for using Drop Downs, Smart Chips, Building Blocks, and Stickety on Google Docs. Workshop Two had great resources and ideas to create a pepeha using iMovie. In my third workshop, I learned more about Edublogs and learned how to edit links in blogs so that the link will open in a new tab. 

We then spent the afternoon heading off on our cultural experiences. I very much enjoyed participating in the amazing race around Russell, although next time I will remember to wear appropriate shoes (ouch!). It was an amazing experience exploring such a beautiful historical place and it was a great opportunity to connect with educators from different places.

Day two was the day we have all been waiting for… presentation day. We had practiced our Pechu Kucha’s a few times by then and I was feeling reasonably confident until Matt walked on the stage to introduce us. My heart was racing as I stepped up to present and I was worried everyone could hear my laboured breathing into the microphone. However, watching the video I seem cool, calm, and collected. If you don’t believe me check it out for yourself!

We then headed off to our own workshop where teachers were invited to ask us more about our projects and what we have learned. I had a few people ask me about how I organised the learning challenges and they loved the spinning wheel. Someone else asked me about the videos as they were considering using Tiktok and we had a good conversation about using social media and why I chose to do mine that way. It was great to see the interest in my project and to share all the work I have done.

We then went back to attending workshops and I was really excited about the last two I attended. The first one was on how to use ChatGPT and other AI in the classroom. My favourite was using Textfx to support learning with literacy. The last workshop I attended used Google Forms to more efficiently track assessment and reporting and again, was full of so many great ideas.

The day ended with an innovation panel from four very interesting, and innovative people. They shared their understanding of innovation and some great innovation they have seen. It was very inspiring to listen to this panel and I really enjoyed it.

I am so grateful for this experience; connecting with others, gathering ideas, being inspired by the innovation of others, and most of all, having the opportunity to share my project publicly. It was a great few days and I am looking forward to bringing this learning back into my classroom, and to having the opportunity to present again in the upcoming Manaiakalani Principals’ Wānanga. 

 

Forever grateful for the kind hospitality we receive at KPMG. It really is a lovely space to collaborate and work together. We started our day by sharing how our projects are going and then moved on to discussing the logistics of the upcoming Bay of Islands Summit. It is so exciting to hear all the ways we are going to be involved in the Summit and planning our presentations.

My project is going well. The site is up and running and is now attached to our school website. There are a few videos on each page for whanau to use and I have found I have even been using them to assist with my teaching and promoting our learning challenges. This is the third month of our learning challenge and I have had the most engagement. Our juniors have really taken to these challenges and are very excited when new challenges are announced. I have also possibly found a sponsor to cover the costs of the prizes for the rest of this year!

We held our first event for whanau to learn how to be more fire-safe at home. We had five families attend and they all were very positive about the event and said they look forward to the next one. I have started a Google Sheet to document the engagement with all our school events and learning challenges so we may start to see patterns and adjust what we do.

Any and all feedback is welcome. Click the link below to check out my site:

Kia ora! Ko Crystal Johns taku ingoa.

I am a teacher at Marfell Community School in New Plymouth, NZ. I have a class of 15 wonderful Year 2 students and I am very excited to have the opportunity to use this project to enhance their learning. Research has shown that traditional homework does not positively impact students’ learning, however, repetition and the application of learning are essential. Feedback has shown that many in our school community believe in the importance of home learning, however, this learning should be more a part of everyday life. 

My project is focused on the question “How might we make learning ubiquitous for junior students?” We want the learning to happen at any time, any place. The solution I am focusing on is to create a website with short format videos for whānau to watch and gain ideas. These videos are made with the tamariki and reinforce learning that occurs in the classroom and at home. If you want to read more about the process of creating a focus question and solution you can read it on this blog post here: MIT 2023 Omaha Hui.

The website also includes upcoming events for whānau to learn more about using technology. There will be a space for whānau to ask questions so that we can really target what they want to learn. It will also have monthly learning challenges to encourage learning in other contexts at home.

First, I created a prototype with Google Slides to get a general impression of what the site would be like and gain some initial feedback. Based on this feedback, I have since created the website with a few videos and have only shared this with our school community.

There has been a positive response from the community with great feedback and ideas on how to improve this website. Many whānau have shared some of the great things they are doing and I am working with them to create their own videos to share. 

If you have any thoughts you would like to share, click on the picture below to view the prototype and leave your feedback in the Google Form.

Another fantastic day at KPMG and a wonderful opportunity to share where my project is at so far. It truly is a lovely space to work and collaborate with each other. Standing in front of the group and sharing how it is going can always be a little nerve-wracking but I felt confident in the fact that most feedback I have received has been fairly positive and that this group will be able to provide more unique perspectives and room for improvement.

