The end has been reached

So the journey comes to an end.....for now. It has been a great journey of highs and lows (usually when too much is also going on at school) but has been totally worth the house that I have sat at my computer. I initially entered the course as part of my e-mentoring position that I had undertaken but as the course has gone on it has been an invaluable contribution to my professional development by offering me so much opportunity to look into my own practice in various areas which to be hones I don't think I would normally have looked at. I have grown within my own practice from where I started 32 weeks ago and (I hope) the benefit can be felt by my student also, not only from the integration of more technological learning opportunities but also from the changes I have made to my teaching styles. I was always a student centred teacher but I have progressed to encouraging my students to be self regulated learners and taking more responsibility for their learning especially my senior students. The incorporation of learning activities through collaborative group tasks has enabled my students to explore their learning and give more engaging opportunities to arise. Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) stated that "reflective practice is a challenging, demanding and often trying process that is most successful as a collaborative effort." This has certainly been true when it came to the assignments I have created. When we were first told that collaborative assignments were encouraged a chill ran down my back with memories of group assignments at university not going according to plan. I began thinking 'no way' and submitted individual assignments but eventually decided to give it a go (although dreading trying to make time to meet up with a colleague to complete all the work) but it worked out great through remote collaboration it was actually fun to complete. By engaging in this collaborative work first hand has given me the experience to share with my students and to provoke collaborative study, even remotely, to be undertaken. Osterman & Kottkamp (1993) further discussed this in relation to experimental learning experiences which leads to effective learning through experience and behavioural change.

The teacher criteria I feel I have met well

Criteria 1: Establish and maintain effective professional relationships focused on the learning and well-being of all ākonga.

At the commencement of the school year I sent each of my senior students a homework survey based on their learning needs from the previous year the link for this is:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rriOTnV51C6JgiXY7NWxRjabcj947v3BZSYM9f1dn5Y/edit?usp=sharing. by investigating what my students previous knowledge level already was and how they liked to learn enabled my teaching to be modified to the needs of my learners as well as the curriculum requirements. I have also ensured that I have one on one meetings with my senior students to ensure that they are on track to successfully complete the internal assignments engaged in. This not only allows a positive relationship to be developed but also enables any problems to be identified early into a unit of work. 

By entering the MindLab course I have collaborated with multiple teachers across curriculum areas with students learning at the heart of our engagement. With the collaboration with Desire Truter, a former colleague, I have enjoyed conversations regarding how to change learning habits of our non-engaged students, going away and trying these in my practice and then coming back together to reflect on our students learning experiences. Without this course I would not have had these conversations and many of the positive changes would not have occurred.

Criteria 8: Demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn

For digital and collaborative Learning in Context assignment 3 Desire Truter and myself worked on a problem with student learning that we were both experiencing at differing schools. For this to be completed we needed to look at how our students were learning and for those that were not engaged in the lessons being taught what was going on. As part of our findings we trialed activities where students took ownership for their own learning. This is discussed on the TKI website in regards to e-learning tools and the advantages for self regulated learning. 

Other professional development in this area has been through involvement in school wide professional development in which we have been listening to student voice in regards to their learning. Many things have come up within this from the wall coverings in classrooms being too distracting to being engaged in more group work activities which heightens the learning opportunities. From these discussions with students I have changed many of my classroom 'habits' and whilst it is still trial and error I feel that I have enabled my students to have a say in the way they want to learn.

Criteria 12: Use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice.” 

Through on going engagement in professional development opportunities both at school and within the community I reflect on my practice on a regular basis. The appraisal system within our school provides goals to be set and reviewed at timely intervals throughout the year and problems that arise be worked out and hopefully solved as part of this. Through the use of different tools in the classroom and reflection on how these aid the learning of my students an ongoing critical reflection is needed to ensure that I have the correct methods to enable quality learning to be engaged in.

