MIT 2020 - Building a Prototype (Part 2)

prototype: the first design of something from which other forms are copied or developed (Oxford Dictionary)

Newly enthused from our MIT meeting on Monday and lock down looming,  I was focussed on getting a website prototype up and running pretty quickly. Without the luxury of 'user' testing with a group of my target students, here's how things unfolded:

Tracking Student Participation/Building Connections
One gremlin was to find a way to track and give visibility to students as they completed the challenges. Matt suggested a survey form similar to what he was already using to monitor student learning for his class. Students were asked to log their challenges and the comments they had made on others blogs.

Student centred content
A team of TAHA Challengers - a mix of Year 7 & 8 students - created the video/visual content for the site. Due to time restrictions and physical distancing, I chose students who I was already seeing online for distance learning at the end of Term 1. We met informally  at the end of a GOOGLE MEET session (all filmed!)and using a spreadsheet were able to plan and assign tasks amongst ourselves with time lines to get as much content finished as quickly as possible. A template script for the TAHA videos proved helpful to support students as they added their own flavour to the TAHA  'adverts' they created.

Engaging Tasks
A key element of the whole TAHA CHALLENGE was to find a collection of tasks that  Year 7 & 8 students would be willing to try - nothing too serious but nothing too lame either! I got inspiration from a lot of different sources including:
- a BINGO Board of Awesomeness from the folks at KIWIKIDS NEWS
- the Mental Health Awareness Week initiative
- Rangitahi Tū Rangituhi , a rangtahi leadership organisation in Wellington that offers Ngā Taonga
  Tākaro wānanga (traditional Māori games workshops)

MIT 2020 - Building a Prototype (Part 1)

prototype: the first design of something from which other forms are copied or developed (Oxford Dictionary)

Newly enthused from our MIT meeting on Monday and with lock down looming,  I was focussed on getting a website prototype up and running pretty quickly. Without the luxury of 'user' testing with a group of my target students, here's how things unfolded:

Digital Tool
It made sense to use New GOOGLE Sites to build my new website. It would be less stressful than trying to design something from scratch using another software programme that I was less familiar with.

Overall Concept 
Big shout out to Matt for letting me throw ideas at him and troubleshoot how my digital tool was going to work. His timely wisdom had already steered me clear of trying to develop an app.  My thought now was to design a site as the hub through which students could stay connected with each other. There would be a series of tasks, with elements of competition (points) and opportunities to share their experiences (blog posts) and also check out and give feedback on what others were up to (blog commenting).

A culturally approriate framework
Our Year 7 & 8 students were familiar with the Te Whare Tapa Wha model of Maori health from the term's inquiry topic. They had been introduced to the analogy that a person's overall health was like a wharenui or meeting house - it stands strong if all four walls are all in balance.  Framing the challenges to the four dimensions of Te Whare Tapa Wha -  Taha Tinana (physical wellbeing), Taha Wairua (spiritual wellbeing), Taha Whanau (healthy relationships) and Taha Hinengaro (emotional wellbeing) would allow students to build on their prior knowledge and understanding of Te Whare Tapa Wha but also provided a real-time context for them to see this approach to hauora/wellbeing in action.

Branding
 I kicked around a few ideas for naming the site including Kia Kaha! and Make the Taha Connection! I really wanted to focus on the importance of being resilient and staying connected with their peers.  I  eventually settled on TAKE THE TAHA CHALLENGE!  It provided a clear invitation for students to try something new while also developing their personal wellbeing 

Digital Fluency Intensive 2 - Collecting and Analysing Information

Session 2 of our Digital Fluency Intensive brought a better understanding of the LEARN component of the Manaiakalani pedagogy. It was sobering to hear of how many students from the Tamaki community were leaving high school in the 1990s with no qualifications. This dire situation became a huge driver for change as continued underachieving was unacceptable. 

Research shows that students in Decile 1 'land' at school, well behind their peers in higher decile schools. To interrupt this cycle of underperforming, schools started to challenge existing teaching methodologies. From humble beginnings, a handful of teachers rose to the challenge and the starting point was knock convention on the head by using podcasting to target improvements in literacy.

Our trainers also shared with us how to work with GOOGLE FORMS  and GOOGLE SHEETS.   FORMS is a great tool for gathering information using a variety of question options and it automatically collates the data on a separate sheet - genuis! SHEETS are a tool to record, analyse and format information.

The illustration above was produced using FORMS (specific location of favourite holiday destinations) and SHEETS (collated information to merge into map).

I am looking forward to putting my newly acquired SHEET skills to smarten up the content and appearance of my existing spreadsheets for Turn in Sheets and Assessment data.

Thanks for another informative day Dorothy, Gerhard and Matt!