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For Wesley Intermediate, the decision to digitally upgrade was based on number of significant factors. These factors included helping their decile one students out of the poverty trap, establishing good public relations with parents, competing with the resources afforded by larger schools, being the best they can be for a smaller school and most significantly the coming of age of NCEA with the understanding that it will all be online in the future. Determined to do right by his students in preparing them for a digital future both in education and occupation, Nigel Davis committed Wesley Intermediate to a program of digitally upgrading its learning environments.
With fortnightly principal meetings beginning in January of 2013, the Ako-Hiko cluster began preparations to implement its version of the Manaiakalani model and program, along with assistance and mentoring from members from the Manaiakalani Education Trust. One of the first items on the yearlong agenda was forming the Ako-Hiko trust comprising of the six schools. Each school participated in the formation of the trust by contributing NZ$4,000 each with some uncharacteristic financial support from Manaiakalani as well. During the yearlong preparations schools servers were updated by Fusion, new wire and lines were installed, teacher training with Manaiakalani teachers took place and necessary policies were written.
Nigel Davis, principal of Wesley Intermediate underlines the need to take a good year in preparing for the digital upgrade and warns against both rushing the process and trying to go it alone as a single school. He emphasises the need for support in making such a huge change and the need to have other principals to bounce ideas off. He also advises that schools be prepared with systems in place before chrome-books are introduced to the class to alleviate any potential problems.
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| Figure 1: The Newly formed Ako-Hiko Education Trust logo |
With preparations and meetings complete, schools in the Ako-Hiko cluster including Wesley Intermediate each opened their doors in January 2014 to two chromebook classes. Wesley Intermediate greeted 52 students with brand new one to one devices into their optional and highly individualised digital program in their newly refurbished digital environment. The one to one device of choice for Wesley Intermediate was the popular Chromebook due to its long battery life, robust design and seven second start-up time. Wesley Intermediate was also able to keep costs down by placing an order for chromebooks along with Manaiakalani purchase. Essentially though, the Ako-Hiko trust was the buyer. Students at Wesley pay a modest $40 set up fee to secure a place in one of the two digital classes and then enter into either a two year rental or purchasing agreement of either $3.50 or $5.00 per week respectively from the trust.
Students and parents are also expected to sign a ‘Kawa of Care’ agreement, first implemented by Manaiakalani, which is required in order for students to have use of the chrome books and for the chrome books to be released home with the student. It seems that this agreements terms and conditions have been very effective in establishing the kind of behaviours and attitudes required of an online digital program. The Kawa of Care covers topics such as being internet smart and intolerance's for behaviours such as online bullying, off task behaviour and accessing inappropriate material among other things.
Another component that works well with this program is the popular Teacher Dashboard Google app which constantly provides an up-to-date overview of all the student’s work and progress in each subject.
Figure 2: Students work by subject at a glance
Figure 3:
An instant view of web tabs open - instead of getting a sore neck
bending over student shoulders.
The teacher can log in to each student's screen to communicate, remotely access students netbooks, view the students browsing history, open a new tab for a group of students as part of a demonstration, set a calendar event, keep an eye on students gmail accounts and documents or send a message to the whole class. Google Dashboard also gives the teacher a quick view of all the student’s chromebook screens as illustrated.
Another notable difference in the operation of the digital classes in comparison with regular class is the level of individualised programming. Students have personalised goals and a work quota to accomplish each week in any subject order they choose. Greater autonomy and differentiated paces of learning has meant that clusters of students have pulled ahead, some arriving at school as early as 7:45am to start working on their goals and some working after school till 8pm at night at home.
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| Figure 4: A great tool - popular and free! |
Reasons for this could include the ‘no homework’ element of the program, the addictive nature of free programs such as Khan Academy or the drive to achieve and show parents the days work and/or overall grades and goals in E-asTTle. As a result, after only two terms of Wesley’s digitally upgraded class, every chromebook student has progressed by either one level or higher according to their e-asTTle scores. other programs used by Wesley Intermediate classes include Sumdog and XtraMath which has also proven effective and popular.
The teaching pedagogy of Wesley’s chromebook classes is also distinct from traditional teaching, In keeping with the Manaiakalani model three elements indicate this pedagogical development- learn, create and share. Students learn initially by watching online video demonstrations such as is available via Khan Academy and by practicing those skills in online games such as available on Sumdog and in class one on one with the teacher if required, students then get creative by producing something like a presentation, slide show, or video using a combination of original material and items found on the web or You-tube to demonstrate what they’ve learnt. Students then share it with whoever is around them including their classmates, friends, teachers, parents, principal or even globally. This could also account for high motivation levels and levels of parental engagement.
Looking towards paying it forward though, once Wesley Intermediate has matured into the program by establishing its own sponsors, Principal Nigel Davis says he is more than willing to enter into a mentoring or support roll for other schools thinking of following suit. Is what he’s done with the school transferable or reproducible for other lower decile schools? Based on his experience, Nigel believes it is.
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