Future Goals

Whilst as I write this I breathe a sigh of relief that my course is at an end and I should have some extra time to put into my teaching or even my own children I do realise that as an educator I need to walk the talk and continue as a lifelong learner. The realization is that I have enjoyed this journey and it needs to be an on-going journey that I need as a professional to undertake. The next step would be entering onto the Masters program to continue my journey and this will become one of my future goals to complete. As part of the e-learning strategy team at the college I feel it is a necessary step for me to continue to development my knowledge into new digital technologies to share with my colleagues.

A second future goal for myself would be to continue to look into my own practice and trial all the new 'tools' we have learnt so much about, how to engulf these technologies into my classroom in way that is beneficial to my learners. Critical analysis of my practice will as always be an ongoing concern but I feel excited for my future prospects.






References:


Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993) Reflective Practice for Educators.California.Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 28th March 2016 from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/RefPract/Osterman_Kottkamp_extract.pdf

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising Teacher Criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/...

Cultural responsiveness in Practice

When I first came from England to New Zealand I had no knowledge of the culture of the country or the language. From attending university here I have since learnt a great deal regarding the Treaty of Waitangi and its importance to the country and its history. When I first entered into my career as a teacher in New Zealand I have to say that I still taught in a way that I had grown up but quickly began to realise (and learn) all of the different cultures within our society and their cultural beliefs. For the school that I work at the diversity of our community is as follows:

Gender composition	Boys 51% Girls 49%
Ethnic composition	NZ European/Pākehā Māori Pacific Chinese Indian Other Asian Southeast Asian Other European Other	35% 10% 6% 16% 8% 3% 7% 9% 6%

Education Review Office (2013)

With this in mind the expectations of educators to acknowledge the diversity of our learners is high and I totally agree that we should teach to our learners cultural beliefs. Mike Hogan's video highlights the importance of communication and teachers practices to be culturally appropriate to the community of our school. Te Reo in the classroom isn't just a tick box activity within our school for registration purposes but is bound within our teaching to acknowledge the treaty and its respect of our Maori heritage. 

School-wide activities would be an area that our school does well in relation to community diversity. At the beginning of the school year firstly new teachers are welcomed in the form of a Powhiri ceremony and then all new students to the school partake in the same ceremony as a welcome to our school and community. This Powhiri is lead by Maori students who are taught the ceremonial requirements from community elders which provides our school with an invaluable tool in community engagement. Recently a school Haka was developed by one of our Maori teachers (again in consultation with community members) this was again to acknowledge the importance of the Maori heritage that our school holds dear. But it is not just Maori heritage that is acknowledged through activities around the school, Pacifica parents were recently invited for a morning tea for new Pacifica students to our college. This is an annual event and other evenings are also held throughout the year. Cultural evenings are a highlight of the school calendar where students from all cultures engage in celebrations of their diversity through dance, food and integration to other cultures. 

Other areas that our college does well is planning and assessment in regards to our cultural responsiveness.

 "Data is well used by faculty staff to address the needs of priority learners (Maori, Pacific and groups of students with special needs) and to set appropriate targets within learning areas. Each faculty is expected to set annual achievement targets for Maori and Pacific students."  ERO (2013). 

At the beginning of each school year, the principal delivers data from the previous year to our staff to analyse against other schools nationally. From this we look at what we are doing well and what areas we need to work on and then this information is taken into our faculty goals for the year. Our Maori and Pacific students are also monitored for academic purposes and given extra mentoring for those that are struggling to ensure we are meeting the needs of these cultural groups. 

So what do I feel our college doesn't do so well when it comes to responsiveness to cultures? The one area I believe we need improving would be resources for classroom teachers. We have lots of resources to assist our teaching when it comes to Maori integration but what about the other cultures? We have a diverse class sitting in front of us and we should acknowledge all of the cultures within our teaching but sometimes we just do not know enough to incorporate quality teachable moments.

