Category Archives: Library

Introducing Wilj Dekkers – Head of Innovation and Information Services

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Starting in 2017, St Andrew’s College has created a new position to support teaching and learning with technology both in and out of the classroom. This role, called Head of Innovation and Information Services, has been filled by Mr Wilj Dekkers and reflects the College’s continuing commitment to ensuring both staff and students are equipped to maximise the opportunities presented by technology. Wilj has moved into this role from a position in the St Andrew’s College Preparatory School. He has been the subject of posts on this blog in the past, particularly this description of his implementation of Minecraft and this one which describes his exciting journey to Budapest as part of the Microsoft Innovative Educator Programme. wilj-dekkers

The interview below introduces Mr Dekkers and his role.

Wilj, can you give an outline of your previous roles/experiences?

I began teaching 19 years ago in a bilingual school in Mangere.  My interest with technology in education was quickly picked up on by the school principal who had me draw up plans to cable the old school buildings and network their Acorn computers.

From there the technology advanced and I became a teacher, network administrator and tech support in a new Apple school in Manurewa, eventually becoming an ICT facilitator working with a cluster of schools across Auckland where I worked with school Heads, teachers and students.

I returned to the classroom in 2003, teaching and running various departments in the United Kingdom until my wife and I returned to New Zealand towards the end of 2013.

I began teaching in the Preparatory School here at St Andrew’s College with the responsibility of eLearning Co-ordinator added to my main function as a Year 6 classroom practitioner.

Over the past three years my use and combination of technology to enhance and promote learning continued develop and I was fortunate to be selected as one of five Microsoft Innovative Educators to be sent to Budapest, Hungary for the annual E2 education conference.

What are the main aspects/responsibilities of your new role at StAC?

My new role in the College is as Head of Innovation and Information Services.  I will be running programmes and projects with students and teachers that involve everything from coding, robotics and 3D printing through to helping collegians use technology more effectively within their learning programmes.

What are the main aspects of your role that you are most looking forward to?

2017 will be an exciting time.  With the new challenge of also running the Secondary Library I am looking forward to working with the team to redevelop the space into a modern library technology centre.  This redefined learning space will become the venue for testing new technology before introducing them into the classroom, various coding and robotics programmes and will also be a variable learning classroom for Science and other departments to book as required.

The core library function will be enhanced with a more modern look with the library staff role altering to work more closely alongside subject teachers to support the curation of resources and to teach the effective use of information literacy skills.

Other than technology and education, what are your main interests?

Aside from my teaching and learning role with technology I also thoroughly enjoy running the Preparatory School Football programme.  Each Wednesday I am out on the Prep School field with 60 players ranging in age from 5 to 10 and in the winter months I have the pleasure of coordinating the Under 9 to 13 teams.  The last three years have seen football number continue to increase with the sport becoming very popular with both boys and girls.

It’s great to welcome Wilj more formally into our team, and it is exciting to hear of the developments he will be implementing. Wilj will become an occasional contributor to this blog so check back to hear of his progress!

Technology Supporting Gifted Students

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This post was written by Ms Ellen Hampson and Mrs Kelly McBride and was originally posted in the GiftEDnewz e-newsletter from the Professional Association for Gifted Education

Secondary School – overview of technology and current activity

Two concepts come to mind when contemplating Technology and its significance within education. Firstly, once hailed as the Holy Grail for its innovation within the communication field, Technological innovation increasingly holds the auspicious role of ‘global saviour’ when engineered by socially conscious citizens. Experts argue that we are now living in the age of the Anthropocene – the proposed epoch when humanity has irrevocably altered the planet’s geology and ecosystems. Can the youth of today, who will live in a world where the ‘internet of things’, ‘bio- wearables’ and ‘blockchain’ technology are the norm, turn our influence around and steer our global impact in a new direction towards a more sustainable future aided by innovative technology?

the-anthropocene-era

Marie Pellin, 2014

Secondly, technology (characterised by exponential growth) surely needs to be influenced by socially conscious citizens as eluded to above. For example, exponential growth of internet technology may be tempered by our socially aware youth favouring net neutrality. Equally so, it appears that technology is forcing companies to be better global citizens. “In the age of internet transparency, it seems corporates no longer have anywhere to hide – a spot of corporate social responsibility (CSR) whitewashing is not going to cut it anymore” (Lawson, 2016).

