Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Always time for a little more PD... Logical and Critical Thinking

I loved seeing this on facebook this morning.  So often I say how much I love my work and this is a large part of why I love it!  I am passionate about what we do!

Today I was working with a colleague, Simon, who has just started participation in this MOOC!  It is crucial to the work we are doing so, why not, I thought... and I signed up too!




There is always room for a little more PD.  I have just checked out the crowdsourced pdf supporting our journey and I am inspired...





Let the learning begin...

Reflecting on our hui #tttlwdt2015

Here I am awaiting the flight home. Wow what an amazing hui. What was it that made it such an amazing two days?

Firstly, as always; he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!
Without a doubt it is always the people in the room that make the MAGIC!

This hui was incredibly focused on our journey and has supported us into a powerful place for the rest of the year. The sharing of personal story hui was a real highlight! There is a whole lot of MAGIC in telling a story and digging deeper into the story and the emerging themes. I feel incredibly attached to my story and am so grateful to Viv for capturing my story in pictures and to Brad for capturing my story in words.



...this is my story...


Another highlight for me was sharing a snapshot of the MAGICAL way in which Jo worked with hr storyhui to link to the RTCs and how she reflected on the storyhui experience! Thank you Jo for your powerful story, and thank you Liz for the opportunity to share.



A real highlight from day one was the session led by Merryn and Heather on wellness and mindfulness! Increasingly we are aware of the need to take best care of ourselves but do we always have a kete ready, full of ideas? I am particularly grateful for this very timely reminder, thank you girls. I am also incredibly grateful for the kete of quotes and sayings.

As we head to the pointy end of our year with our schools I think it will be very important for us to be aware of stresses and pressures, and prepared to support our colleagues and team members.

So heading home tonight I am uber grateful for this opportunity!

As we put the finishing touches on sessions for Ulearn I am increasingly aware of the need to bring my story into play.

On the flight tonight I have taken the time to record snapshots of my learning journey. I am not sure yet how much I will share at my session, but I know that sharing of myself, my story, my struggles is crucial in connecting with my participants. Sharing a story of the transformational journey from isolation to connection is essential for me. Acknowledging the key players, coaches and mentors in my journey is essential for me. Celebrating successes is essential for me.

About to touch down in Dunedin I am renewed, invigorated, inspired and amped ready for the next few weeks. Thank you to you all for the conversation, the collegiality, the motivation, inspiration, challenge and connection that has been the past two days.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Auckland

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Leadership with Nick Major (NAPP)

Why should anyone be led by me?
Facilitated.... mentored... coached... ?
Addressing the self doubt?  What works for me...

The Imposter Syndrome - Book by Harold Hillman PhD 

Managing this and becoming an authentic leader... reframe feelings of self-doubt! 

Credibility - How leaders gain and lost it, why people demand it, James Kouzes & Barry Posner Research. 

Extraordinary Leadership in Australia and New Zealand: The Five Practices that Create Great Workplaces

What values or personal traits do we have that people look for in leaders?

Out of all of these:


Top four to give leader credibility:
Honest
Forward Looking
Inspiring 
Competent

These attributes endow a leader with credibility!
Know and believe in self!
Know strengths and weaknesses.
Know passions!

"Leadership is a relationship, with credibility as the cornerstone, between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow." Kouzes and Posner

Rule 2:  DWYSYWD - Do what you say you will do!



Theory X versus Theory Y

Embracing the gatekeepers, 

"The essential role of leadership (and of leading change) is to find out how and what your colleagues (constituents) think, feel and believe and how this informs their practice... or doesn't."


  • Deliberate acts of coaching/mentoring; 
  • Leadership is a conversation, a dialogue, not a monologue.
  • Asking really good, timely questions... mindfully listening to what is being said...
"I cannot teach anyone anything.  I can only make them think."  Socrates. 

Whakatauki - listening...  

Titiro, whakarongo, korero, Look, listen and then speak... 

Coaching is a collaborative, solution focused learning relationship, through which positive change is facilitated. Leading to a better future through the team's aspirations... 


Insert images for triple loop learning:
Moving from 
Single loop       Following the rules
Double loop     Changing the rules
Triple loop       New rules...
Moving to new ways of being... transformational/system change

"If your job is to help people do what they do, remember it's more about THEM than it is about YOU!"

Monday, September 7, 2015

Te Reo Manahua Māori - Topic 2.3: He rawe kē! He kino kē! Likes and Dislikes

Focus  this week:
  • Negative sentences
  • The use of kīwaha


Kia whitu hinganga, kia waru aranga ake.
Fall seven times, arise eight times.
This whakatauk sure is a great one for me this week. I have really been struggling to keep up.

