Over the last few months, a number of developers at Catalyst have been working on new features for Mahara. Version 1.4 was just released in mid-June and there is already a host of new features available. It’s amazing. As we were going to update MyPortfolio.school.nz for August 1, 2011, I decided to hand in a proposal for MoodleMoot NZ 2011 that focused on these new features as a number of Moodle users are also Mahara users. Mahara is well-known in New Zealand as MyPortfolio which now has over 700 schools registered.
The presentation focuses on the features that the Ministry of Education asked us to implement for MyPortfolio. The development work also goes back to Mahara itself. There are so many new features that I didn’t even include all, but left a couple out that are important for site admins.
This was my first MoodleMoot, and it was a good experience. I got to meet people that I knew from Twitter, webinars or had heard about in other contexts. It was great to learn more about how Moodle is used and what can be done with Moodle 2.
A big THANK YOU to the crew from Albany Senior High School who organized the Emerging Leaders Symposium from April 28-29, 2011. It was a great (un-)conference that brought together up-and-coming educators from around the country to discuss leadership in schools and how (young) educators can be assisted to become leaders in their school communities.
Though I am not a teacher in a NZ school, I could still attend the symposium and am happy that I had the opportunity to do so because I learned a great deal, talked to teachers who do amazing things in their schools, and also got a glimpse of Albany Senior High, which is not your typical school. ASHS embraces openness in a number of ways: open education, open classrooms, open teaching, open source, open learning spaces. In an unconference session, Stonefields School, a primary school in Auckland, presented the thoughts behind their new building. It is great to see that some schools break away from the tradition model of organizing school and follow alternative roads.
Thursday, April 28, 2011, was the conference day with a keynote by Mark Osborne, followed by World Café where we discussed how leadership inspires, motivates and supports us, and how we can be more effective leaders ourselves. In the afternoon, 10 of us took the plunge to present in the pecha kucha style of presentations.
Coming up with 20 slides for 20 seconds each was a major challenge for me because I tend to have fewer slides in 400 seconds. It was great fun to lay out the presentation and think about the time restrictions as well as the photos and graphics that I wanted to use to represent what I was saying.
As I am bad at knowing when exactly 20 seconds are over, I added a small circle at the bottom of my slides to which I assigned an action so that it would run across my screen in exactly 20 seconds. Thus, I knew how much time I still had left and whether I needed to cut my sentence short or prolong a little bit (the ball can’t be seen in the recording as I stitched it together with the slides and the Flip’s audio). I got that idea from Ignite Wellington where a ball moves across the screen all the time indicating when a slide is going to be switched.
When setting up my presentation, I forgot to take into account that the transition added another second to my presentation. Thus, I went a bit over pecha kucha time. For next time I also know that I need to test whether screen recording works with the projector. I had the most difficult time connecting and in the end had to turn of my screen recording software. Luckily, Mark recorded all sessions so that I could use the audio from his recording and add my slides to it. The slides can also be viewed on Slideshare.
The topics of the other presentations included for example what education can learn from cricket, lessons learned from travelling that are applicable in school, gamification of learning, game theory in education, social media for learning, minimally invasive education. After the pecha kucha session we did “speed dating” to talk to a number of people in a very short time reflecting on the presentations.
This first day was a high-powered day filled with many different impressions and activities (I shouldn’t forget the introductions: 3 words that I identify with and only then could you say your name) and still enough time in between to chat with attendees.
Friday morning was reserved for 9 unconference sessions around the topics that the symposium participants were interested in. This unconference also gave us an idea of what it feels like to teach / learn in a Learning Common at ASHS.
After the unconference we got together in focus groups to prepare short presentations and also questions that we wanted to pose to Secretary of Education, Karen Sewell, who joined the symposium in the afternoon. The focus groups were on M?ori achievement, collaboration, science, personalizing learning, and leadership.
ELS11 was a great conference with the right number of people in a fantastic location where innovation could be tasted. If I were to draw a conclusion, I would say that these two days were all about sharing, connecting, collaborating sincerely (the vision from my focus group) and building community not just within a school but across schools. Schools already have great emerging leaders in their midst. These need the encouragement, space to grow and possibilities to show what they can do.
