Raranga Matihiko 6 months in: Is there a 'too old' to start creating with DTs?

Raranga Matihiko has been running for 6 months now here at Waitangi. It's one of these things where time just flies. I look back and can't help but think 'wow, what a ride'! There are a lot of different ideas swirling around in my head at the moment; I have decided to spread them out across a few blog posts to keep clarity in my own head and hopefully for any readers.

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Further to my last post where I came to the conclusion that it's never to early to start using DTs for creating and for sharing your learning, I want to give some serious thought to an upper cutoff age. While I am an advocate for lifelong learning, does there come a time when it's too late, no longer worthwhile?

My own children have had differing experiences with DT use during their schooling; the eldest, first year uni in a Software Engineering degree, has taken his laptop to high school in years 11-13, mainly for his illegible handwriting (he had SAC). He experienced some more innovative use of DTs when in Y12 English all work went through OneNote, but from what I have seen, most of his experience would have been at Substitution-Augmentation level. The middle child had one year of compulsory BYOD at a high school which aimed for Modification level, years 9-11 have seen him bring a Chromebook to school and activities mainly at Augmentation level. The youngest had one year at a Manaiakalani primary school, Modification+ level (first year MK for that school), in his 3 years at high school he has chosen not to take a device to school instead he relies on the school-supplied devices (he is the only of our children who is not taking DCT beyond year 9). To me the activities appear at Augmentation level.

My boys go to a well-reputed local high school, I know that the school has spent a lot of time, effort and money on improving teacher confidence & competence and the school network, and while some teachers do some fantastic work incorporating DT use into learning, what I see appears to be on average at Augmentation level. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places? Yet I am from this field, so if I don't see it, who can see it then?! To date the school has not chosen to make BYOD compulsory; is this the reason for the way DTs are used in many classes? What is the point for primary schools to operate at Modification - Redefinition level, when high schools go back to Substitution - Augmentation??? [Please don't misunderstand me, my boys are getting a good education at their school, but I wish there was a chance they would use DTs more innovatively].

I could imagine that some primary schools might want to focus on their younger or middle learners with technology adoption. Surely that way their students will have the opportunity to develop skills and knowledge for several years, even if their future schools don't use DTs to the same level. What about the older children missing out? 

We had a discussion in the news media over the last week about a primary school cancelling their prizegiving for what sounded like very valid reasons; some of the arguments against were that students had to get used to it in preparation for high school. This so reminds me of the arguments against computer use at upper primary / lower secondary school, "students have to learn to hand write for 3h for their NCEA exams"...

Arguments like that really get to me, it is as if high schools were these unmovable institutions that everything and everyone else would need to fit in witn and fit around. When I work with Y13 students (in my other role), I often try to get them to derstand that when they leave school, they don't just join society, they shape society with their actions and decisions. High school can and do change, too!

If it was up to me, students would start using DTs to create knowledge and to share their learning from ECE onwards, in age appropriate doses. I think an 'upper age limit' is set when there is a lack of innovation in our teaching and assessment practises. Lack of time, hige workloads, lack of suitable PD all contribute to this, quite likely also a fear to let students down with a yet unproven learning and /or assessment approach - and sometimes a lack of understanding why such a change is needed. That upper age limit can also be caused by a lack of communication, lack of knowledge, by assumptions about what happens in regards to DT use at the next school.

If my conclusion is that there is no cutoff, that it's never to late to get started: What do we need to make this happen?

* With the inclusion of Digital Technologies | Hangarau Matihiko into our national curricula, there are many high quality PLD programmes available to teachers. Start by checking out the information on this Ministry of Education website: http://services.education.govt.nz/pld/dthm/digital-technologies/

* Seek out your colleagues in your school, your Kahui Ako, your subject association, online communities etc. Just like I think it's never too late for students to start using DTs for creating knowledge and sharing learning, it's never to late to learn for us as teachers.

* If you haven't done so yet, make contact with your contributing schools or the schools your students move on to after they leave you. Try to establish commonalities and differences in pedagogy and approaches to learning.

* If these connections don't lead to common approaches, even if you feel your students will not continue with DT use at their next school at the same level as they do with you, there is no reason why you shouldn't have your students work with DTs to a high level; they might well persuade and encourage their future teachers & classmates.

* Financially many schools struggle to afford digital technology, and some schools are not prepared to make BYOD compulsory due to the financial burden on the parents and whānau. The Manaiakalani approach of providing affordable finance solutions has a lot of merit to me. Donations and grants are another avenue. I'm not sure on the status of initiatives like Computers in Homes, but they have done some very good work at one of my past schools.

Raranga Matihiko 6 months in: What is the best age to start creating with DTs?

