Milestone 4 Feedback Cluster: Making Connections Linking Digitally Lead School: Plateau Contract: 10-0253 National Facilitator: Nick

Rate Date: December, 2011

Your milestone report has been approved and I am happy to provide you with the following feedback. 4.1 Liase with the National Facilitator assigned to this project Thank you for presenting a clear record of the interactions between your national facilitator and the cluster. Visits to cluster schools are always extremely valuable, allowing me to gain a first hand understanding of working in your schools and with your staff and students. I appreciate the time and opportunity to meet with you. Thank you for Nigels continued involvement in the regional cluster network meetings. It is always great to and have his input into these collaborative discussion and sharing sessions. 4.2 Report on your programme implementation during the milestone period and provide an explanation for variation from the planned programme as necessary. You have continued to provide a wide range of learning for your staff through workshops and other professional learning opportunities. Included here are conference attendance, lead teacher meetings, management meetings, cluster EXPO, best practice school visits, photo competitions, facilitator visits and a huge range of internal school meetings and mentoring. Your second EXPO has drawn together a number of external experts to run a variety of workshops to your staff. Evidence provided in the report suggest this was another very worthwhile whole cluster event. Lead teacher meetings gave plenty of opportunities to extend understandings through best practice visits and a range of other professional learning discussions and development. The visit in particular seemed to recieve favourable feedback. The ULearn conference is mentioned as a great way to build capacity and expose teachers and leaders to new ideas and learning networks. Exposing as many teachers as possible to this type of forum will aid in distributing elearning understanding across your schools and sustain momentum beyond the contract. The concept and potential of the collaborative projects is exciting and while it returned mixed results this year I hope that the intent is retained for 2012 so that this initiative reaches its potential. 4.3 Upload a succinct summary of your reflections into the VLN Your summary is logically laid out, well structured using heading, paragraphs and bullet points and links through to some supporting evidence. Reflection is evident through your identified key lessons and next steps. The summary has been uploaded into your cluster VLN space and includes a number of relevant tags to make them more accessible and searchable by the VLN users.

The graphical representation of the process supports the summary well, provide a succinct overview of the intent, goals and outcomes of the photography competition. The process is expanded on in the body of text unpacking further how it worked with supporting links to resources on the cluster wiki. 4.4 Provide a summary of progress towards cluster programme goals that have not been outlined in 4.3 National Goal 1 A range of evidence is provided to demonstrate how teachers are provided opportunities for students and developed their success at being digital citizens. Skill development is happening with a variety of hardware, online tools and software being used to create and reinforce learning concepts and skills. Online spaces such as class wikis, blogs, dropbox and collaborative environments such as Google Docs provide students with opportunities to access, share and work together on their learning. SuperClubPlus is used by some schools to reinforce appropriate digital citixenship behaviours.I am sure you have looked at Ribbles nine elements of digital citizenship, but if not I would recommend a read in recognition that successful digital citizenship goes far beyond cyber-safety.You might also find parts of Our Space helpful, especially by adapting some of the lesson outlines for your schools context. National Goal 2 Evidence provided demonstrates cluster principals continuing to resource and build capacity in elearning through purchasing and planning for upcoming readiness including SNUP, wireless and UFBiS. Opportunities are provided to build leadership capacity in others through distributing elearning leadership to lead teachers. New initiatives are being explored and actioned such as new SMS or LMS systems and the place on new initiatives such as BYOD. The BYOD group in the VLN is a valuable resource for information regarding this type of approach. In particular the bookmarked sites have a range of views and resources on the topic such as the 21 steps to 1:1 implementation resources, which are well with a look along with the rest. National Goal 3 Evidence presented shows teachers increasingly using elearning in their classroom to enhance learning and engage learners. The examples linked to demonstrate the use of a variety of online hubs such as wikis, blogs and LMSs, and the use of and planning for a variety of web tools and portable devices including cameras and ipods. The presentations and movies given at the end of year sharing sessions are fantastic and capture a whole range of evidence and progress including teacher and student voice which is always very powerful. These are a great indicator of the progress made over the last two years. National Goal 4 Cluster schools have continued to engage family and whnau in their childs learning through a number of approaches. Increased use of SMSs had aided more convenience and added another mechanism for communicating with parents. This has been complimented by a growing body of online sites enabling the sharing of information, events and learning with the school community. Blogs have a strong presence with a host of blogs being provided to demonstrate how these are a strong link in the communication chain with parents and whnau. It was hard to tell however, without gong through every blog and post, if this is a two way communicative process. How often do

parents leave comments in these spaces? Would be interesting if you have any useful strategies that encourage parent participation in this area. Future Thinking The VLN is rapidly growing as a user generated community base for e-learning in New Zealand schools. Dont forget this is well complimented by the newly launched Enabling E-Learning web site and underpinned by the NZ e-Learning Planning Framework. Consider how these tools and resources may extend or enhance learning for your cluster staff and principals. A number of schools are already implemeting professional eportfolios. With this in mind, the recently published Ttaiako: Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Mori Learners, resource might provide you with another level of professional dialogue in respect to your use of professional eportfolios that feed into inquiry, appraisal, attestation and registration. The Teachers Registration Council have a companion resource which may provide further structure and ideas. Ng mihi nui, Nick Rate