Claire Amos

Introducing PPSTACK! The last few days (and weeks) has had me reflecting on many things: what did it expose in terms of social and digital divides; what did it expose in terms of school systems and leaders and their agility and agency; what have we learned from teaching and learning over lockdown, and what do we need to change moving forward so as to harness the opportunities and how do we ensure change we introduce is effective? Time and time again I found myself wondering what our recent experiences would have been like had the government of the day taken up the recommendations of Nikki Kaye's 21st Century Learning Reference Group? This was a group I was lucky to be part of back in 2013-2014 and as a group we came up with the report Future-Focused Learning Connected Communities which recommended the following: Commit to meeting the needs of 21st century learners Achieve equitable access to digital devices for every learner Invest in people and innovation Create fu...

Kia ora lovely students of New Zealand, Well, today marks the day that many of you will have experienced the first high stakes external exam of the 2018 NCEA exam season and whilst I do wish you all the best, I also want you to know that you are bigger than any NCEA exam. An exam is defined by the Collins Dictionary as a formal test that you take to show your knowledge or ability in a particular subject, or to obtain a qualification.  I would rather focus on what an exam is not: It is not a measure of if you are bright. It is not a measure of your potential. It is not a measure of your worth, either now or in the future. It is not a measure of your ability to learn, unlearn and relearn. It is not a measure of your ability to communicate. It is not a measure of your ability to collaborate. It is not a measure of your ability to research. It is not a measure of your creativity. It is not a measure of your curiosity. It is not a measure of your wil...

Image Source In one of the many fantastic staffroom chats I get to have every week at HPSS there is one that keeps coming back to me. Last week I was chatting to my lovely colleague Heemi McDonald  (make sure you read his blog) about the growing regularity of school leader meetings I seem to be sitting in on where educators are voicing concerns about increasing numbers of students coming in with more learning needs than before. Principals now more than ever are struggling with meeting the diverse needs of young children and young adults with increasingly complex needs. I myself have engaged in discussion where we have tried to find the source of these "issues". Is it the development in medicine that has seen more premature babies survive who may have experienced all kinds of complications? Is the increased screen time? Is it the sugar and processed food? The increasing amount of time toddlers spend in daycare?? The reasons, and ultimately the excuses, for children not b...

Source One of the toughest things about being a champion for educational change is that you need to take people with you. In fact sometimes its even tough to take yourself with you. Many times on this blog (and basically any chance I get to speak to groups) I have spoken about the need for educational change (see a particularly ranty presentation here ). I know I am not a lone voice, in fact I get the sense that there is a veritable tsunami building up behind what initially felt like ripples and then waves of educators talking about this very issue. People like Sir Ken Robinson popularised the notion that schools need to change with his TED talk How Schools are Killing Creativity and Changing Educational Paradigms . This was echoed and reinforced by the work of Sugata Mitra with his hole in the wall work and his TED talk Build a School in the Cloud  and I know we all cheered for that Logan LaPlante for whom Hackschooling made happy . Locally we have a growing number of educa...

Tuesday morning this week I am lucky enough to be flying away to Sydney to join 49 other educators at the Google Teacher Academy. Below is the video I submitted as part of my application to be considered as one of the GTA Ambassadors for Change. So why did I apply for the academy? Whilst I am actually an advocate for educators to be as device and brand agnostic as possible, I have to admit, I do really like Google Apps for Educators. The reason GAFE appeals is simple. GAFE is a suite of tools that supports the pedagogical approach I value - co-constructed, sharing, transparent and supports student agency. The other reason I applied was the company who was taking over the GTA. This GTA is the first academy to be run by NoTosh  an international education consultancy "which challenges the status quo in schools, public services and creative companies. We work together with clients to improve the way people learn, the results of the organisation and the spaces in which...

Awesome classroom makerspace from http://bpcsteam.blogspot.co.nz/2013/09/introducing-our-bpc-makerspace.html What is a Makerspace? Makerspace describe a makerspace as  community centres with tools. Makerspaces combine manufacturing equipment, community, and education for the purposes of enabling community members to design, prototype and create manufactured works that wouldn’t be possible to create with the resources available to individuals working alone. These spaces can take the form of loosely-organized individuals sharing space and tools, for-profit companies, non-profit corporations, organizations affiliated with or hosted within schools, universities or libraries, and more. All are united in the purpose of providing access to equipment, community, and education, and all are unique in exactly how they are arranged to fit the purposes of the community they serve. Makerspaces represent the democratization of design, engineering, fabrication and education. They are...

Source: http://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/ What is Design Thinking? “Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” —Tim Brown, president and CEO Thinking like a designer can transform the way organizations develop products, services, processes, and strategy. This approach, which IDEO calls design thinking, brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. It also allows people who aren’t trained as designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges. Design thinking is a deeply human process that taps into abilities we all have but get overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as wel...

Bring it on! Hack your classroom is go! The plan is cover a range of topics over the next nine weeks. Here is a tentative timeline. NB. I am very keen to include guest posts or share your blogs as well - just email your post or link at claire@hobsonvillepoint.school.nz Week One: Developing a growth mindset Developing a growth mindset Turning a growth mindset into a hacker one Week Two: Putting learners at the centre...hacker style Getting to know your learners - hacker style Week Three: Intro to Design Thinking Bringing design thinking into the classroom (I don't pretend to be an expert...you can learn with me) Evolving design thinking - from Standford, Nueva to HPSS via the NZC Week Four: Intro to Maker Culture Making every classroom a maker space Week Five: From e-learning to blended learning to deep learning Ideas for blending leaning without 1:1 devices (or even wifi) Week Six: Hacking teaching to meet the needs of diverse learners Intro to ...

Realising the Future of Education from Claire Amos On Saturday I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at The Festival of Education as a supposed 'mover and shaker'. Here is an overview of my presentation on 'Realising the Future of Education' which endeavored to look at why, how, what, when we need to change education and what the government could do (IMHO) to support it. Okay, so not so humble...more righteous really. Why must we change education? As Ludwig Lachman stated, "the future is unknowable, but not unimaginable" and whilst we can't see into the future, we can look to a strong body of research to try and divine our present and future learners' needs. Put simply, we need to change education, because the world is changing...and changing rapidly. In the Western world we have moved through the 'Agrarian Age' where the land and agriculture were central to existence. We then moved into the 'Industrial Age', it ...

For many years now I have been championing the need for all schools and all students to engage in e-learning, and whilst I definitely sense there is a ground swell of support for this notion I am still patently aware that it is important to be clear about why this should be a priority. I initially trialed e-learning because I suspected it would engage learners and would provide an opportunity for students to continue learning and engaging in the work I set, anytime, anywhere. These continue to be compelling arguments for blended learning, however it is becoming increasing clear that this is in fact just the tip of the pedagogical iceberg. Firstly let's talk about the term e-learning. It is easy to write this term off as twee or outdated, and I agree that it should be about the learning full stop. However we are still, and will continue to be for sometime in a period of transition, and whilst there still remains to be many teachers and indeed many schools who are yet to u...