Raranga Matihiko has been running for 6 months now here at Waitangi. It's one of these things where time just flies. I look back and can't help but think 'wow, what a ride'! There are a lot of different ideas swirling around in my head at the moment; I have decided to spread them out across a few blog posts to keep clarity in my own head and hopefully for any readers.

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What age is the best age to start creating with Digital Technologies?

We have been working with students between year 1 and year 8 over the last six months. The majority of classes participating have been year 5-8, during Term 4 we have for the first time worked with students as young as 5 years old. A conversation with a lovely Teacher Aide has prompted me to think about ages more deeply. I often get asked about what age students are best suited to enrol in Raranga Matihiko. So what age is the best age to start creating with Digital Technologies?

One of the ideas behind Raranga Mathiko is to create a group of experts in the schools (students and teacher). The two year programme gives more face to face contact in year 1 than in year 2. In an ideal world you would get both the same students and the same teacher for both years (or at least the one or the other). If you want to work with the same students for both years, you might avoid picking this year's seniors. To ensure your experts are able to share their learning, you might choose students of a certain maturity / age, therefore selecting year 4/5 or year 6/7 makes a lot of sense in that regard.

You can take a different approach and start with the teacher - someone who has a high level of digital fluency and can take the RM ideas further, someone who is good at sharing their learning with colleagues, someone who can benefit from a boost to their digital fluency - or how about someone who is simply curious, keen to try something new? All of these are perfectly valid reasons for joining the Raranga Matihiko programme, and by default, whatever the age of their students, they will become the RM class.

There is no answer here yet... Sometimes it's a good idea to turn a question upside down: What age is too young (or too old???) to start creating with Digital Technologies?

I feel the word creating is key here. Young children are inherently creative, they can use anything in their environment to show their creativity. Digital Technology is just another tool for this. The Progress Outcomes in the Digtal Technology | Hangarau Matihiko curriculum scaffold learners from teacher-led activities (PO 1) to increased independence. This can make using DTs both harder and easier for teachers of young learners: Harder, because students quite likely require more active guidance; easier, because the teacher has more control over the tools they use. Admittedly, young learners might be less well equipped to actively teach other students around the school, but their example shared with thr others can inspire them ("if 5y olds can do this, I can"). With ongoing guidance these young learners can challenge their future teachers (and new classmates) to lift their digital fluency, too, they learn by necessity of having to keep up.

Coming back to the original question: So what age is the best age to start creating with Digital Technologies? I don't believe there is a best age, rather that any age is best. This is not about abandoning creativity outside digital technology, this is not about spending hours in front of a screen every day. It's about realising that there is benefit in utilising digital technology for creativity, as one of many tools, in a methodical, scaffolded way, in order to give our students the opportunity to create and share knowledge and learning. Our challenge as RM facilitators is to work with students of any of these levels appropriately (e.g. some weeks we jump from year 2s to year 7s and back). The key is not the age of the students, it is about knowing how to integrate digital technologies with the rest of their learning.

Despite the challenges for us with switching between ages, I am so thankful for the wide age range, it gives me hope that we will end up with a diverse, digitally fluent student & teacher population here in Northland which benefits our Tai Tokerau communities as a whole.

Raranga Matihiko 6 months in: Working with schools

Raranga Matihiko has been running for 6 months now here at Waitangi. It's one of these things where time just flies. I look back and can't help but think 'wow, what a ride'! There are a lot of different ideas swirling around in my head at the moment; I have decided to spread them out across a few blog posts to keep clarity in my own head and hopefully for any readers.

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I blogged about RM back in June, before our first class was due to come in. So what has changed?

My current elevator pitch has slightly morphed into something like: "I work with teachers and students, and together we apply computational thinking and we create digital learning objects (DLOs) so that students can share their learning with others in their whānau, their community, Aotearoa / New Zealand and the world. Through this experience students and teachers pick up and share skills that are necessary for learners to be successful in the future, no matter what field they enter after they leave school."

You might see above that my most recent elevator pitch doesn't focus on museum content, because in Raranga Matihiko we try to build on whatever the class is already learning at school. Ideally (for us) the topic fits easily with what we have on display here at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, but we have found many connections with less obvious topics like Space, Kauri Forests, Patterns, Story Telling, Forces etc.

Some people might find it surprising that at museum which ultimately is in the business of  the past and 'old things', we use all this modern technology in our work with students. There is more to it, though: Museums are in quite a unique position to enhance the learning at school with their special artefacts and displays across a wide range of contexts. Looking at the six Future Focused Themes, museums can be very valuable partners in learning. To retain relevance in 21C, museums are looking at digital technology to help them engage young (and older) visitors. And thanks to the vision of Tara Fagan and her team at Te Papa, Raranga Matihiko has brought together a team of passionate facilitators who want combine the old and the new, while supporting the implementation of Digital Technology | Hangarau Matihiko. For me personally it's ultimately bringing together many aspects of previous roles: Supporting teachers by working with them and their students, using digital technology to effectively share their learning about things that matter to them, supported by the taonga and exhibitions here at Waitangi.