At St Andrew’s College we are aiming for continuous improvement as far as opportunities for ‘technology enablement’ and development of ‘computational thinking’ are concerned. Well-supported by our Technology Department’s academic expertise and our ICT Division (headed by Director, Sam McNeill, and e- Learning Integrator, Tom Adams) the additional support we offer GATE students includes: Coding Club, Neuroscience Learning Module with participation in the Australasian Brain Bee Competition for Year 11 students, Forensic Science and Astrophysics Learning Modules, Passion Projects where students have the opportunity to complete coding-based projects, online participation in the New Zealand Diplomacy Competition, attendance at University of Canterbury public lectures, such as the recent Black Hole lecture, meetings with University of Canterbury lecturers and access to technology-based opportunities and events such as the recent Singularity University workshop.

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Students taking part in the Neuroscience module

Future strategies for 2017 include: offering Geographic Information Systems modules as part of the Year 9 and 10 Academic Extension and Enrichment (ACEE) Programmes, development of the Coding Club supported by Tech tutors drawn from industry, introduction of a comprehensive robotics programme to bridge our Preparatory School’s excellent programme, facilitation and guidance for students wishing to apply for the NASA Space School, potential visits to Auckland’s Stardome Observatory and/or the Mt John Observatory, online tech learning opportunities such as edX and Coursera [the top specialisations in Coursera are all technology-based], facilitation of Orion’s Evolocity Competition, and the establishment of further connections with Christchurch’s Innovation Precinct as part of the Christchurch Tech Sector Strategy [2015-2025]. In addition we will continue to punctuate our GATE calendar with further ‘SMAC’ opportunities for intellectual growth and sharing of minds such as expanding the classroom via e-meetings.

The St Andrew’s College Secondary School GATE programme has integrated Technology as a learning area with Philosophy, Sustainability and increasingly, Global Citizenship. Continue reading →

Tech Advice A Click Away

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This post first appeared in the September 2016 edition of the College’s Regulus Magazine

fountain-of-knowledgeThree computer whiz kids in Year 8 are acting as technology mentors for the entire Preparatory School student body, and even quite a few teachers. Caleb, Cameron and Mitchell run twice weekly Fountain of Knowledge technology training sessions, with students able to book appointments on a sophisticated website set up by Caleb. “I took over the project from its founder Ward (now Year 10) when I was in Year 6. We have seven mentors including the three of us, and are training up some Year 6 students so they can run the sessions next year,” says Caleb.

The students help with everything from setting up the internet on laptops, phones and tablets, to installing anti-virus software, and helping students to get the most out of OneNote. They also teach students how to use the cameras and other equipment in the TV studio. Their teacher Ms Melissa Rennell says she sometimes has teachers knocking on her door seeking technical help from one of the boys, or asking for assistance with their Activboards. “They often go to these students first before the ICT Department.” Caleb has even rebuilt an old laptop from the Preparatory School and connected it up to an active board on which students can share their projects.

As they get ready to hand over the Fountain of Knowledge at the end of the year, Caleb, Cameron and Mitchell are thinking about which equally enthusiastic young technology experts they will pick as its new leaders, and are already training Year 6 student Nicholas. “We’re proud of the programme and have had a lot of support from Mr Dekkers, who will be the teacher in charge of it again next year,” says Caleb.

Cameron says he enjoys technology but isn’t planning on a career in the field at this stage. However Caleb and Mitchell hope to one day own their own technology companies, “like Apple, or Google”.

Modelling Google Earth Tours & Internet Research

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Barry Martin PhotoI was recently invited to speak at the weekly St Andrew’s College Chapel Service. One of the features of these services is the Deputy Head Prefects walking up the centre aisle at the conclusion of the first hymn, and saying “Today we remember ….” and naming an Old Collegian who was killed in action.

For my Chapel, I researched Barry Martin, student #101 at St Andrew’s, who attended from 1918-25 in the Preparatory School and completed his first tour in the RAF before volunteering for a second and eventually completing 46 operational missions over occupied Europe, before being killed on 2nd February 1943.