Reomation Challenge:
Transcript and Translation
Ngā tohu huarere mō āpōpō
Weather forecast for tomorrow
Tēnā koutou katoa, anei ngā tohu huarere mō āpōpō.
Greetings all, here’s the weather forecast for tomorrow
Ka pupuhi te hau.
The wind will blow.
He tika tāu.
You’re right…
Ka heke te ua.
The rain will fall.
Whū!
Whoa
Ka huka te ua.
The snow will fall.
Engari mō tēnā!
Not on your nellie. No way.
Ae.
Ka whiti te rā.
The sun will shine.
Tērā pea
Maybe
E whā ngā kaupeka i te rā kotahi.
Four seasons in one day…
Ka riro koe ki whea?
Day dreamer…

I have to take a moment to acknowledge the support I am receiving.  Gemma, you are incredible, you are patient, supportive and challenging in just the right mix for me!


Today I needed support with a sentence structure for ‘four seasons in one day”.  Moments after posting my request I received help from someone previously unknown to me.  I also acknowledge Te Mihinga and Tahu for their continued support.  My tweet has also received some retweets and I am aware of the importance of me sharing my learning journey.  For me, it is a HUGE challenge and I am very comfortable to share and acknowledge this.  
Screen Shot 2015-09-07 at 5.33.19 pm.png

Keri Facer - Learning Futures





Holistic view to rethink educational institutions.  Focussed on future building not future thinking.




  • Live with technologies that are able to disrupt - what are the boundaries, Living responsibly, critically, ethically with these technologies

  • How does education help us live with environmental change?

  • How do we cope with living with a shift towards a very different population structure?

  • How to build real economic resilience? Building resilient and powerful communities.



Rethinking these challenges in a new model of education - educative hope!  





Imagining the alternatives, new environments, building from the bottom up.  What is the relationship of education with its local community?





Schools are massively powerful places!


Young people have a lot of power. 





Schools can change the world in aggregate!





All public data is going to be open and available to all.  





Young people have the ability to access and critique this information.  





Educated hope!!!





Schools and society working together to reimagine the world...





Schools as the centre of local innovation!  





What happens when you begin to really re-think schools.





HUGE challenges to us!  New Zealand's curriculum allows for personalised curriculum.  Are we releasing the power of students to change the world?  








Stop Stealing Dreams - unpacking the video...



Today I am enjoying this talk by Seth Godin.

To understand what school is for, first we need to explore what school used to be for.  School was about teaching obedience! Respect and obedience!

The invention of the standardised test was set up to sort a problem. Once it didn't work, the originator said it didn't work.  

We are programmed to hold a little bit back - exampled by raising a hand, then ask to raise higher, of which all are capable.  We are programmed from our an early age to hold a little back. 

People in factories didn't have enough workers.  Universal schooling to train people to be willing to work in factories.  Schools churned out interchangeable people, just as factories had interchangeable people.

Normal schools and text books came out, and so people became locked into the system of learning, memorising, regurgitating.  

"If its work people try to do less, if its art people try to do more."

No right answer and a million wrong answers is a challenge!  

With the arrival of technology we do not need one person to teach us - when we can all be connected via the internet. 

Essential changes:
Flipped learning - Homework during the day, lectures at night 
Open book, open note all of the time - memorising is not necessary
Open access to any course, anytime, anywhere
Precise focussed education - 
No more multiple choice - ever
Measure experience instead of test score - 
Co-operation instead of isolation
Teacher role transfers into coach
Death of famous colleges
Arduino - build, create, do something interesting - ask for help

Destroy the myths:
  • Great performance in school leads to happiness and success
  • Great parents have children who perform well in school

"Are we asking children to connect dots, or collect dots?"

Put the learners into a situation where they can fail and learn from it.  We spend so much time measuring the dots, measuring the successes. 

"Grades are an illusion. Passion and insight are reality.  Your work is more important than your congruence to an answer team. Persistence in the face of a sceptical authority figure is priceless and yet we undermine it. Fitting in is a short term strategy that gets you nowhere.  Standing out is a long term strategy that takes guts and produces results.  If you care enough about your work to be willing to be criticised for it then you have done a good day's work."

Ask the question - what is school for?

Have a conversation with anyone - what is school for!

Wow, so many challenges is this talk.  How well are we going at connecting the dots?

Maybe storyhui is our bridge to connecting the dots at the moment. 

Through the power of the story we are able to connect dots, feel your passion and your insight.  We are able to hear of our persistence, and our 'standing out'. We are able to hear our story and our journey as we share 'what school is for', for our targeted individual or group of learners.  We are able to hear our journey as we celebrate the ways in which we are changing, and growing to better meet the needs of our learners. 




Te Reo Manahua - Reomation Challenge



WOW... what an effort... my reomation and the story of it...

I looked at the reomations!

Our challenge was to recreate a reomation, adding kīwaha.

I decided to use show me, because I love the images and the ease of construction.

I uploaded my images to showme, to record my reo.

A HUGE thank you to Gemma, Te mihinga, Tahu, and Mark for support!  Twitter is amazing for getting answers swiftly....

My confidence is growing daily in using and sharing reo!


Sunday, September 6, 2015

Te Reo Manahua Māori - Topic 2.2: Hei Taonga Māku - my recording...

Choice and Voice, Get your Agency On - exploring this ted talk...


A HUGE thank you to Sarah Webster for sharing this link via the VPLD forum.

Agency is such a big issue in many of the environments we are working in at the moment and I think it is incredibly valuable for us to take the time to view this Ted Talk...