Over time we as RM facilitators have also developed our own understanding and skills further (see my previous post on Computational Thinking). Sometimes trying to figure out how to make the children's ideas work is half the fun :) We work across platforms and OSs, and over the last six months here at Waitangi we have regularly used the following apps and programs with our RM classes:

• SculptGL (a digital sculpting web app): Allows you to sculpt, carve and paint 3D objects and add backgrounds to these objects. We often export objects as .obj to import them into Tiltbrush (VR) - though be warned, the mesh file does not transfer, so all SculptGL objects arrive in Tiltbrush in white. Note: We prefer to use the downloadable standalone version (available here) as it works best with the Surface Pro pens; when children experience success with this technology they are more likely to persevere even on a device where they need to use the mouse or a track pad for the sculpting.
• Paint 3D: Many of us have used Windows Paint in days gone past, Paint 3D is taking this a completely new level. A Windows 10 application, it combines the good old painting functionality with 2D and 3D objects, stickers, textures a library of existing 3D models etc. The use of the Surface pens makes painting really easy for the children, but the coolest part in my eyes is the integration of Mixed Reality MR! Now if they could only add an 'export as .obj' option, that would make integration into Tiltbrush possible...
• Tinkercad: Creating 'regular' 3D objects is quite easy with Tinkercad. While it is officially a 13+ programme, we monitor use very carefully, and the only reason for the age restriction I can imagine is the option allowing you to send your file to a 3D printing company and / or the option to share a screenshot of your creation to Facebook. Again we export .obj files from here to Tiltbrush. I have a couple of wishes on my list for Tinkercad, I would like to be able to add a background image to a 3D creation, and while you can create projects (folders) within your account, I would like the creations to be only visible within these projects (we currently have more than 200 creations in our account, and trying to find anything in there is a nightmare).
• Dash robots: Most children love them, they look very cute and programming them is very easy via the Blocky app. We looked at some of the other compatible apps, but this one seems the most versatile for our purposes. While the app works on smartphones, the screen is rather small so you might struggle with a long algorithm. Every now and then I have run into issues with the program disappearing when another window opens on top, maybe someone can explain to me how to save a project in a way that you can return to it later to continue it?
• My favourite app for Green Screening was and still is Green Screen by Do Ink, the best investment ever of NZD4.99. Even young children find it very easy to use this app. None of the other program we have experimented with come close regarding ease of use. I have gone away from videoing children within the app, sometimes I get better video quality just using the native camera app on the iPad (or another device), and then we just use the Do Ink app to put it all together.
• Stopmotion animation: We started out with Clapmotion, a Chrome app, which I still like but you have to watch for it freezing. Also, the resulting stop motion clip saves as .ogv and then needs to be converted to .mp4 - doable when you are confident with technology, but a hassle if you are more reluctant / less confident. We have lately started using Stop Motion Studio which is available across several platforms and it looks promising.
• Tiltbrush (VR): Most children love 'the VR', and Tiltbrush has become an important finishing tool in our kete. Depending on the topic and the paramenters given by the teacher, we can use it to combine objects and images created in different other programs into a finished product.
• Occasionally we have also used Google Drawings, esp. when a school has Chromebooks for students, and sometimes we use Moana from Hour of Code in addition to Blockly and the Dash Robots.

While a lot of time is spent on Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes, every child gets to explore some form of coding during our Exploration (Tutu) Session; while they create their DLOs, they also apply a lot of Computational Thinking CT (see my previous post). However, for the second year of the RM programme we plan to make CT the main focus.

I just had a quick look through our Google Drive for some of may favourite projects, and it's so cool to be reminded of the hard work the children put in there. Please remember that we have been working with 5 - 12 year olds, the older they are the more freedom they were given to complete the projects how they wanted to do them. Here are some examples, all of them videos sitting in our Google Drive, so please follow the links:

Stop Motion Animations:

• War
• Bleeding Kauri Gum
• Whariki of values (a teacher led activity involving all students of the class) 
• Leaving your mark (tohu) (a teacher led activity involving all students of the school)

Telling stories:

• In the Beginning (combining Green Screen with student created backgrounds)
• How Maui slowed the sun (Mixed Reality video)
• Kupe and the giant wheke (combining robots and green screening)
• Wooden Arms: Beginning, Middle, End 

Whole class projects:

• Patterns (whakairo=carvings, kowhaiwhai paintings, tukutuku panels and waiata performance combined in VR)
• The legend of Moehuri (Tinkercad creations, Paint 3D images, Tiltbrush drawing, SculptGL carvings, Google Drawings)
• Te Whare o Paparore 

There are plenty more examples, apologies to all our awesome creators whose work is not on the list above! 