References:

Edtalks.(2012, May 30). Mike Hogan: Culturally responsive practice in a mainstream school. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/43097812

Education Review Office (2013). Pakuranga College Report May 2013.  Retrieved from https://www.ero.govt.nz/Early-Childhood-School-Reports/School-Reports/Pakuranga-College-13-05-2013

Technology and Ethical Dilemmas

Activity 8: Legal contexts and digital identities

Looking at my own practice and identifying an ethical dilemma firstly had me stumped on what to write about. Having to look into my own practice from an ethical prospective is quite hard as we have a lot of ethical responsibilities as a teacher but to bring this down to one to discuss is quite hard.

"A complementary explanation of the development of applied ethics relates to new moral problems facing society as a consequence of new technologies" Collste (2012). 

For educators the introduction of technologies and the privacy rights of our students comes into question. Collste (2012) further talked about the formulation of professional codes for rules of behaviour that establishes common moral ground for co-professionals. For teachers we stand by a Code of Ethics for certified teachers which covers areas such as:

• Autonomy to treat people with rights that are to be honoured and defended
• Justice to share power and prevent the abuse of power
• Responsible care to do good and minimise harm to others
• Truth to be honest with others and self.
• (New Zealand Education Council)

As a educator I not only have a duty of care to my learners to protect them digitally but also I need to ensure that my digital footprint is secure. For this reason I have two Facebook accounts, one personal with privacy settings in place to secure my personal content, and the other with my teacher code PRK which I use to formulate class group pages. The second account is totally open for all to see although the group settings are closed group to protect my students. For this reason I also invite one of our Deputy Principals into the group page to be able to view all content that is placed on the site. One ethical dilemma I have faced in regards to Facebook is when students send me private messages to ask for advice or ask a question. I have ensured that I do not answer in a private message but place the response onto the page for all to see or speak to the student in question in the classroom if the question was not urgent.

A responsibility of care to my learners is through their use of social media within an education context. For this I do speak to them regarding their cyber safety and how to protect themselves online both within the classroom and at home. The sharing of passwords and devices between students is ever alarming and needs to be addressed through our professional responsibility to our learners. Unfortunately I have had to deal with a dilemma in this context when a girl was being bullied through social media by not only a girl in her year but also her older sister. Although we have to ensure the students privacy I did in this case ask the girl to email me screen shots of the conversations that were had so that I could act on the evidence. Whilst I was not interested in the content of the conversations or the 'topic' I did need to see that bullying was occurring. The evidence was clear on the messages but as it turned out the girl had said that her 'boyfriend' had sent the messages whilst she was in the shower. This meant that I needed to speak to her regarding the offensiveness of the messages but also regarding her own digital footprint and that allowing others to use her phone/device would make her responsible for the bullying that occurred.

Professional distance whilst being approachable is one dilemma faced by teachers of today (Connecticut's Teacher Education and Mentoring Program, 2012) this can be difficult when, with social media, an educator wants to be accessible to their students out of school hours. Transparency of messages is vital for the professional and is becoming more important with the increase in technology integration into the education sector. The ethics around technology usage and professional transparency will be an ongoing dilemma for educators and their schools with guidelines needing to be put in place to protect not only the students but the teachers alike.

References:


Collste, G.(2012) Applied and professional ethics. Kemanusiaan,19(1), 17–33.

Connecticut’s Teacher Education and Mentoring Program.(2012) Ethical and Professional Dilemmas for Educator: Facilitator’s Guide. Retrieved from http://www.ctteam.org/df/resources/Module5_Manual.pdf

Education Council (nd). The Education Council Code of Ethics for Certficated Teachers. Retrieved from http://www.educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0

Education and Social Media

Activity 7: Social media in teaching and professional development.

