Orientation Online

As part of our Te Purapura Ngātahi o Manaiakalani Orientation, we join teachers to get the school year underway. Five of our seven schools came together. The focus was on how to use Google Class Sites to Lead Learning.  

Our schools vary in size of teaching staff from 5 - 40. We have a Māori immersion school, and most of our schools work with learners from low socioeconomic backgrounds. We are all using the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy. We make our teaching visible to all using Google Sites. 

Google Meet

We joined a Google Meet to connect as our cluster of schools is geographically distant. We connected via one large screen at each venue.

We had a facilitator at each venue and joined together for a time of whanaungatanga to strengthen relationships and connections. We had Pasifica Chee-Hoo and waiata to help us along. 

Design Process

After this, we worked in our separate locations to support teachers.

The Design Process was used to guide people through the steps of why and who. This allowed participants to empathise with and consider what their learners might need on a class site. 

Getting on with the Mahi

People broke into self-selecting groups depending on where they were at. We gave direct instruction on creating and setting up a class site, with learners as the primary audience in mind, for those who needed it. Others were given time and support, as needed, to set up their site for the year. 

Testing

We asked people to test their sites and offered the opportunity to give feedback to each other with the aim of using the phrase, 'positive, thoughtful, helpful' so teachers could improve their sites. 

We connected together again on Google Meet to give some short feedback on what we learnt. 

 We also used a Jamboard to share what we learnt throughout the session. This gave everyone a voice and was anonymous as we gave everyone edit access.

What worked

We connected online and used online tools to connect and learn from one another.  Tools such as Jamboard, Google Slides with rewindable content, Google Form and Spreadsheet allowed all to connect equally despite the distance. Teachers could learn from one another as they looked at one another's published sites. Gleaning great ideas from one another is what we do.

It was great to see one another and be able to connect at the start and end of the session. We had a sense of all doing the same thing and having local support.

Next Steps

Some of the whanaungatanga was best appreciated locally and somewhat lost over Google Meet. We need to consider how to do this better and plan to include everyone in a relevant and purposeful way. 

How might we break up groups across the venues by connecting via the Meet to support teachers as they need?