So what's the point of all this?

• Students get away from Waitangi with a deeper level of learning, closely linked to what they have been learning at school.
• They get opportunity to explore = tutu with new digital tools which they might not normally have access to.
• They get to make decisions about how they will share their learning with their audience (which might be their school community, their whānau / family, the wider community, Aotearoa / New Zealand or the whole world), including using the best tool for the purpose.
• Teachers and students gain more confidence integrating digital tools in 'everyday learning'.
• They become experts for the rest of the school to support the other students and teachers with integrating Digital Technology | Hangarau Matihiko into their learning.

I think I have the coolest job :) and we are making a difference - what more could anyone want?

Raranga Matihiko 6 months in: Computational Thinking

Raranga Matihiko has been running for 6 months now here at Waitangi. It's one of these things where time just flies. I look back and can't help but think 'wow, what a ride'! There are a lot of different ideas swirling around in my head at the moment; I have decided to spread them out across a few blog posts to keep clarity in my own head and hopefully for any readers.

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I feel I now have a better understanding of Digital Technology | Hangarau Matihiko in the NZC. During Term 3 I had the opportunity to run a PLD session on Computational Thinking (CT) with local Manaiakalani Teachers, and in preparation for this I had a good look at the many examples where aspects of CT are already applied in current classroom programmes (especially Progress Outcomes 1-3):

• For example in Numeracy, when we start teaching "double 2 is 4" and especially when we move to multiplication, iteration is applied (Progress Outcome 3).
• In Literacy, when we look at word families such as "-ake" and we end up with words like "make, rake, lake, cake", or when we learn rules like adding a suffix to a word such as "hope -> hopeing" and "hop -> hopping". Also in music where we expect that the chord progression I IV V will lead us back to the tonic I - or as simple as the prompts we give our children, e.g. to the teacher's chant "eyes on me" the students will respond "eyes on you". In all these cases we are using prediction (Progress Outcome 3).
• Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey's Oral Language book (which I have sadly misplaced, it seems permanently...) has lots of examples of giving and receiving (non-computerised) instructions (Progress Outcomes 1 and 2).
• We put steps into logical orders in many contexts, from sorting pictures or text into a logical sequence from ECE onwards to creating an art work to completing a science experiment (Progress Outcome 2). Depending on age, task or medium, different pathways to solutions are acceptable and appropriate (Progress Outcome 3).
• Debugging can also happen in many contexts : A Kapa Haka routine (tītītorea, waiata-a-ringa, haka), tying shoe laces, mixing colours etc.

You might wonder, if we are already doing all this, is there anything missing at all? Why did we need CT added to the NZC? IMHO, I think that for many teachers the connection between existing activities that use aspects of computational thinking and the application of CT in the world on computer science, programming, software engineering etc. is not clear yet, and if it is, there is still a gap between what we might do at primary school and what professionals do in the work force. And somewhere between primary school and university we are still loosing our girls and our Māori and Pasifika students.

Occasionally I speak with students about who makes our Dash robots and computers in general work. usually we end up with the same old stereotype of nerdy geeky young Pākeha men (I have one living in my house, perfect example). We can only changes this perception is if we continue to give our students of any gender and all cultural backgrounds opportunities to explore and apply CT throughout their schooling. I love our little Dash robots, they appeal to learners of all ages, and such robots are a really good way to visualise coding. But in isolation, without understanding how all the little bits like unplugged activities, block coding, text based coding, AI etc. fit together, we are not going to get far. Cut through the 'fluff' of the Progress Outcomes (see this previous post) and sit down as a staff to map out how your students will learn about Computational Thinking at your school.

On a side note, I don't believe the lower Progress Outcomes for CT are placed quite right yet, but it was always said that the placement of these against the Curriculum Levels was subject to change. Just this week I worked with a y1 class, that is 6 year olds, and once they were introduced to the idea of using a repeat block to move Dash, they saw no need to return to using individual blocks. Iteration is first mentioned in Progress Outcome 3 which sits at Curriculum Level 4, and while this is a good example of a Progress Outcome offering the teacher a 'pick'n'mix' of aspects (rather than a Achievement Objects which always has felt more final, everything had to be achieved before one could move on), I think many students are very capable of applying iteration much earlier than CL 4.