Social media has engulfed the life of most people for the last 10-15 years, first we were all on Myspace and Wikispaces before the blast of Facebook came into our lives. The skeptic said these wouldn't last, and Myspace certainly didn't, but the multi billion dollar industry of Facebook shows no signs of slowing down. I have to say because of moving from the UK I found I became more engaged in Facebook to stay in touch with family and friends but as I have grown in my teaching capacity I have found it to be beneficial for not only a professional interaction but also as the best way of reaching my students and the teams that I coach. Whilst there are the problems of privacy as a teacher that needs to be addressed, if done correctly, this does not become an issue. I have become a bit of a social media junkie in the last couple of years and look to social media for a way of finding out information for my profession. The use of Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram has become my 'go to' place for information where I can collaborate with like-minded colleagues all over the world. 

• What are some key features of social media that you have identified as beneficial for teaching and learning?

The key features of all social media for me is the fact that our learners are connected to it 24/7 so why wouldn't we use this platform to provide information to our students? From readings that would be beneficial to their learning block to announcements on where to meet for the next lesson I have found the likes of Facebook invaluable as a practitioner. In Tanya Joosten's Social Media for Teaching and Learning (2013, slide 18) she stated that learners reported a 90% frequency of communication with their instructors. Whilst this survey was conducted with tertiary students, from my observations, the amount of college age students that are on Facebook everyday would make this an ideal platform for educational purposes. One of the deep learning competencies that I discussed within my last post was collaboration and by incorporating social media into our classes whether it be for homework purposes or within the context of the lesson we are giving our students an avenue to collaborate with their peers whilst providing ongoing learning to happen.

• What are potential challenges that teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities?

One of the potential challenges that teachers face are the non-engaged learner that takes the opportunity to be off task when social media is integrated into learning. There are always a few students who do not complete homework and will this be any different because it is on social media? Junco (2010) suggested that by incorporating technology into our lesson plans then the engagement of our learners will be increased due to the 21st century learners need to be on technological interfaces. Whether this is true or not, most people do not go many hours without being attached to a device some way or other. We as a digital school have already integrated technology focused lessons into our units and incorporate high amount of self regulated learning in our classrooms. I do often have to remind some students that this is not a time to play their online games but a time to be engaged with the learning tasks. 

Other potential challenges that today's educators face are that of the increase of Cyber safety of our students. With all our students bringing devices into the classroom the avenue for the school 'bully' has become bigger. Gone are the days where the 'bully' would wait on the playground but now they can enter your classroom through social media. Netsafe (2015) discuss the Harmful Digital Communications Act with regards to this and other potentially dangerous online activities which we as educators have to be fully aware of each time devices are being used as part of our lessons.  

• What social media platform do you feel best supports engagement with your professional development? Why?

As discussed before I do use Facebook as part of my collaboration with colleagues and students but for professional development purposes my main platform would be Twitter. Why? I have built up a network of like minded practitioners from around the world that fills my news feed up on a daily basis with interesting articles that they are sharing. I have found this by far the best place to learn new techniques in teaching, new research and what other professionals are doing in their classroom. PENZ (Physical Education New Zealand) often have 'drop in' sessions on Sunday evenings with a topic of interest to spark discussions via Twitter which I find extremely useful. Lately I have begun to see articles of interest popping onto my Facebook news feed which have also been 'saved' for later reading. Other professional development sites I have begun to use are the Mindlab Google+ community, Pond and YouTube. 

• How do/would you use social media to enhance your professional development?

I have no doubt that the best professional development is actually attending seminars/courses but as we live in a demanding time constricting world this isn't always possible. Research is always being completed and trends in education are always changing so the need  to stay up to date with what is happening both in New Zealand and internationally is extremely important to both ourselves as educators but for our learners too. Social media has closed this gap and ensured a quick and easy availability for information or collaboration to be utilized. 

References:

Joosten, T.( 2013. October 22). Pearson: Social Media for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/tjoosten/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-27456257?ref=http://professorjoosten.blogspot.co.nz/2013/10/pearson-social-media-for-teaching-and.html.

Junco, R. (2010, September). Using emerging technologies to engage students and enhance their success. Academic Advising Today, 33(3). Retrieved from https://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Academic-Advising-Today/View-Articles/Using-Emerging-Technologies-to-Engage-Students-and-Enhance-Their-Success.aspx.