Big ideas...

  • Always listen and learn  - we are all learners...
  • Learning changes lives - capacity to achieve our aspirations!

Deep in the learning pit... Te Reo Manahua Māori - Topic 2.2: Hei Taonga Māku

Te Reo Manahua Māori - Topic 2.2: Hei Taonga Māku
Precious to me…
Here I am in the adobe connect for this week…. And only late last night did I complete last week’s challenge! Handing over a link to my extended pepeha was like handing over a part of my heart and soul… What an incredible journey it was to share all the way back to my grandparents… My cultural cloak is growing… I am working on an actual weaving of the complexity of cultures…
This week’s whakatauki….
Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu.
Although it is small, it is precious.
This week’s Tīwhiri Tikanga –
A well known tikanga aspect is that we don't sit on tables. This really comes down to hygiene in that you wouldn't put food where your bottom has been. There are also other extensions to this such as you don't put clothes on a table and you don't put any food on seats. A lot of tikanga relate to hygienic practices.”


He kuini tāu? - Have you got a queen? - great game to learn sentence structure…


He ______ tāu?  Have you got _____
Kāore aku ________ No I haven’t got __________
Ae aku ______ Yes I have got ________




Screen Shot 2015-09-05 at 2.37.02 pm.png

Screen Shot 2015-09-05 at 2.37.20 pm.png


Screen Shot 2015-09-05 at 2.40.21 pm.png




Screen Shot 2015-09-05 at 3.09.35 pm.png


Two women talking...
He tamariki āu?
Do you have any children?


● Āe, he tamariki āku, he mokopuna hoki āku, tokorua ā māua mokopuna. Yes, two children and two grandchildren, and a grandchild.


He tamariki āu?
Do you have children?


Āe, he tamariki āku, engari kāore anō tāku tamahine kia whanau mai ētahi mokopuna māku. Ko tāna ngeru tāna pēpi.
Yes I have two children, but I don’t have any grandchildren yet in our family. The cat is the baby.


● I wau nei! Kei te noho tata ā kōrua tamariki ki a koe?
Do your children come to sleep or stay at your place?


Kei te noho tata tā māua tama ki a māua, ka kai ia ki tō māua whare i ngā wā katoa. Ahua roa te haerenga i waenganui i tō māua whare ki tō to māua tamahine whare. Ko te nuinga o te wā, he pakaru no tō rāua ko tāna tane waka, kāore rāua mo te hoki hoki mai ki tō māua whare.


My son stays at my place a lot.  He spends his time between our place and my daughter’s place. He spends the majority of his time at his son’s place, because his car is broken down.


Hei Taonga Māku


First attempt:


Tenei nga keretao ā koutou - these are their puppets
Kei te pānui whakaahua ā tāua - this is our poster
Kei te mahi ā rātou - this is there work 3+
Ko tenei waka ia - that is his car
Kei te tenei tōku waka - this is my helicopter
Kei te pukpuka aku tamariki - this is the children’s book
Ko tamāhine tā tāua - this is our daughter
Kei te waenga tā mātou - this is our garden 3+
Kei te rare a ia - these are their lollies


Second attempt, combined with third attempt with amazing support from Gemma:


Tenei nga keretao ā koutou - these are their puppets
He nga keretao ēnei
Ko ēnei ā rātou keretao. (more formal)
Ā rātou keretao ēnei. (less formal)


Kei te pānui whakaahua ā tāua - this is our poster (tā - one)
He pānui whakaahua tā tāua
Ko tenei tā māua pānui whakaahua.
Tā māua pānui whakaahua.


Kei te mahi ā rātou - this is their work 3+
He mahi tā koutou
Ko tēnei ā rātau mahi
Ā rātau mahi tēnei


Ko tenei waka ia
He tena waka ia
Ko tērā tōna waka. - that is his car
Tōna waka tērā?
Ae, Tōna waka tērā


Kei te tenei tōku waka - this is my helicopter
Ko tēnei tōku waka topatopa


Kei te pukapuka aku tamariki - this is the children’s book
Ko tēnei tā ngā tamariki pukupuka
Tā ngā tamariki pukupuka tēnei


Ko tamāhine tā tāua
He tamāhine tā tāua - you and I have a daughter
Ko tenei tāku tamāhine - this is our daughter


Kei te waenga tā mātou - this is our garden 3+
He waenga tā mātou
Ko tēnei tō mātou māra
Tō mātou māra tenei.


Kei te rare a ia - these are their lollies
Ko ēnei ā rātou rare.
Ā rātou rare ēnei


WOW - talk about a HUGE learning curve… Yesterday I was so far in the pit there was danger I a) wouldn’t make it out… and b) would lose motivation!
I woke up this morning disappointed with my effort, so I came back and had a second attempt.  After much effort and frustration I sought support!  Gemma you are a legend!  Tino pai rawa atu!


I am learning, I am being a little more realistic with my expectations of myself, and I am restored to giving it even more of an effort!


Anne's kōrero on PhotoPeach

All that remains is for me to voice record this and put online... woohoo... onto the next module soon... and still smiling...