While I am glad that Digital Technology incl. Computational Thinking is now explicitly mentioned in the NZC, I am still worried about that fact that this sits inside Technology. If I was still a high school music teacher (and had not gone through the amazing journey I have been privy to over the last 15 odd years), I doubt I would pay much attention to what it said in a different subject area's part of the curriculum. We have to change this!

(Shameless plug :D) If you teach y7 - 10 (any subject) and you are interested in finding out more about how this can fit into your learning areas, join us for a free DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES & COMPUTER SCIENCE TEACHER PROFESSIONAL LEARNING EVENT at Waitangi Treaty Grounds on Tuesday 27 November, 9:30 - 2:30pm. Register at http://bit.ly/W27Nov

A cross-curricular curriculum

The school holidays have been busy as I was invited to present at two events on consecutive Saturdays: The Google Sparkshop organised by the lovely Beth Lamb in Whangarei, and the Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert Hui (#NZMIEEhui18) in Auckland. The new Digital Technology Hangarau Matihiko Curriculum was at hot topic at both events. I wish I knew more about the Hangarau Matihiko version, but sadly my reo Māori is not good enough to understand the document , so I am hoping that my colleague Kerry will be able to explain it to me when I get back to work.

There seem to be mixed emotions around implementation of the DT HM curriculum; some teachers are ready to embrace it, to use it as a validation and extension of what they have already been doing, others are reluctant, unsure where to start, maybe even overwhelmed, and apparently other teachers are not going there yet at all. With an implementation deadline of January 2020, now is the time to get your head around it, because 2020 will come around very soon...

At the #NZMIEEhui18 in Auckland, Iain Cook-Bonney and Chris Dillon gave a keynote on the new DT HM Curriculum. Chris used the expression "cross-curricular curriculum" which has been milling around my head since last Saturday now. What is a cross-curricular curriculum, how do you apply it - and why would we have that in the first place?

What is a cross-curricular curriculum?

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Generally I understand Curriculum as the document outlining what student need to learn at different stages in their schooling. It is usually split up into subjects / learning areas. To use a curriculum in a cross-curricular way, I see the learners going through the various learning steps, reaching the Achievement Outcomes or Progress Outcomes while being engaged in one or more other learning areas or subjects. Our Raranga Matihiko Programme is such a cross-curricular way of working towards Progress Outcomes in DT HM while being engaged in a Social Sciences, Art or other context. I can see more cross-curricular approaches in primary and intermediate schools than in secondary schools, and I assume it must be much easier to develop an understanding across the curriculum at the lower levels than at the higher ones.

When I want to teach in a cross-curricular approach, ideally I work in collaboration with a colleague. I might not understand the ins and outs of the specialist knowledge in learning areas outside my own; however, I need to have a base understanding what these areas are about, how they approach learning, and I need to know who I can ask when I - or my students - need to know more. I realise I am in quite an unusual position, I started out as secondary teacher and subsequently taught in intermediate and primary age environments, so over time I had to develop a greater understanding myself far beyond what I expected back when I was a high school music teacher. 

In fact it was a comment by Gerard MacManus in my Raranga Matihiko session last Saturday that highlighted this to me: I asked the participants to familiarise themselves with the Progress Outcomes of DT HM by 'cutting out the fluff' and 'focusing what the essential points are'. There were some comments about how there is jargon, how it isn't easy to understand to many teachers, and Gerard rightly said something along the lines of "but isn't this the case in all subjects". I'm not sure that I told you anything you didn't know yet in my sessions, but I can't tell you how thankful I am that you came to my session and that you made this comment! Gerard is absolutely right, every subject / learning area has jargon, 'fluff', in the NZC, and unless you are familiar with the matter, it can seem quite hard to understand. That is the reason why there are a number of documents to put teacherese into kids' speak (see for example this site for Literacy Progression in kids' speak). One of the Whangarei teachers at the Sparkshop talked about developing a kids's speak version of the DT HM curriculum which would be helpful not just for students.

Why a cross-curricular curriculum?

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I completely agree with Chris that DT should be seen not as a stand-alone subjects that gets addressed twice a week for 45min at a time in the computer lab (this was one of my concerns which I voiced during the consultation process). None of our Learning Areas should really be stand-alone any more, the good old ivory towers of years gone by need to be pulled down and opened up. You may ask why? Life is not organised in different subjects, life is messy (I once saw a really cool image with tidy paint pots, representing school curriculum, and the a really messy mix of paints, representing life but can't find that anymore; if anyone knows where it is, please send me the link!). Future-focused learning is all about giving students the necessary skills, tools and knowledge to be successful in their future, and as far as I can see that will involve applying across contexts and in areas we don't even know about yet.

In the NZC (implemented 2008/2009), rather than as a separate learning area, e-learning features under Effective Pedagogy (on p.36 of the curriculum document). Even though it has now been included into the learning area Technology, the value of e-learning across the curriculum remains.