Netsafe (2015, September). Cyberbullying and online harassment: Harmful digital communication can take many forms. Learn more about the new act and how to deal with online harassment. Retrieved from htts://www.netsafe.org.nz.

Education Trending

For activity 6 of our last assignment we have been asked to identify contemporary issues or trends in New Zealand or internationally.

Last week I attended a breakfast seminar run by Core Education which was looking at the change in education from 1950 to 2050. Discussed was how a educated person from 1950 differentiates from a that of an 2050 educated person (Wenmoth, 2016). Surely the era of the educated person would have an effect on education just by looking at the technology aspects within a persons life for instance there were only one landline telephone per five people back in 1950. Wenmoth (2016) also stated that there would be 9 billion people living on the planet by 2050 and over half of these would be residing in Asia. Pearson (2013) continued with this prediction that middle class citizens would reach 3 billion within twenty years and that they would spend more of their household budget on educational requirements. What does this all mean to our learners? There are three aspects in education that we need to pay more attention to (Education Review Office, 2012) being student-centred learning, responsive and rich curriculum and assessment used for student learning. For my practice I will be looking at student-centred learning and assessment for student learning.

Student-centred Learning

Surely the main reason that we have an education system is to teach our students so they are well-rounded individuals prepared for the next chapter of their lives but still we are teaching to the curriculum and not to individual needs. Wenmoth (2016) suggested that employers are now looking a differing skill sets in new employees that consist of: complex problem solving, creativity and innovation and finally communication and collaboration. For the education system to be relevant to the needs of that of the learner and their potential employers then the need for teachers to change from curriculum centred-learning to student-centred is essential. Wenmoth also discussed changing to deep learning competencies to reflect this:



Moving from a traditional approach of teaching to a more student-centred approach means that the teacher needs to allow her students to take control of their own learning. I have already taken this approach into my practice after listening to student voice and how they prefer to learn. As part of this, and to ensure that students are completing learning activities, I have developed check lists for my senior students and provided opportunities to gain peer reviews on their work in class before internal assessments are due. Junior classes continue to work in group activities which provides collaborative activities to be engaged in.

Assessment for student learning

We all have the case, as educators, that we end up assessing just so that we have grades/scores to provide to our department heads to prove our teaching is adequate but is it relevant to the needs of our learners? The traditional approach to assessment is to teach a unit of work and then provide students with a written assessment to 'assess' their learning. With the increase of technology in the classroom and the shift to student-centred learning the way we assess students learning needs to be altered also. The increase in mobile learning (Knowles, 2015) in the classroom has seen a shift to edugaming and augumented reality for learning. Knowles (2015) also stated that 80% of learners claimed to be more engaged in their learning if classroom activities included edugaming. Should we as educators take this further and make assessments more technology based and use these types of platforms to assess our students learning. As discussed earlier employees are looking at differing skill sets for their employees and by using edugaming in the classroom we can provide our students with creativity and innovation that is required by tomorrows employers. Some in the Healthcare industry are already using augmented learning to replace virtual reality simulators in their education (Knowles, 2015). If industries are already making the move in their education providers to enhance the learning with the aid of these tools then we should also make the move so our learners are prepared.  In my own practice I have been looking at replacing written assessments with my senior students with blogs, interviews or recording information as a way to assess their work but maybe it is time to look further into edugaming or augmented reality as a way to assess their learning.


References


Education Review Office (2012).The three most pressing issues for New Zealand’s education system, revealed in latest ERO report - Education Review Office. Retrieved 5 May 2015, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Release.

Knowles, C. (2015) Top e-learning trends impacting education. Retrieved 22 March 2016 from http://educators.co.nz/story/top-e-learning-trends-impacting-education.


Wenmoth, D. (2016). What will it mean to be educated in 2050? Retrieved 25 March 2016 from http://www.slideshare.net/dwenmoth/what-it-means-to-be-educated-in-2050.

