Virtual Learning Network

Regional Cluster Meeting

L@S  22 February 2011

Attendees :  Alan Curtis, Andrew Cowie, Dave Winter, Charles Newton, Allanah King,   Kay Brunton, Bevan Campbell, Richard Campbell, Carol Moffat, Margot ??? Mike Hillard, Chris Jager, Nick Rate, Derek Wenmoth, Douglas Harre, Jan Tineti, Marg McLeod, David Lloyd, Jan Thurburn, Warren Hall, Jo Wilson

Apologies:   Neil Melhuish, Howard Baldwin, Anne Jackson
Dave Merton involved with build, may miss parts of afternoon session
Kelvin Maine involved with build, may miss parts of afternoon session

Calum McGonigle arriving for evening session
Gregor Fountain arriving for evening session

What is on top

NEAL Cluster, Northshore

Alan Curtis, Andrew Cowie –Andrew recently appointed

• 50 schools – 24 signed up on MoU
• Northern Education Access Loop
• Waiting to hear who wins  cabling contract
• Vectorset up Ed Net
• SNUP / TorqueIP – once school has SNUP upgrade schools are reticient about finalizing what to do with the rest. NEAL been working with TorqueIP so that schools happy to engage with them
• 3 key focus
  • Information sessions – bite size pieces of information
  •  Teacher workshops – series of sessions
  • Networking groups – gathering together people for Moodle, technical group, and Andrew will facilitate further groups

CONNECTED Cluster, Dave Winter

• 6 Lead schools
• Each Lead school approached 6 associated schools to join and develop regional capacity
• These additional schools paid Membership to enable CONNECTED to scale events / opportunity to generate regional capacity
• Trialing new mechanisms – for communication, connectivity
• Nov 2011 – Kura Hakari, (share and celebrate day) based on Michael Fullan concept of Learning Fair. 65 attendees, several of whom were Principals of associated schools wishing to join the Cluster
• Cluster events – Kura Hakari, Open meeting, Cluster PD day. Where possible we try to have students present
• Wide use of google and google apps
• Development of Cluster website, Cluster communication and make wider community aware of CONNECTED Cluster

NELSON / MARLBOROUGH Cluster

Charles Ziempler

• Acknowledgement of Alannah King’s talent and passion for learning
• Principals were paid to come to L@S, on the agreement that they give Alannah King 2 days of their time to further develop there facilitation skills
• Jan Robertson coming down to work with Principals and Lead teachers to support them and develop their capacity
• Still difficult to get Principals on board to lead e-Learning in their schools. This is not deliberate but there are several mitigating factors in regard to this
• Still issues in the availability of access / options for students. Big difference in what students can access / use at home and what they can use at school

   KAPITI COLLECTIVE – Kay Brunton, Bevan Campbell, Richard Campbell

• KEY FOCUS ON RAISING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
• Developing
  • Evidence based learning
  • Gather assessment info to inform planning
  • Range of thought proviking speakers – VLL, Martin Renton
  • Increased collaboration across sector
  • Successes for 2010
    • Ultrafast broadband
    • Assessment info – PAT, eAsTTLE
    • Thirsty Thursday – sessions for PD
    • Good milestone feedback from Nick Rate
      • Higher level of analysis of PAT data - longitudinal
      • Theory of improvement – what do we need to do
      • ePortfolios – looking to develop these. New guidelines from MLE team
      • VLN
      • Engagement of Principals
      • Issue /dilemma about all schools having access to 3 discrete sets of data. Marg McLeod advised that there be additional clarification form the MoE in regard to this. Bevan to send Marg official letter to prompt response on this
      • NZCER website has been set up
      • Focus for 2011
        • Looking at Mathematics, as this appears to be an area of need / issue
        • PD days this year –
          • Helen Timperley: situation analysis
          • Jeffrey Smith – NEMP trends in NZ, Mathematics
          • Network collaboration
          • Martin Renton – inquiry led teaching
          • Pam Hook – SOLO taxonomy
          • Working parties
            • 6 areas covered
            • representation from all schools
            • brief and expectations
            • reporting back to management team / principals

• Opportunities
  • 2011 – Principals
  • ePortfolios
  • Develop own website in additional to the NZCER one
  • VLN
  • Issues with costs as with increasing access / capacity – costs escalate.

GCSN – Carol Moffat, Margot ??? Mike????