To visually represent Barry’s life, I opted to build a Google Earth Tour (something I shared on at the recent TeachMeet hosted at St Andrew’s) and indicate places of significance such as his birth (Waiau, North Canterbury), where he attended school (here at St Andrew’s College), through to his various flight training and operational bases (Canada, Mildenhall and Oakington) and his final resting place (Rotterdam General Cemetery). Google Earth tours are something we have encouraged teachers to use and some good examples include:

Targets

The yellow pins in this Google Earth screenshot represent targets Barry Martin navigated his crew to, over the course of his 46 flights.

The entire story that I shared at the Chapel Service can be seen in the video at the top of the blog, however you can see the start of the narrated Google Earth tour here. What has been interesting to me is the amount of teachers and students who were really surprised by the power of Google Earth, having never really used it in any meaningful context before. Consequently, Tom Adams (our eLearning Integrator) has run some professional development sessions for staff interested in using it with their students.

The reality is, whilst the visualisations of Barry Martin’s journey added engagement through technology, the researching of the information for the presentation itself was almost entirely dependent on the power of the Internet. I had used Microsoft OneNote to easily compile a working document of information, starting with links to relevant websites and notes to myself on their usefulness:

The ease of being able to drag ‘n drop and cut ‘n paste information into this notebook accelerated the research considerably:

OneNote for research

Screenshot of my OneNote notebook for researching Old Collegians

One of my goals in this research was to bring to life Barry Martin’s story and show more about him as person and not just a statistic from World War II. Through the searching of PapersPast I was able to find references to Barry’s pre-war life, including his engagement and  attendance at an Old Collegian dance at the Dunsandel Hall with his fiancee, which sounded like an eventful night with the power cutting out!

Other sources that proved invaluable in finding out more about Barry’s life included Google Books, an unexpected source that showed up the research of Stephen Harris in his book Under a Bomber’s Moon and the relationship between his great Uncle Col Jones and Barry Martin. It is from this source that I obtained the photo below of Barry with unnamed friends, along with the entertaining account of Barry cooking up a storm in the barracks with tins of lambs tongues and tomato sauce sent to him from New Zealand:

Dutch Police Report

Original Dutch Police Report on the crash of Barry Martin’s Stirling bomber.

Other sources were not so easy, but did manage to turn up gold for this research. I optimistically posted on the Wings Over New Zealand Aviation Forum and was thrilled to get a reply out of that which led to obtaining a copy of the original Dutch Police Report that detailed the circumstances and location of the crashed Stirling Bomber on the night that Barry Martin’s plane was shot down and he was killed. This was eventually sourced from the book “De Crash Van De Padvinder” by P. van der Leer.

This highlights that whilst the Internet can be an outstanding source of quick and accessible information, the importance of human interaction (even if that is via forums, email and text messaging) along with a curiosity not to give up, remains a vital part of any good research. The Christchurch City library had all three volumes of For Your Tomorrow  by Errol Martin which was invaluable for factual details, and the St Andrew’s College library had historical records of Barry’s attendance at the College, 98 years ago.

Old Collegian

I also discovered that Barry Martin’s medals had been auction at Bonhams in 2014:

Bonhams Medals

Barry Martin’s medals – note the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) on the left. Barry never knew he had been awarded this, as it was announced only two days after his disappearance.

It was very gratifying to be able to harness the power of technology to shine some light on an Old Collegian of St Andrew’s College and the ultimate sacrifice he made.

UPDATE:

This is the recording of an earlier Chapel Service that I gave on James Samuel Cartwright. He was a former teacher at St Andrew’s College and All Black triallist and was tragically killed only days after the D-Day Normandy invasion:

Hosting a TeachMeet at St Andrew’s College

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This week, St Andrew’s College hosted the first TeachMeet event in Christchurch for 2016 and over 40 staff from 15 different schools attended. If you’re unsure of what a TeachMeet actually is, you can find more at the website http://www.teachmeet.co.nz  but in short:

A TeachMeet is an organised but informal meeting (in the style of an unconference) for teachers to share good practice, practical innovations and personal insights in teaching with technology.

Participants volunteer (via the TeachMeet website) to demonstrate good practice they’ve delivered over the past year, or discuss a product that enhances classroom practice.

Source: Wikipedia

To help promote the event, I took to a new tool I’ve been using recently called Canva which allows you to very quickly and easily develop stylish posters, images and social media banners through their website:

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One of the key reasons TeachMeets are successful is that presenters are limited to only 2minutes or 7minutes for their presentations. This results in a fast-paced event and a range of different ideas and solutions being shared. It also means that preparation for the volunteer presenters is kept at a minimum – it’s not onerous to share something you’re already doing in your classroom or researching to give a go.

