Reflection: Auckland Google Summit 2025

The first Google Summit in Auckland in a very long time - and possibly the first Google Summit I attended in 10 (?) years. It was great to see some familiar faces (Juliet and Justine come to mind), and though the summit was not as large as what I remember past events, the crowd was engaged and highly curious. My heartfelt thanks to the team from Deploy Learning to make this event happen at Albany Senior High School and for free!

Eric Curts from Control Alt Achieve gave the keynote and set the scene for a day that was all about AI: "Level up every learner with AI". Not only should we look at AI to assist educators, they can empower our learners. He focused on four specific areas: Personalised Learning, Feedback, Creativity and Accessibility, and he provided a wide range of examples of how AI can empower learners in these areas (check out https://www.controlaltachieve.com/p/resources-ai.html).

From there we split off into different hands-on sessions, where we explored (mainly) AI technology under guidance of our respective presenters. I attended sessions led by Steve Smith Notebook LM and Gems - use your info to build custom agents, Chris Betcher A Sense of Place: Cross-Curricular Storytelling with Google Earth, Eric Curts Hipster Google - Tools You Probably Never Heard Of, and Luke Starczak Exploring Gemini Canvas. 

What have I taken away from the event overall?

1. As in the past, there are still many passionate educators in Aotearoa New Zealand that will spend the first day of their term break learning, many seven pending their own money on travel and accommodation.
2. While online meetings are convenient and much cheaper, there is real potential in bringing back in-person events: The value of the 'meeting people in person' experience cannot be overstated, and there are many people who are willing to contribute in different forms. I would like to see some of the grassroots events reemerge, may it be tech breakfasts, teachmeets, educator meet ups in regions etc. The end of kāhui ako does not have to mean the end of collaboration and learning with and from each other?

What about AI?

Since I started working as facilitator for Manaiakalani in May, I have been dabbling with AI use, but I am yet to fully get on board. Work is very supportive of exploring AI use, which is different to my previous sector, and we have regularly briefings on new uses for our practice, provided by some of our colleagues.

I can see the benefit of AI doing (some of the) legwork for educators and facilitators, I can see the advantage of AI created images versus trying to find the elusive creative commons image to support a presentation - and yet I'm somewhat reluctant: A child of the 70s and 80s, am I influenced by the HALs, Skynet, and VIKIs of the movie world? Is it the Playcentre mother in me, encouraging my children to create their own understanding of the world around them? Where is the balance between human creativity and and AI? Not engaging with AI is not really an option for me: If I want to have an informed opinion, I need to explore and see what is out there. A healthy dose of scepticism might be useful if I want to achieve that above balance.

AI and education

I can see some useful AI assistance for educators and for facilitators:

• I have created a Gemini Gem to help me develop the skeleton of lesson sequences at different (age) levels, a task that took less that 15 minutes from start to finish where it would have taken me much, much longer. From there I will flesh out the lessons and find or develop supporting materials (slides, exemplars, templates). It is my understanding that it being a 'Gem', I will be able to reuse this for other contexts and other year levels.
• Gemini Canvas has helped me create two versions of a Cybersmart game that students can use to practice their Digital Citizenship skills.
• Adobe Express has helped me create a range of images to use over the last few months. While I can still see cultural bias within images, this is now less obvious than previously.

AI can help create:

• From some of the simple creation tools like autodraw.com to Canva and Adobe Express, AI can assist the budding artist. My wonderings include: How do we ensure that our learners still practice their manual skills, that they learn how to utilise the AI tools effective, and they give credit to AI?
• Even as an amateur, you can create some cool little animations; this is a little experiment I created in Wisk, using a photograph of the design on my handbag: https://labs.google/fx/tools/whisk/share/animate/3rp25vtef0000. How will these tools affect our creativity: How will we ensure we continue to expand our own ideas and not limit ourselves to what we can get AI to do? What roles will our exisiting animators fill in future now that AI can do their jobs?
• Many of our learners in rural areas have limited access to resources: How can AI powered creative tools help level the playing field for them, without crating a different kind of inequity?

AI as a personalised Teacher Aide / Teaching Assistant for learners

I'm intrigued by this, and still I yet have to make up my mind on it: Being able to provide learners with immediate, personalised feedback 24/7 is something that seems impossible to achieve without AI assistance. My questions center around the intersection between AI Teacher Aide and teacher:

• How does the teacher know what AI assistance has been provided and how successful this was?
• How can we ensure that AI assistance is according to what the teacher has planned? At a base level, I'm thinking of those times when I have liaised with the classroom teacher before teaching a Raranga Matihiko class to ensure I was using the terminology students were familiar with.
• How do AI and teacher collaboratively work with the student to help them get to the next step of their thinking and learning? 

So, AI is here to stay, and we have choices about what this will look like.

Overall, a very thought provoking day, and I look forward to more in-person events in future!

Sending and receiving messages

This is probably one of my more obscure wonderings, mainly for my own benefit. If you persevere with reading this, well done you!