• 50 schools with fibre but waiting for another 100??? To get connected
• Exciting programme for 2011
  • 3 schools sharing languages, physics and scholarship mentoring
  • Projects – building website for information and learning opportnities for students, teachers and principals
  •  
  • Teacher PD – eAsTTle, Moodle, Wiki educator, Sandpit opportunities, Mashups (putting two things together eg using Google Earth and Walks of NZ) etc
  • Setting up a GCSN Champion in every school to ensure that all schools are aware of the ;earning opportunities being pronmoted/ provided by the GCSN
  • Key focus on collaboration – importance of building trust
  • Key focus – what difference is this going to make to student learning and achievement
  • Update
    • Infrastructure
      • SNUP3
      • Urban and rural broadband – preferred provider SNAP
      • NEN
      • VC options – trial Big Blue Button
      • Telecommunications RFI – exploring options
      • About to appoint preferred Voice provider

AIMHI – Chris Jager

• Group of 8 secondary schools in South Auckland
• Focus to have schools better equipped to use ICTs to enhance student learning, and use assessment to determine next steps for student learning programmes
• Buildong networks, building internal capacity,
• eAsttle was the tool of choice for the AIMHI Cluster principals
• Focus for 2011 –
  • to increase engagement of parents and whanau
  • involvement with community partners to position the cluster o make the earliest possible use of ultrafast broadband
  • Changing structure for Cluster communication – disbanded our Management committee, School liaison timetabled regular meeting with School proncipals, then regular meeting of School liaison people. Have requested that each School liaison person has a back up person and a member of the senior management team to support them.
  • Review visit to each school last year – 2 / 3 models emerged.
    • Teachers meeting to discuss student achievement data in regard to group of students
    • Teachers looking at data for a cohort, and a class within a cohort
    • School visits for 2011
      • Finalizing school plans
      • Identifyig areas of focus within each school eg. Online collaboration, differentiation, Fathom (software which enables you to slice data to anaysos what is happening with different groups within cohorts etc
      • This will then be used to drive the cluster programme and ensure PD opportunities are tailored to meet the needs of the Cluster schools
      • Areas of focus for 2011
        • Collaboration – created a Ning site in 2010, but because the schools are close geographically many of teachers couldn’t see the point. Readdressed this in 2011 – to ask the teachers what they wanted / needed to achieve with this. Now going to use the VLN for this – to keep everything in the one place and this aligns well with the new National goal for sharing
        • Producing 8 success stories for VLN to foster greater sharing across the Cluster

Marg McLeod

Ministry of Education

Current focus

• 5 Urban areas
• Building school capability
• Visibility over Whangarei, but do not yet have visibility over WELNET areas
  • Aim is to provide an assured system
  • At this stage it is unsure what services will be available to schools being connected. The information in the information pack will vary from region to region. CROWN Fibre Holdongs are in negotiation with local fibre companies. Fibre providers are negotiating with the retail service providers.
  • Are there enough retail providers to provide competitive pricing? At this stage there appears to be enough
  • Question regarding costing (monthly charges) across the country – unsure whether this will be consistant?
  • Advice to schools at present
    • Be wary of door to door salesmen –check out what is being offered
    •  if any provider approaches them they should sign up for as short as time/ tenure as possible
    • New ICT PD Model
      • Consortium called Te Toi Tupu Leading Learning Networkhave won this contract. This consortium is made up of CORE Education, Cognition Education, University of Waikato, NZCER and Waikato-Tainui
        • Regionalised focus
        • Deliver blended eLearning programme to transition existing clusters and develop new model of eLearning
        • Manage and develop Enabling e-Learning website
        • Develop eMaturity framework
        • Deliver VLPD (Virtual Professional Learning and Development)
• Stepping into unchartered waters as we move into  a regional model
• MoE looking to develop how this work across regions to ensure the promotion  / support of schools with eLearning
• Same amount of money avialble for the Blended e-Learning contract. Lots of schools needing the support with the challenges of e-Learning that they have yet to overcome
• Hardware and software provision
  • Good to see trial like the Whangarei.
  • Should we give all schools the information – or just the ones that are getting the fibre? Discussion on this – helpful to schools to be made aware prior to fibre
    • Issues for school becoming apparent eg schools in Christchurch losing staff and students to schools that already have fibre
    • What knowledge do we have, what knowledge are we missing, what knowledge do we need?
    • What is the vision for the Minster’s Managed Learning Network
      • Dependent on economies of scale – what do we want it to do and how can we provide this within the available funding.