In response to a number of questions, Karen Sewell asked: “What’s stopping you?” Apparently, nothing much because ELS11 was an initiative that was born out of the wish to connect with other people, the science focus group is going to organize an unconference for science teachers, and there will be an ELS12.
If you want to read another participant’s reflections and summary of ELS11, you can do so on Tara’s blog.
When Richard Liddicoat had signed up for a presentation at the South Island Children’s and Young Adult’s Librarians’ Conference at the beginning of March, he didn’t think he would be shaken up by a second earthquake in his hometown Christchurch that surpassed the September 4, 2010, one. February 22, 2011, will be in every New Zealander’s memory as the biggest catastrophe in a very long time.
Though Richard, his family and colleagues experienced a huge tragedy, their lives go on and thus, he had decided to give his presentation about how a library can use the internet to bring in library users just over a week later in Blenheim. But before he launched into his presentation, he also mentioned how the earthquake has changed the City Council’s and the library’s web presence. As they host their web sites in Christchurch, they were disconnected and needed to get information to their citizens through other channels. Twitter and Facebook accounts were quickly established to keep the flow of vital information going. Furthermore, they used their blog Christchurch City Libraries Bibliofile that is hosted on wordpress.com to convey where people can find information.
The rest of Richard’s presentation was also very interesting because he made a point in case of using the internet to attract patrons and non-patrons to their library and to engage them, especially kids, so that they become interested in reading and actually stepping a foot into the library. He demonstrated how important a web presence is but also at the same time how much effort goes into the well-run and up-to-date internet site of the ChCh City Libraries of which he is the head of the editing team. For example, they plan their content three months in advance, have writing style guidelines and training available.
As not every public library can afford a team just for their internet site, he also gave tips of what every library could do with little money.
When I opened my email inbox today, I had an email from Slideshare saying that my recently uploaded presentation slides “E-portfolios: Just for students?” were featured on the homepage. Apparently, an editorial team chooses the presentations that appear on the homepage. I was happy about these news and had to take a screenshot before some other presentation replaced mine.
After a very sunny day in Nelson which I spent giving two Mahara / MyPortfolio Taster Sessions for teachers of Nelson schools at Waimea College, I flew to Auckland for the Digital Technologies Symposium for secondary school teachers. I had another very sunny and very warm day. It also looks like it’s going to be really nice tomorrow.
Today I presented on the topic “E-portfolios: Just for students?” Approximately 30 teachers attended the session. Throughout the day I was then approached by teachers who had either been to the presentation or who had heard about Mahara / MyPortfolio before. It was good that I wore my Catalyst – Mahara – Moodle - T-shirt thus being easily recognizable. They either wanted to know more about Mahara or had already thought about implementing it in their schools and wanted to know how to best go about it.
After tonight’s dinner at which Stuart Middleton from MIT (not the one in the USA, but the home-grown one from NZ) gave a great keynote that was filled with anecdotes from his childhood and a number of jokes (he also managed to bring in the engagement of Prince William to Catherine Middleton that had just been announced), I had a chat with Justin Scott from Otago Girls’ High School. They have already looked into Mahara and had run a trial as well. The girls liked the software because it was easy to handle (which is always nice to hear).
During our chat I learned how they support teachers and students in the adaption of technology. It is done through “Tech Angels”. These are girls who help teachers when they have a tech issue to solve. But they also help their peers. “Tech Angels” is a great metaphor for the work they do. The girls are very proud of their work, especially about the badge they get to put on their uniform. It is a great way for them to learn something new and help others understand it (learning by teaching). Teachers also realize that they do not necessarily know everything there is to know. This is a fundamental shift that is not always easy to cope with when teachers have always been the ones who were in control. Suddenly, they have to relinquish part of their power and have students help them.
A number of metaphors have been introduced to talk about the shifting role of a teacher. Ones that I encountered are for example “from sage on the stage to guide on the side”, curator, facilitator, gardener. Sui Fai John Mak put together a long list of roles that teachers can take. That also shown nicely how different these roles and their implied meaning can be. There is no “one size fits all”.
For next time I also know that I need to test whether screen recording works with the projector. I had the most difficult time connecting and in the end had to turn of my screen recording software. Luckily, Mark recorded all sessions so that I could use the audio from his recording and add my slides to it. The slides can also be viewed on 
They either wanted to know more about Mahara or had already thought about implementing it in their schools and wanted to know how to best go about it.