November

This is the month that all of our students (and let's be honest, our teachers too) look forward to, we have our 3 way conferences (students and teacher sharing their learning journey with whanau) and the MADE Awards Event (another platform where many of the digital objects they have created are shared). This event provides an opportunity for our students to share their creativity and learning experiences to a national audience. The Bay Court Theatre was packed full and the atmosphere was fantastic, schools from right across the country were represented. Being on this committee has been a fabulous opportunity to connect with educators and school leaders. TAKP shone and I was very proud to see our teachers and students acknowledged. I'd like to see even more schools involved in 2019 this is such a great vehicle for learners to share.

In November as a Senior Leadership Team we decided to host an event for our community to showcase how we are using technology in the classroom. I organised this event and called it  "Look how far we've come". the goal of this event was to have the opportunity to engage with parents and whanau and for them to become immersed in technology and develop an understand of the diversity of opportunities we offer our students. The evening had a relaxed and inclusive vibe where everyone was welcomed with an iPad and invited to join in in a mass Garageband session (the feedback was 100% positive and parents just didn't want to stop!). We had stations operating around the room (which myself and current ADE's and hopeful future ADE's hosted).

The stations were

1. Sphero Battle Bots (Maths - an intro to coding - run by me)
2. Keynote Line Drawing (Middle/Senior Literacy - sharing 'The Dot - run by Richard Williams')
3. Apple Books (Early Years Literacy - The High Frequency Word Series - run by Jo Weldon)
4. Kaleidacam (Schoolwide Mathematics/Symmetry and Patterning - run by Trudi Fausett ADE)
5. Nearpod (Te Reo Maori - Whole School - run by Heremia Taingahue)

Dorothea Collier ADE, Michelle Wills and Heremia Taingahue facilitated the Garageband session.

I have now finished the design concept for our next ADS book and have built a team who will help produce the written content. We plan for the book to be ready for publishing by the end of the year so that when the application opens in early 2019 we will be ahead of the game (we have ERO next year so I am ticking off as many boxes as possible before this busy time). I am thrilled with the finished design concept as I chose to push the boundaries and produce a template with flowing 'circles' across pages rather than the usual full photo pages. Learning how to edit video footage into this was an interesting challenge and I was thankful for the support of Richard Williams who continues to thrive as part of the elearning team alongside me.