From the slides above, you can see there were seven presenters who shared on the following topics:

  1. Wilj Dekkers (St Andrew’s College) Using MineCraft and OneNote for Creative Writing
  2. Tom Neumann (Riccarton High) Using an alphanumeric self marking video game in Moodle to review content of Yr11 Economics
  3. Sue McLachlan (Hagley College) Using OneNote Learning Tools in the classroom
  4. Tam Yuill Proctor (St Andrew’s College) Using OneNote as a Digital Teacher’s Planbook
  5. Karyn Gray (Haeta Community Campus) The Quest for Personalisation of Learning- My Thinking, My Research, My Questions
  6. Schira Withers (Our Lady Of The Star Of The Sea) How we as educators can help students with low working memories improve their self-management skills using digital technologies, thus  allowing them to experience success and move from a fixed to growth mindset.
  7. Donna Jones (St Andrew’s College) Using a 3D app to inspire creative thought and ideas for creative writing.

When one of the presenters was unable to attend at the last minute, I added some thoughts on using Google Earth to create personalised tours to round out the afternoon.

A number of attendees contributed on the designated Twitter hashtag of #TMChch and you can see the entire timeline here with a small selection being:

Continue reading →

Making It Easier To Read & Write with OneNote Learning Tools

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Few would argue against the fact that technology should support teachers and learners in the classroom to achieve better learning outcomes and comprehension. Sadly, too often the technology is shoe-horned into learning environments simply to “tick the box” that eLearning is happening. By creating a role of eLearning Integrator that is filled by Mr Tom Adams, St Andrew’s College has committed to supporting our teachers maximise the benefits of the technology available.

Therefore, it is very pleasing to see that Microsoft have recently released some tools for OneNote to further support the literacy of students by making it easier to read content and improve their writing. The Learning Tools For OneNote, a free download, provide a set of extended features that will help improve learning outcomes for all students.

It’s a game changer.

Mr B. Clark (Head of Learning Support)

From the website:

  • English language learners can increase their fluency.
  • Emerging readers can feel confident when reading material at a higher level.
  • Students with learning differences like dyslexia can decode text more easily.

Learning Tools

Watch the above Office Mix Video to see Learning Tools in action.

Features

New features in the OneNote Learning Tools

The downside of this new tool set is that it is currently only available for Windows clients of MS OneNote, leaving Apple Mac users and OneNote Online web clients out in the cold. Nevertheless, when Mr Adams talked with St Andrew’s Head of Learning Support about this new feature, he replied “It’s a game changer.”  

As a result of this positive endorsement, which was echoed by our Head of English Ms Tam Yuill Proctor, the ICT services team will be deploying the OneNote Learning Tools (download directly here) to all laptops/desktops managed by St Andrew’s whilst also encouraging students to install it on their BYOD devices.

I look forward to hearing from students and teachers alike how these new tools are supporting positive literacy outcomes.

Book Week Activity Augments Reality

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Entrance to the Preparatory School Library celebrating Book Week 2015

Entrance to the Preparatory School Library celebrating Book Week 2015

The St Andrew’s College Library Manager, Mrs Cathy Kennedy, runs an annual Book Week for students across the College to engage in. Each year this week includes many competitions and prizes, with at least one activity having a ‘tech focus’ for students. 2015 was no different with the students encouraged to create “Auras” for books that would link to video content or book review trailers through the use of Aurasma Software.

Aimed at our Preparatory School students, the challenge for them was to promote some of their favourite books by creating interactive posters which contained a “trigger” for media content to display over the book cover. To achieve this, a smart phone running the free Aurasma app could be held up in front of the book cover or poster, and then the video content would start to display.