Chris made another very interesting point when he explained his expression "cross-curricular curriculum": There are simply not enough DT teachers around the county, so DT needs to be taught across other subjects.

How do I go about this?

First things first: No matter what subject you normally teach, have a look at the Digital Technology curriculum document.  I have literally gone through the Progress Outcomes with a highlighter to 'cut through the fluff' and get a better understanding of what steps students need to progress through during their schooling (I have blogged about this here). Please note the placement of the POs is likely to change over time.

Get yourself ready: The MoE is providing a range of PLD options for schools, kura a kahui ako, check out this page for more information. If you want to straight go to some intiaities you can get involved in for free, try Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko and Mindlab's Digital Passport - I think the Digital Passport has a deadline for enrolments, so better get started soon.

I realise I might be somewhat biased, but this curriculum is not just here to stay, it is vital for our students - and that's who it is all about after all :)

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Getting to understand the Digital Technologies | Hangarau Matihiko Curriculum

The Raranga Matihiko programme weaves the learning about taonga and artefacts in museums with the new Digital Technologies | Hangarau Matihiko Curriculum. According to the Ministry of Education

Digital Technologies and Hangarau Matihiko is about teaching our tamariki and children how technology works, and how they can use that knowledge to solve problems.
Once this new curriculum is introduced, our kids won’t just be using devices like computers and smart phones. The changed curriculum will mean that schools will be teaching our young people the computer science principles that all digital technologies are built on. Students will find out about how computers work – understanding what makes ‘algorithms’ and ‘binary code’.
Our young people will benefit from having these future thinking skills.

Tara Fagan brought up a very valid point in our recent PD session at Te Papa: With Digital Technology in virtually all areas of our daily life, how can we ensure that it is designed to meet the needs of the diverse society we have in Aotearoa New Zealand and in the whole world? We can probably all imagine the stereotype of a programmer / software developer (there is one in my family...): Usually male, European or Asian, young, possibly socially challenged. To my understanding, the stereotype is not that far from the reality (find one of many articles related to this topic here) though apparently this is beginning to change. Does the stereotypical software developer have the necessary understanding to design Digital Technology that is responsive to cultural and gender specific requirements, and if not, how can we make sure they do? I believe that you grow such understanding by adding diversity to the workforce.

The Raranga Matihiko programmes is targeted at students in years 1 - 10 from low-decile schools which commonly have a higher percentage of Māori and Pasifika students than their higher decile counterparts, and as a side effect I hope it will encourage more young people from diversity backgrounds to enter the IT field. Two main points of this programme excite me the most: Cross-curricular integration of Digital Technologies, and working with students and their teachers, empower ing them to teach their peers.

Since the DT | HM Curriculum was first published in draft, I have been concerned about it becoming a 'stand-alone subject'; I can easily see how e-learning, effective use of devices to support learning etc. would return to a "this is what you do in the Computer Suite 3h every week" - and I said so in my feedback to the Consultation Workshops (amongst other things). During the Te Toi Tupu BeL and LwDT programmes, we worked very hard to change this, due to the way many secondary schools are organised, high school teachers sometimes found that harder than their primary school colleagues.  I am glad that through Raranga Matihiko we can model what it can look like when you integrate DT | HM with other Learning Areas.

The updated version of the Technology Curriculum gives Digital Technology two of the now five technological areas:

• Computational thinking for digital technologies (CT), and 
• Designing and developing digital outcomes (DDDO).

While the three strands Technological Practice, Technological Knowledge and Nature of Technology still underpin them, they are fully integrated into these areas (while in the other three technological areas the curriculum document states them separately). Instead of Achievement Objectives, CT and DDDO are described through Progress Outcomes:

Both images retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum/Technology

For Raranga Matihiko, I have had a close look at POs 1-5 for CT, and POs 1-3 for DDDO. Each Progress Outcome refers to in an authentic context and with the end-user in mind and (obviously) builds on the previous one(s). This is my understanding of their main points, using colour to illustrate ideas/concepts that I believe belong together in each technological area:

Progress Outcomes for Computational Thinking

1. Break down simple non-computerised tasks into precise, unambiguous, step-by-step instructions; give these instructions, identify any errors and correct them.
2. Give, follow and debug simple algorithms; create simple programs involving outputs and sequencing.
3. Decompose problems into step-by-step instructions to create algorithms for computer programs, predict the behaviour of the programs, understand that there can be more than one algorithm for the same problem. Develop and debug simple programs that use inputs, outputs, sequence and iteration.Understand that digital devices store data using just two states.
4. Decompose problems to create simple algorithms using sequence, selection, and iteration by creating programs that use inputs, outputs, sequence, basic selection using comparative operators, and iteration. Debug simple algorithms and program, explain why things went wrong and how they fixed them. Digital devices represent data with binary digits, have ways of detecting errors in data storage and transmission. Evaluate user interfaces.
5. Independently decompose problems into algorithms; use these algorithms to create programs with inputs, outputs, sequence, selection using comparative and logical operators and variables of different data types, and iteration; determine when to use different types of control structures. Document their programs, using an organised approach for testing and debugging. Understand how computers store more complex types of data using binary digits. Develop programs considering human-computer interaction (HCI) heuristics.