Pearson. (2013, April 26).Global trends: The world is changing faster than at any time in human history. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdZiTQy3g1g.

Connecting the dots

Make a map of your professional connections

From completing this diagram I came to realize how big my professional connections actually are. When it came to sitting and thinking of all the connections I have just in a school setting it emerged that we as professionals have more of an impact on society than we would have thought.

For the final part of my assignment I need to choose two professional connections from my map and evaluate their impact on my practice and professional community.

Students

This goes without saying, if we didn't have students then we wouldn't have a profession to be a part of! They are the most important part of my map, they are the reason I go to work and thoroughly enjoy my career path. From these roots of my tree many branches extend from the community of parents to the community of teachers that educate these students. My whole practice is about these students, gone are the days where we merely teach to the curriculum and treat our classes as one entity. For me each classroom is made up of 25+ individuals who like their fingerprints are very unique and learn in differing ways. Myself as their leader is obligated to ensure that each one of these 'individuals' leaves my classroom a little richer in knowledge but has gained this knowledge in a multitude of ways. I listen to student voice and how they learn and this has a huge impact on my practice. I forge positive relationships so that my students feel comfortable to ask questions to teach me new things. For this my professional community has expanded, I need to continue to be a lifelong learner too. Without expanding my own knowledge on technological advancements and research developments then I am unqualified to teach the 21st century learner in a way that they and their communities expect.

e-Learning

When I took on the role of e-mentor for the Physical Education and Health faculty at our school I thought that my only connections would be the faculty and other e-mentors but how wrong I was. Now that I take a step back and look at this extra level that I have added to my professional connections it is expanding fast and looks to not slowing down. Foremost of this connection is to ensure that the students entering our faculty receive the very best in the way of learning activities but also that our teaching is in alignment with the rest of the school community. With this in mind the inclusion of technology and adequate knowledge of our teachers in this area is necessary to ensure our students are getting the very best. Not only has this connection expanded to other e-mentors within the school but also through my integration into the MindLab community other like minded teachers from the wider Auckland region. The impact of these connections on my practice has meant that I have 'stepped up' in my own teaching activities and passed this knowledge onto my peers within the faculty. Regular meetings with other e-mentors from within the school and from the school wider community has meant a wealth of knowledge has been passed throughout the professional connections that I have made. The connections have not stopped and continue to be made through professional development attendance and visiting other schools to visually see what magic is happening within their own community.

Our professional connection maps are a living document that will continue to extend past where we are today. We as educators continue to branch out as we continue on a lifelong journey of learning.

Professionals have a community too

Defining my professional community...ummm

After viewing Eitenne Wengers  "concept of community practice" a number of times, it is a very simplified concept. We think of our community as a landscape of hills we go up and down, we choose our landscapes and become accountable to these. It is our everyday actions that derive what communities we enter and those that we stay within. For the professional community some of these 'landscapes' have already been predetermined due to the nature of our professionalism but as we navigate through our careers we 'decide' which further communities we enter.

A community of practice as defined by wenger-trayner (2011) "is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. This reflects the fundamentally social nature of human learning"

When looking at my own professional community I am a teacher of Physical Education and Health at Pakuranga College. A large school considered to be a community within its self. Most of my peer interactions come from the staffroom, faculty office and throughout the grounds of the school. The staffroom is where I form many of my cross curricular conversations and comparing to Wengers concept I choose which colleague (hill) I want to integrate into my community. Within our faculty office we collaborate with ideas and form communities to enhance the learning of our students, at present we are forming further communities to enlist in the learning for our senior health students to engage in alternative health practices. From my beginnings at the school I have widened my community by becoming a dean of Totara House. This has meant that I maintain links between school, home and the wider community for the students within my community. To widen my professional community further I have taken on the role of one of three eLearning members to become strategic leaders within the school thus widening my community further to: other e-learning groups outside the school, further teachers within the school, the community that surrounds the school and students and their families. Further communities I am also a part of are, the school digital council, orienteering group and 1st XI girls football.