Sound confusing? Here are some screenshots of what it looks like:

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The rectangular content “overlaid” on the book is the augmented reality video clip used by students and displayed via Aurasma

The winning poster submissions and a number of books with Auras waiting to be scanned

The winning poster submissions and a number of books with Auras waiting to be scanned. Note the Aurasma bookmarks indicating books that have an Aura

Helpfully, Mr Wilj Dekkers had introduced his Year 6 class to using Aurasma earlier in the year, so Mrs Kennedy had some students familiar with the technology. To assist the others, she:

  • Sparked interest by creating an example Aurasma interactive poster in the library (that linked through to this Animoto Video)
  • Created a number of instruction sheets around the library
  • Ran a lunchtime tutorial for those wanting some hands on assistance

With two year group categories for judging the winners, students in Years 4-6 and 7-8, created around 40 Auras which was excellent. A key learning experience for Mrs Kennedy and the students was understanding that students and staff that wanted to see the Auras needed to be following the “standrewslibrary” Aurasma account before scanning an Aura worked correctly. As Mrs Kennedy explained:

Aurasma works a bit like Twitter – just like you need to be following a Twitter user to see see their Tweets, you need to be following an Aurasma user to see their Auras.

With this cleared up, students could happily see what their classmates had created. By using a shared Aurasma account to create the various Aura (to ensure they were collated under one user and therefore easier to find), opportunities for reinforcing good Digital Citizenship practices emerged. Among these were:

  • Students could not edit/remove the Aura of another student
  • Students had to still clearly name their Aura so they were identifiable

Pleasingly, the students were very good at the above and this created a positive culture of creating and sharing Auras that promoted a wide range of books.

The back wall of the library was beautifully themed to celebrate book week and contained a poster celebrating the start of Book Week that doubled as an Aura that students could scan:

Library Back Wall

Reflecting on this activity, Mrs Kennedy noted that the task was actually quite complex and required a fair amount of work and persistence from the students, therefore it was pleasing there were so many submissions. Whilst a paid account with Aurasma is quite expensive, it is something that she would consider in the future since it would open up a wider range of sources to link to, such as website links and YouTube videos (the free account only allows linking to content uploaded to Aurasma).

The winning student posters promoting a book with an Aura are:

The Year 7-8 winner.
The Year 4-6 winner.

Making Global Connections on World Read Aloud Day!

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Students in the Preparatory School have been continuing to experiment with using Skype in the Classroom for mystery Skype sessions, most recently blogged about here. I have been increasingly keen to try and use Skype in different ways to help our students connect with members of the wider, potentially global, community.

World Read Aloud Day is an annual event that aims to encourage and celebrate the importance of reading aloud and sharing stories. This day is not one that has traditionally been marked at our College, but one Year 8 class, 8C, jumped at the opportunity to use this day as an opportunity to connect with a children’s author via Skype.

Swanson

Jennifer Swanson is a Florida based author of over 20 nonfiction and fiction books for children, increasingly based around Science and Discovery. I contacted Jennifer through Skype in the Classroom, which had a number of authors available to speak to classes on Read Aloud Day. Jennifer was really accommodating towards us, regarding the time that she was available and the structure that the Skype session would take.

PREPARATION FOR LEARNING:

In preparation for the meeting, the class spent some time investigating Jennifer’s website and learning more about her as an author, and the books that she has written. They also created a wide range of insightful questions that they wished to ask Jennifer, practicing literacy skills around question techniques and reflecting on the book writing process.

SwansonImmediately prior to the call, an excited bunch of students made final preparations to their respective rolls during the call. Immediately upon connection of the call, Jennifer showed her awesome levels of experience in this medium. She read a fascinating passage from one of her books, Uninvited Guests.

After the reading, Jennifer kindly engaged with our students by answering a variety of questions from the students in 8C about a range of writing-based topics. The students showed great listening and judgement skills in their questioning and it was a continuation of the total engagement they showed throughout the conversation.

STUDENT FEEDBACK:

Immediately after the call, the class reflected on their learning and this will continue. As part of their reflection one student, Elena, noted:

I think that it’s pretty cool that although Jennifer Swanson is so far away we felt like she was right there in the room thanks to Skype. I think that the whole class enjoyed this experience and we all want to do it again!

It was great to see the students so engaged in this Skype chat, and I look forward to creating similar opportunities for other classes!