I have shared several prototypes along the way. My first prototype was based on the one I started to create the last KPMG meeting that had two different layouts and an example video. I shared this in a staff meeting and they all agreed that subject first would be the best layout. Version 2 of my prototype included an introduction video and Google Form for people to provide feedback. This is the prototype I emailed to all whānau in our school, and even shared with my friends and family as well. 

Most feedback has been positive but there were a lot of issues with navigating the Google Slides on cellphones. I have since created an early version of the website that I have shared with our school whānau and have since received even more feedback. The feedback so far has been very positive and many great ideas have been shared. It has been interesting to hear from a variety of different voices.

Today, I presented how my prototype testing has been coming along, and then had the opportunity to gain more feedback from the MIT group. Essie gave me a few more ideas of things to add to the site, including making sure there is a small blurb under each video so that people know what they are about and ideas on how to extend the learning challenges further. Our lovely host, Justine Todd, made a great point to check the permissions for sharing children online and make sure the parents are truly aware of where these videos are being shared, even if there is a blurb on the site about sharing permissions. 

I am leaving today feeling incredibly inspired and with a clear idea of what I need to do next. This project is coming along quite nicely indeed.

Our first meeting at KPMG and what a treat it was! We started our day reconnecting over breakfast at the Lawn Cafe before we were welcomed into the KPMG building by Justine Todd. We spent our day in KPMG’s Innovation Hub and it was truly a beautiful space to work in. 

The first thing we did was to present our prototype plan to the rest of the group. I really enjoyed seeing how everyone is going with formulating their ideas and I am very excited to see everyones end results. This was also a great opportunity to gain initial feedback on my prototype from everyone and they gave me some excellent ideas for what I need to check when I share my prototype with others. I was a little nervous to share first but it was exciting to see what others think about it and gain their feedback.

One piece of feedback I received was to look at the layout I was suggesting for the website. Perhaps it should be set out by subject first so that it is more direct for parents? Also, I indicated that I would check the assumptions I am making through conversations with whanau, however some of the feedback and suggestions I was given had me thinking about other ways of receiving this feedback that would be better than just conversations.

 

We then began to build our prototypes so that they will soon be ready to share. One idea that came up was to create a Google Slide presentation instead of a functioning website to share the initial prototype. I began to create two sets of slides, one with my initial layout of sorting by videos and resources first and then by subject, and one with the new idea to sort by subject and then by videos and resources. 

I then linked both slides into one slide as I want to test which layout is preferred. Matt shared with us that there are websites you can use that will count how many times the link has been clicked so I explored using Rebrandly to count the number of clicks each layout gets as another form of data gathering. I then managed to work out a way to link Rebrandly to an individual slide so I could also collect the data of which aspects of the site people preferred to look at the most. Further reflection on this indicates that some people may choose to click on every link and explore all aspects of both prototypes before they give their feedback, so the data gathered from this may not be an accurate representation.

Sharing my prototype with Matt, he mentioned that I would need to sit down with whanau and explain what my project is, and what feedback I would like to get from them as the way it is currently presented may be confusing. Other feedback also indicated that as the videos are the main feature of my website, then I may need to create a video with my class first so they can gain a better understanding of what it will all look like.

I am glad I gained some feedback on my prototype, as I quickly jotted down some ideas for improving my prototype at a later date. The biggest thing I would like to do is to include videos explaining what this prototype is for, and trying to make it accessible so that some people will be able to look at it and provide feedback without me needing to be present. I also very much appreciated Dorothy’s point to share our prototypes with as many people as possible, it does not need to just be teachers and whanau from my community. This had me thinking back to the activity we did at Omaha where we wrote all the people who we can count on. I think I would love to start sharing my prototype with my family and coworkers first before I begin to share it out to the wider community. I especially want to change the name of my prototype ASAP!

At the end of the day Dorothy and Matt set our group a challenge to design our own logo to represent MIT2023. We would have some time now to work on it, and then all other communication would need to be through email. There were certain colours and fonts that needed to be used to fit within the Manaiakalani branding. Maiken used Canva to find a simple and effective template for us, and we then began discussing what we might put on it to represent our MIT group specifically. We reflected on the great time we had at Omaha and the waves there, as well as the fact there are six of us within the group. 

Working together, we chose the symbols we wanted to add and eagerly discussed which way we preferred it to be coloured. We needed to make sure it looked good with a transparent/white background and a black background. I think we were all surprised when what was meant to take us a few weeks, only took us a short session together with everybody communicating and sharing their thoughts. We created something we are very proud of.

Now it’s time to get to work and get my prototype out there for everyone to see! Very scary but also very exciting!