For all of these professional communities that I have 'chosen' to be part of I have the opportunity to further my community by engaging with more people, businesses and other like-minded communities. As discussed by Wenger these communities are part of my identity and is where I choose to be.

1. What is your specialist area of practice? How does your specialist area of practice relate to the broader professional context?

Within my specialist area of PE and Health we are often collaborating with other PE departments at other schools, from sharing ideas to sharing of equipment/resources. For the faculty to be aligned with other faculties within the school the need for ICT in our faculty especially with the inclusion of year 11 students from this year was necessary. My engagement with the Mindlab course was to gain knowledge and understanding into the different areas that we could ensure our students were gaining the same standard of teaching when they enter our faculty. As e-mentor for the faculty I assist with its members to enable quality induction of digital interfaces into their courses. As a team of ten e-mentors at the college across faculties we meet regularly to ensure the consistency of delivery to our students.

2. What are the current issues in your community of practice? How would you or your community of practice address them?

Some of the issues that are being faced within my community are:

a) due to financial constraints not all junior students can obtain a device to engage in the digital classes we have at the college.
b) teachers that are not comfortable with adapting their courses to include the digital tools that we have integrated into the college
c) bullying through social media and parents concerns over the use of devices within a school context
d) due to the practical contexts of PE integrating digital lessons especially into junior classes can come at the expense of students physical activity

As a college we try to work with families that struggle to provide a digital device for their child and whilst the students with financial issues can be helped there are still some students that do not have a device due to parental concerns over safety of the device and safety of their child on digital interfaces. This is an ongoing issue that we need to give information to parents on the importance of having a device with them, the safety of the school in regards to devices not being stolen or broken and how they can assist the community by keeping their child cyber safe.

Teachers that are not engaging in digital tools within their lesson planning is not overly a concern of the community but is part of the problems that are faced. Giving time in lunchtimes/before school or after school is offered to assist with problems but then the problem of time constraints takes over. By giving e-mentors time within faculty meetings is closing the gap between digital uptake and not and this will be an on-going trial throughout the year.

The 21st century learner unfortunately has the issue of bullying through social media and not being able to get away from this but by educating students and their parents on the varying ways to keep cyber safe has become a task taken on my professional community. Electronic newsletters, parental meetings, assemblies and teaching within health classes are just a few of the ways that we are addressing these issues.

Due to the nature of our students and the increase in technology advancements many of our students do not receive adequate physical activity in their daily lives. By reducing our PE periods so that we can include technology has to be a worthwhile attempt and not just a tick the box activity. For this reason we have a team of PE teachers that are researching how we can do this effectively and will also take this year to complete.


3. What are the challenges that you face in your practice? How would you or your community of practice address them?

One of the challenges I face at the moment is with regard to my senior PE and Health classes that are not digital cohorts and many do not have sufficient devices for my lessons to be complete device classes. As a student on the MindLab course my pedagogy reflects that of utilizing digital platforms to enhance the learning of my students but my daily struggle is to teach my senior students what they need to learn and doing this without devices. As a faculty we have a handful of ipads but struggle when there are more than a couple of classes needing to use them. In the coming years this will not be as such a problem as our founding digital classes become seniors but for now this is a problem my community faces. Many would argue that all teenagers have access to devices whether it is a phone, tablet or laptop but in reality not all students do. Having a phone is fine but for the research or activities within our lessons these are not adequate to prevent eye strain for the students. As discussed earlier we as a school community assist families with financial constraints to gain access to devices but unfortunately this is only available to junior students and not seniors. I would extend this to seniors as they just as much as stake with their learning, with the increase in online tools, being able to access these in the classroom could mean the difference in their grades and ultimately their credits.

References:

wenger-trayner.com/resources/what-is-a-community-of-practice/