Integration of eBooks key factor for St Andrew’s College

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This post was originally published in the School News Issue 27 in Term 4 2014. A more detailed look at the use of eBooks at St Andrew’s is available here

softlinkSt Andrew’s College in Christchurch had Softlink’s Oliver v5 library management system installed in July 2013. A private, co-educational school, St Andrew’s has 1300 students on the roll – 400 in the preparatory school, years 1-8, and 900 in the secondary school, years 9-13. The school had previously used Oliver v3 for about three years, and before that, Alice. The latest version is a complete knowledge, content and library management tool for schools, which provides everything a modern library needs to function effi ciently. It manages all the day-to-day operations of the library – the circulation of books, cataloguing, automatic emailing, stock-taking and more. Training on how to use Oliver v5 was provided by the company’s New Zealand business account manager Lyn Walker.

“We upgraded to the new version for a number of reasons, primarily because it is web-based,” the college’s library manager Cathy Kennedy says, “but the main driver was the system’s ability to integrate ebooks into the catalogue. That’s the recent big innovation, whereby our digital library can fully integrate into the catalogue, and users can borrow directly through Oliver and read the e-books on any device.

“The public interface allows users to search the library catalogue from any device,” Mrs Kennedy says.

“They have the ability to access the catalogue from anywhere at any time. Users can also access the library with an app on their smartphone or tablet. Having that 24/7 access to resources is a huge advantage.”

Those resources are not necessarily traditional books or ebooks. They also include video fi les, images, and all forms of research material. “By logging into the home page on the library site students have immediate access at any time to a one-stop-shop with a vast collection of reading and research material,” Mrs Kennedy says“The home page that the Oliver system allows us to build is a launch pad, a window to a world of information. It includes links to other internet sites, including good New Zealand websites. We also post library news on the home page, and put up photos of events like Book Week. Book trailers can also be made available for students to view.”

Read the rest of the article by going to the SoftLink website here

Year 8 Students Engage With #kidsbookchat

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This morning Mrs Bridget Preston’s Year 8 class joined in with a multi-school Twitter chat focusing on books. This was organised by a Year 8 class at Selwyn House and was set to run similar to the #mathschatnz and #scitchatnz sessions, with a number of questions being posed for students to answer.

There were seven questions up for discussion that had been posted on the blog of the Selwyn House class site and these were:

  1. Q1: What is the best book you have read this year
  2. Q2: Who is your favourite author at the moment?
  3. Q3: What is your favourite genre?
  4. Q4: Do you have a class read aloud/ novel at the moment? What is it?
  5. Q5: What is your favourite spot for reading?
  6. Q6: How do you find books to read?
  7. Q7: Recommend some titles you’d like to share.

The students in Mrs Preston’s class were excited to be participating in this form of dialogue, and soon grasped the key skills of including the hashtag #kidsbookchat in each tweet, and also starting their replies with the question number they were answering.

I’ve collected a few of the hundreds of tweets that were sent during this 40minute chat and you can scroll through them below (the first tweets are at the bottom):

Throughout the chat Mrs Preston was engaging with the students, reminding them of the need to maintain appropriate replies in their tweets and also making the connection how this is a great way for the students to find out new titles to read. When it came to question six (how do you find good books to read?), many of the students tweeted our fantastic library manager Mrs Kennedy was a great source for finding new books. Many of them even included her Twitter handle showing they grasped this form of communication very quickly.

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A number of the students were tweeting from their own devices – a range of  laptops and tablets – and had set themselves up on a variety of furniture in the classroom, some even getting comfortable on beanbags. The attention and focus from students was high throughout the session with a number saying towards the end “This was so cool” or “this was great fun!”

During the debrief later in the afternoon Mrs Preston stressed the elements of trust involved in an activity like this, not posting silly or off-topic tweets. One thing the students requested was the ability to include their first name or initials in their tweets, rather than having all replies coming from @StAC_8C. When asked directly what sort of learning takes place from an activity like this some of their responses included:

  • Being open to new learning
  • Managing impulses and staying on task/showing appropriate behaviour
  • Learning how to use twitter/twitter handles and hashtags
  • Gained new knowledge about books – what books to read
  • Taking on a role and responsibility within the chat
  • Communicating with other students around NZ
  • Sharing their knowledge of books

They expressed an interest to run their own Twitter chat on a different topic at a later point in the year.

It is always pleasing to see a new initiative work out successfully and for the students to be able to identify their learning from an activity like this. This class is also going to try their first Mystery Skype later this week as well – more fun and engaging learning opportunities powered by technology.

UPDATE: This #kidsbookchat has been summarised in the following Storify recount as well.