Reflection on Reflective Practice

Our training at work has been going very well, and the team constantly amaze and impress me with the depth of their thinking and their willingness to consider new ideas - or re-consider older ideas. There is many things that I really like about my work, but the two hours we spend together every week are very special, and I really treasure this time.

Every week every participant is asked to set aside 30 minutes to reflect on what they have learnt: Reflective practice is something I believe in deeply, and yet I have struggled to put my reflections down for the last few weeks.

I look for an image that represents reflection for every week of our training

This blog used to be my reflection tool, and I used to be very open and honest about my experiences. Over the years I have felt more constraint in what I think I should say on there - will it reflect on my organisation, will it reflect on the people I work with?

I have been thinking about turning the blog private; however, one of the reasons for starting to blog was this idea that content educators engage with needs to be created in order to be consumed; if I only ever consume, what do I contribute? Who do I leave to do all the creating? Will these voices be diverse and representative of everyone?

With this, I am back to a public rather than a private blog; but actually, does a reflection need to be recorded anyway, could I just reflect in my head?

I think that for me, many thoughts and ideas float through my head all the time, and they easily can get lost. I have learnt that for me to fully understand something, I have to look at it from different perspectives, have to talk different options through. For some of my mahi, I find it really easy to talk through ideas and thoughts, especially with my team (who are all absolutely amazing btw!). When it is about this training, I know I can talk things through with them, but as participants in the training, I feel it is unfair when I burden them with the why and the how while they are also working on the what (in addition to all their other work). Right now, I have not found that critical buddy yet who I can chew these particular thoughts and ideas over with, the person who keeps me accountable.

After going around a long-winded pathway, I'm somewhat back where I started - back with reflecting on a public blog; did I just need to convince my head of what my heart (or my gut?) already knew? Anyone else have similar experiences?

Reflection on our / my understanding of our Aotearoa New Zealand's Histories

In the fourth week of our training, we focused on our collective understanding of the histories we tell at Waitangi. Like most if not all culture and heritage organisations, the stories we tell in our exhibitions has been carefully curated, and collectively our group have a thorough knowledge of the stories represented across the Grounds. 

What stood out the most

Once we started putting these stories onto a timeline, if became clear to us that we have some time periods with lots of stories to tell, and others where we collectively know much less, namely the time before documented European arrival to Aotearoa.

The question posed was does this matter, and collectively we decided that yes, it does matter: When we run workshops about Te Tiriti, we want to represent both treaty partners, so hītorī Māori is vitally important. Hand in hand with this goes the use of te reo Māori, and using kupu Māori with confidence (discussion about the difference between rangatira and ariki).

We also want to be through and have a great level of expertise, and while that does not mean that every facilitator has to know everything, collectively, across the team, thorough knowledge is very important: If a participant has a very specific question, we can assure them that we will check back with a colleague and then get back to them.

Finally, no matter where else our participants learn about Te Tiriti, if our exhibitions and interpretations miss some of the information we regard as important for workshop participants, then we want to incorporate some of these during the workshop.

In addition, what stood out to me was the discussions during and after the session, about the way we interact with our histories and why. When I put the session together, I didn't realise how deep the discussions would go, how much of an impact it might have.

Immediate impact on my practice

• Yesterday I planned a follow-up session, so we can further explore our stories.
• I noted down several changes we could already incorporate into our Te Tiriti workshops.
• In conversation about the webinars we run, I am considering what changes we might want to make, within the limited time frame.

Impact on my future practice

• I will look for help so I can learn some of the pepeha that relate to our stories at Waitangi.
• I will review how I tell our stories: Where are the gaps in my kōrero, and what is the best way to fill these?
• I hope to have more conversations with colleagues who know much more about hītorī Māori than I, opening up a dialogue where stories might be shared (when time and place are right) - maybe even the start of an oral history collection?
• I feel privileged that I have been part of interpretive conversations at Waitangi in the past, and I hope that my voice will be considered in future interpretations, too.

Reflective Practice

We started a new professional learning programme at work, with the aim of creating a team of professional learning facilitators. Part of the programme is to develop reflective practice, using a reflective journal. While it has been a few years, I had really enjoyed using this blog as platform for reflection, therefore I will give this another try.

Some musings about 2021 ready, Leading and Innovating and Where to next

This week we finished our Term 4 webinar series. During the session I was thinking about how so much of the publications around integrating Digital Technology learning with your local curriculum have focused on this idea of being '2020 ready' (and we know, few if any of us were ready for what 2020 has actually brought). 

Both Leading local curriculum design in the revised learning area technology and the DT implementation support tool describe four stages a school would go through as they are weaving digital technology learning into the school's local curriculum:

Not yet started

A school has chosen a leader for this change and is beginning to explore the revised curriculum content. While not explicitly stated in the above documents, I would expect the school to consult with their local community on how this new learning fits with the current local curriculum.

I prefer using the term Just starting, I believe this helps us all to recognise that some work is being done, but there is still more to do.

Now underway

The school has recognised the new learning in their strategic planning; they have reviewed their local curriculum, compared to what is currently being taught and looked at the necessary changes; consulted with students and other schools, e.g. within the local kāhui ako; established teacher confidence and competence in regards to the new learning, examined current PLD practices and chosen suitable PLD to support their teachers.