Progress Outcomes for Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes:

1. Participate in teacher-led activities to develop, manipulate, store, retrieve and share digital content in order to meet technological challenges. Identify digital devices and their purposes and understand that humans make them. Know how to use some applications; can identify the inputs and outputs of a system; understand that digital devices store content, which can be retrieved later.
2. Make decisions about creating, manipulating, storing, retrieving, sharing and testing digital content for a specific purpose, given particular parameters, tools, and techniques. Understand that digital devices impact on humans and society and that both the devices and their impact change over time. Identify the specific role of components in a simple input-process-output system and how they work together; recognise the “control role” that humans have. Can select from an increasing range of applications and file types to develop outcomes for particular purposes.
3. Follow a defined process to design, develop, store, test and evaluate digital content to address given contexts or issues, taking into account immediate social, ethical and end-user considerations. Identify the key features of selected software, choose the most appropriate software and file types to develop and combine digital content. Understand the role of operating systems in managing digital devices, security, and application software; are able to apply file management conventions using a range of storage devices. Understand that with storing data comes responsibility for ensuring security and privacy.

I think it was an interesting and helpful exercise when we asked our visiting teachers to look at where they place themselves and where they place their students on the continuum. I suggest you ask yourself, too: Where do I sit on here, and what do I need to do to progress further? The aim of our Raranga Matihiko programme is not just to give the students a one-off (albeit repeated in year 2) experience, it is to equip them and their teachers to become experts and to teach their peers across the school (students and teachers). Therefore it is vital that the teachers have an understanding of the curriculum so they can support their students as well as their colleagues (and themselves) to progress on this continuum.

I think no matter what age students we teach, or in what Learning Area we specialise, at least a basic understanding of the Digital Technologies | Hangarau Matihiko Curriculum is a must. There is Professional Support available through MoE, through your Kāhui Ako and various Online Communities (Digital Technologies on TKI, Core's Edspace, VLN, discussion groups on G+, FB and Twitter). If you are interested in the Raranga Matihiko programme, please visit this page.

Back to ???

Term 1 at work was as busy as I had expected it to be, with a few extra challenges thrown in, namely getting ready to deliver a new programme, the Raranga Matihiko | Weaving Digital Futures Programme, from Term 2. This programme is about integrating learning in the new Digital Curriculum Hangarau Matihiko with the rest of the school curricula, supported by the taonga and artefacts at the various museums. I'm really excited about working in partnership with Te Papa as well as Auckland War Memorial Museum and MTG Hawkes Bay, this project is ticking so many boxes for me:

• Working with students and teachers on a more ongoing basis, and having more opportunity to really apply future-focused pedagogy
• Concentrating on local (and low-decile) schools, something that's always been very important to me
• Using digital technology for students to tell stories that are important to them
• Putting my Digital Fluency hat back on and getting knee-deep back into working cross- platform and across devices in order to support student learning
• Working in collaboration across sites and museums, therefore modelling collaboration between Museum Educators, and learning with and from each other
• A new challenge to get my teeth into:)

By Google Inc., CC BY 4.0, Link

There's probably many more pluses than I can think of right now (and they far outweigh the minuses of updating devices, dropped wifi connections or apps not wanting to play nicely); like the appointment of our fourth teachers to the team who is team teaching with me (she is absolutely wonderful, and she just gets it). I'm a little sad to let my active LEOTC involvement, the work with the visiting schools and the time spent with my lovely colleagues. It's a bit like handing your baby over to their N.E. teachers when they turn 5: I know the programme is in very safe hands, our two teachers are doing a marvelous job, and I am learning to not stick my nose into things I don't need to worry about.

So how does the Raranga Matihiko programme work? Normally schools come and visit us for up to three hours to learn from us about something that supports what they are studying at school (LEOTC visits). it's not unusual for this to be the only visit the student ever has to the Treaty Grounds, so many teachers are keen to pack as much into the three hours as they can (Museum visit, waka, Treaty House, Cultural Performance, film etc.). Our Education Vision is

For learners of all ages and from all backgrounds to critically engage with Waitangi, the place, with Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi, and with Aotearoa New Zealand as a nation.

