Becoming a Digtal Fluent Principal

Introductions: Te Wiki o te Reo Māori

We celebrate week 8 of our Digital Fluent Intensive (DFI) course with “Te Wiki o te Reo Māori.” English, New Zealand sign, and Māori are the official languages of New Zealand (Aotearoa). In 1987, Māori became an official language. New Zealand is the only country in the world where Māori is spoken. However, it was only in recent years that the Maori language gathered its widespread support. Te Reo Māori is an integral part of our national identity. Learning te Reo Māori provides great satisfaction, a greater connection with Aotearoa and an enhanced understanding of our culture and society. Māori Language Week has been celebrated since 1975. Māori Language Day is September 14 and commemorates the presentation of the 1972 Māori language petition to parliament.

What has worked for me since the last time we met? 

I am still consolidating my knowledge of Google tools, in particular, Google: Docs, calendar, keep, and drive. The tools are being embedded in my everyday practice. I am using Google Keep as a tool to research and collate information for school purposes.

What hasn’t worked or made sense?

I’m okay; most things have worked and starting to make sense. If anything, it is just having an in-depth knowledge of the functionality of each of the Google App settings.

What do I need help with?

I would like an opportunity to discuss with other Principal’s or leaders how they are using Google tools for strategic and operational school leadership purposes.

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori:

New Zealand has been revitalising the Māori language, and a part of that is a celebration of our success and promoting te Reo Māori. Māori language week is an opportunity for celebration, promotion and encouragement. And every minute of every hour of every day is a Māori language minute – we can choose to use te Reo – every time we do, even just a ‘Kia ora!’ contributes to revitalisation.

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori is becoming a major fixture on the national calendar providing an opportunity for promotion, raising awareness and giving an opportunity for expert and advanced speakers to encourage others on their te Reo Māori journey. Teachers in Mairehau High School have been taking part in Te Reo tutorials each Wednesday, afterschool.

What can I do?

Mā tātou katoa te Reo Māori e whakarauora:

Whakatauhia te reo Māori ki te wāhi mahi me te hapori

Whakahau i ētahi atu ki te kōrero, ki te ako hoki i te reo Māori; whakauruamai hoki te reo Māori ki tōu ao

Kia tika tonu te whakahua i te kupu Māori i ngā wā e kōrero Pākehā ana

Ahakoa iti, akona, kōrerohia

Kia nui ake te ako ka kōrero ai

Whāia te ara poutama o te reo ka tohatoha ai.

Everyone can contribute to te Reo Māori revitalisation:

 Make te Reo welcome at work and in the community

Encourage others to use and learn te Reo Māori; welcome Māori language into your life

Pronounce Māori words correctly when speaking English

Learn a little, use a little

Learn more, and use what you know

Keep improving your language, and share what you know

Works Cited

“About.” Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, www.tewikiotereomaori.co.nz/about/.

Empowered: 

Empowerment is the practice of sharing information and knowledge with others so that they can take the initiative, make decisions, and solve problems to improve their skills and capabilities. Empowerment is based on the idea that giving people skills, opportunity, motivation, and holding them responsible and accountable for outcomes of their actions.

Korero from Dorothy:

This is the “Why” for ManaiaKalani- why have we gone to this model of teaching and learning. Dorothy serves a Decile One school located in the Tamaki basin in Auckland. She lives locally, and all her children have attended the local schools. 80% of the housing in Tamaki is owned by the NZ government. The word agency has been transitioned to the word empower, which has more meaning for her community.

“It’s not just a tool: with it transforms the way we learn, offers us new uncharted experiences and opportunities.”- (Dean Shareski 2011)

“The Manaiakalani kaupapa of empowerment is about at the advancing of Rangatiratanga taking back control of their lives.”- (Pat Sneddon)

When your house is owned by the government, you are disempowered. Where there was one house on a quarter-acre section there are now three (3). Families are living in one room to keep warm from the winters cold. Nearly 3000 statehouses are boarded up and not being used while the waiting list increases. Dorothy’s community is disempowered with high-interest rates, poor housing, substandard medical care.

The research indicates that students in their community arrive at school with academic and social deficits. In oral language space, there are huge deficits in the community. Blogging is a threaded conversation of reading and writing. We build up the conversation by ensuring it is part of the school’s reading programme.

If we want to empower our students, we need visibility, connected, and ubiquitous learning to be happening. Students and parents need to be enabled to use digital tools to support education and social needs.

Google Forms:

Dorothy provided our cohort with an overview of the tool Google Form. We are able to design a range of questions types, including multiple-choice, short answer, drop down, and linear. The Google form is able to collate, analyse, and provide evaluative information about the data in the form. Google forms would be useful for collating information from surveys, opinions, and assessments.

The following link takes you to a presentation on Google Forms: Link

There are three main ways to send a form:

Email - Allows you to directly send the form by adding the recipient's address, customise your message and hit send

Link - Share via a link by highlighting, copying and pasting the link in the desired location

Embed - Copy and paste the embed code to share via Google site or blog 

Exploring Google Maps:

Google My Maps is a way to keep track of the places that matter. It is possible to make custom maps, remember your favourite sites, explore new cities, or plan great vacations. The school maps that I have used the information on school demographics.

 Google Sheets:

The functionality of Google sheets, in my view, is similar to Microsoft Excel spreadsheet tool. I understand how powerful Excel is as a data tool and would probably continue to use it as my current spreadsheet tool of choice; until I become more familiar with Google Sheets. Google sheet is a handy tool for students and teachers to analyse and evaluate data.

Evaluation of Blogs:

Primary school students in the Manaikalani schools are regularly posting a blog each week. The student that I evaluated had been Blogging since 2014. His median number of Blogs per year is 74.5. This means that on average, he has been posting a blog nearly two times each week during the school year. If we are to model to our students, then teachers and leaders need to be posting a blog at least twice a week. Our why is about improving literacy skills at each year level. Woolf Fisher data supports that blogging improves the literacy skills of our learners.

Closure:

I am privileged today to part of our DFI programme, in many ways, I will be saddened completing the programme next week. I have shared my learning with my DFI colleagues, presenters and staff of Mairehau High School. The scaffold of Learn, Create and share supported by a framework of being: empowered, visible, connected, and ubiquitous is now becoming embedded in my everyday practice. I shared with my colleagues that I have moved from Microsoft Word to Google Docs. The connectivity and ability to transition from one Google tool to another supports my leadership role. The ease in moving from one platform to another and using a range of tools to explore, research and evaluate is appealing. I challenge other Principal’s to take the opportunity to attend a future DFI programme. I also take this opportunity to thank Dorothy, Mark, and Kelsey and the whole manaiakalani team for supporting my lifelong passion for learning. I feel that I am able to share my new found skills and abilities with students, board members, staff and parents of our school.