2020 ready

Schools have DT learning in their strategic goals and planning, and have resource plans in place; they are mapping DT learning progress outcomes across the school's curriculum; are communicating with whānau and community on what has changed and why, and are finding real-life learning opportunities outside school to apply the new learning; teaching the revised curriculum content is trialled, student progress is measured and effectiveness of teaching and learning is measured; suitable PLD is offered to teachers and middle leaders, and the school leaders are actively participating, as well as checking on the effectiveness of putting learning into practice.

During this week's webinar I tried substituting this with '2021 ready', but this doesn't quite feel right. I believe the authors must have tried to say "this is what needs to be in place at a school that is ready to implement the revised technology learning area" (with a deadline of 2020) - and now that 2020 is almost over, is 2020 ready still the best term to use? Ready for DT learning sounds a little wooden - what would be a more eloquent phrase?

Leading and Innovating

A school has a digital resource plan to support DT learning; their local curriculum is a meaningful collaboration between school and community, future-focused for learners thriving in a transforming digital world; technology learning is cross-curricular, and learning experiences connect ideas across the breadth of the curriculum while developing students' KCs; PLD supports teachers to innovate alongside their students, relevant information about DT learning is shared amongst all across the school (staff, students and community) and records show how everyone's participating in ongoing PLD makes a difference to teacher planning, teaching and to student learning.

While the NZ education system operating under 'Tomorrow's Schools' leaves individual schools a lot of freedom in what and how they teach, for me this description include some of the most exciting indicators of what the Ministry of Education would like schools to operate like:

In collaboration with the community, schools will develop a local curriculum with connecting ideas and technology learning across the curriculum, teachers will be innovating with their students, and ongoing PLD will make a difference to planning, teaching and learning. 

I realise not everyone might share my excitement about this, in fact I personally have had conversations with teachers who very clearly see Digital Technology learning in the realm of technology teachers. It reminds me of the discussions our profession have had about the place of literacy for example; once upon a time firmly the domain of English teachers, nowadays students can gather literacy credits at NCEA levels across a number of subjects.

I am wondering about whether all NZ schools will see 'Leading and Innovating' as the stage they want to achieve, or, with our national affinity to the Tall Poppy Syndrome, will they be happy to remain on the level below?

Where to next for schools:

Planning

Now is the time to plan what next year will look like. Start with a review of where you are at, and then select your next steps. We have created a simple template you can access here to help you.

PLD

While a lot of the Digital Technology PLD is finishing at the end of 2020, the strong connection to Local Curriculum and the importance of Digital Fluency mean that schools can continue to be supported in their PLD journey by applying for accredited PLD - feel free to reach out if you would like the Raranga Matihiko team to help you submit an application (https://rarangamatihiko.com/). We are also available to provide PLD outside the accredited PLD scheme.

Resources

There are many useful resources available online and as print copy from Down the Back of the Chair:

• Strengthening Local Curriculum
• Leading Local Curriculum guide series
• Digital Technology Implementation Support guide
• Local Curriculum Design Tool

Our Raranga Matihiko resource page has recordings for all eight webinars under Leadership (as well as many other useful resources).

The Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko site contains many useful resources, as does Digital Technologies Teachers Aotearoa, and DTHM for Kaiako. 

Planning for 2021: Raranga Matihiko supporting school and curriculum leaders

COVID-19 has proven a challenge for all educators and for PLD providers. Thanks to the foresight of our Programme Director Tara Fagan, the Raranga Matihiko team were able to move online immediately when the March lockdown was announced to continue supporting our schools and kura, and certain aspects of our work have remained online since then.

During Term 3, Tara Fagan and I have facilitated four webinars for school and curriculum leaders from all across the motu:

1. Understanding the revised Technology learning area
2. Integrating digital technology into your local curriculum
3. Is your school ready for Digital Technology learning?
4. Digital Technology learning in action

Each of these webinars has been recorded and is available under Leadership on the resources section on our website.  Following lots of positive feedback from participants, we have decided to offer a follow-up webinar series in Term 4 to support schools as they plan for 2021:

Please register at http://bit.ly/T4RM2020; feel free to attend one, some or all of the webinars. These webinars are free for educators from all schools and kura across Aotearoa. Please note that in addition to the Raranga Matihiko programme, we also support schools with accredited PLD, notably in local curriculum design, digital fluency and around NZ History - feel free to get in touch if you are interested to find out more.

Of course we haven't forgotten about classroom teachers: During Term 2 we wrote and presented 16 episodes for Papa Kāinga | Learning from Home TV, including supporting teacher resources. These are also available from our website under Raranga Matihiko TV. In addition we ran a free online conference at the end of September, and we were absolutely blown away by the huge interest. If you missed out, or if you would like to rewind the learning, please head over to Webinars on the resource section on our website.

Sometimes, a challenge can lead to something positive, it can lead you to challenge what you do day-to-day, push you to come up with a new, hopefully better way. As you are planning for 2021, we trust these resources can support you. Come back to our website regularly for updates and new additions.