There are many different learning models around, Thinking Hats, Bloom's Taxonomy etc. but we just narrowed it down to three verbs; we want to give students the opportunity to Collect (information), to Connect (that information with prior knowledge and with themselves), and to Reflect (meaning for past, present, future, for myself etc.) - this is where critical reflection happens. We are starting to get better to gather evidence of that critical reflection, some of this gets published on our Education Blog. With limited connectivity, limited access to devices (not all teachers are happy to take devices on outings), and especially limited time, our regular LEOTC visits are still very much a combination of paper with hands-on activities.

Our vision remains the same, but the Raranga Matihiko programme runs quite differently: In collaboration with the teacher(s) we plan a personalised programme for the students, then focus on an aspect that we can support here at the Treaty Grounds. As an example, one of our Term 2 classes studies 'awa' (water), and we will support that unit by work around waka (namely Ngātokimatawhaorua), navigation etc. At the same time we will introduce the children to certain digital tools they can use to share their learning about their topic with others. In turn they and their teachers become the experts within their school and teach others.

We start off with a Teacher Planning Day on site, looking closely at the Digital Technology Hangarau Matihiko Curriculum, and using this to underpin the planning of their Waitangi visits. Different to a LEOTC visit, they will have two consecutive days on site, and they will spend the majority of that time inside our Raranga Matihiko lab. Following these two days (one day in the second year), we will come and visit each of the classes, bringing the digital equipment with us, so they can continue on their projects. As it is currently funded, this programme will run over two years, with each classes being involved for a 10 week period in both years. 

I've been thinking of my elevator pitch: Maybe... "I work with students and teachers at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, and I support them to tell stories that are important to them and their local community by integrating digital technology into their learning". Will that put people to sleep???

Soul II Soul's Back to life has been swirling around in the back of my head today; I'm not sure if I'm trying to look for meaning in something completely unconnected, but I feel very much alive and in my element coming up with suggestions, trying to find solutions to ideas the students come up with, tutuing with different tools, writing up one pagers etc. My family might feel differently, maybe it's more like Groundhog Day for them? However, the teenagers are rather impressed about 3D scanning and VR; maybe mum's mahi is even cooler than they thought...

Let it go or Changed Priorities

Sometimes we need to let things go. Blogging and Twitter have been two things I pretty much have let go more and more since I left Cognition at the end of 2015. It is not that I don't see the value in it, other things have just taken up my time or become more important.

There is so much I have learnt from tweets and from other people's blogs, and I still do at times, and I realise that I consume much more today than I contribute. While I still find it hard to accept, I think it is a phase to go through - a bit like how parents move on from having nappy bags and toddler toys in the car as their children grow up. I always used to tell teachers different tools for different purposes and at different times, it's probably time that I stop beating myself up about not being everywhere all the time anymore.

I have also decided this weekend that I would let go of my Google Trainer certification though I had been so proud when I first gained it. But realistically I have held barely any training sessions, and I don't know that this will change any time soon, so why spend all weekend trying to pass all exams and create a resource to share? Instead I enjoyed the company of my family, even more important when the first is about to fly the coop.

I absolutely love my job at Waitangi, I am so grateful that I am allowed to follow my passions and shape the mahi we do here into what my team and I think it should look like. We have worked with more than 6500 students in 2017, and we hope that 2018 will bring us in contact with at least the same, if not more students. While I haven't been making much use of digital technology in my work with students over the last year, I hope this will change in the near future. 

For part of last year I had been wondering about where exactly Museum Education fits in the wider New Zealand education system; I am now convinced that it fulfills more than one function. On the one hand, Museums are partners to schools that provide specialist knowledge to supplement learning at school. If facilitated well, Museum Education in itself can follow the future focused themes (personalising learning, rethinking learners' and teachers' roles, life-long learning, equity and diversity, develop learning capacity). In addition, Museums can also facilitated professional development for educators including but not limited to content related to their collections, I tried to share this at Ulearn 17 with my presentation, if you are interested, you can view it here.

There were representatives of several museums at Ulearn this year, a few of us were asked to give an EDtalk. I spoke on The place of  museums in 21C learning and teaching.

Great learning for students means teachers need to have access to great learning themselves, too. We have hosted teacher PLD sessions here at Waitangi in 2017, have held some sessions for teachers ourselves, and on 31 January we will hold a collaborative webinar with CORE Education around planning a successful Treaty of Waitangi unit. This is a free webinar, please register at bit.ly/core-waitangi. We will also hold a webinar serious in collaboration with Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand in February - watch this space!

So while my priorities have changed a little, they may have changed less than I thought? After all I'm still trying to transform learning and teaching...