Claire Amos

Website: https://www.startwithhex.com/ From the website: Made For Gutsy Learners The rate of change in tech is exponential, but the rate of change in traditional education is kinda flat... So we hang out at the intersection of education and innovation, delivering a new kind of learning. We're all about experiences that are immersive, up-to-date, and based in the real world. 5000+ learners have loved our seriously fun virtual programs, study abroad experiences, and hackathon-style events. And they leave HEX with amazing confidence, skills and networks — as well as university accreditation. 2019 One-month runway Zero revenue forecast Team of seven staff Jobkeeper not yet announced Schools and students under pressure. COVID closed down the borders What would you think? How would you feel? What would you do? That time I cried at the kitchen table - choosing electives as a teenager and feeling like it was predetermining their entire career. 40% of CEOs know their business will be redund...

Below are the slides I shared at NZQA's 'Assessment in the Age of AI' symposium.   This is my brief overview of how we are approaching AI at Albany Senior High School and some of the concerns and some of thoughts I have about the topic.  In short, I am worried we are so damn busy we aren't giving it the attention it needs. I also worry that leaders will try and ignore and/or attempt to ban and that this ignores the fact that Pandora's Box is well and truly opened and this thing is developing faster than we can imagine and is increasingly woven into platforms and tools we already use. We are sitting at a fork in the path where both options lead to a world fundamentally altered by AI and we need to choose whether to work with it or stick our heads in the sand. That decision is going to have a tangible impact on how well our young people are going to be equipped to thrive in the future.  We need to embrace AI, and approach it with curiosity, criticality and care.  ...

Yesterday I read Maurie's blogpost ' Time to Calm The Farm - Schools are not in chaos ' which provided a much needed reminder about the power we have to make to decisions in how we lead our schools and lead the narrative about education during a pandemic. It was a reminder also, that for many schools, teachers and learners that continuing to learn online was not the end of the world, nor was mandatory vaccinations, it was simply something we could, and for the most part, are managing just fine. It did however make me ponder what feels like a undercurrent of much of the push back and clickbait media headlines and stories, this idea that we are living through this massive and shocking disruption and that all of it is getting in the way of our much loved and lauded normality, which many still seem to think we may be returning to at some point. Even those of us who realise, in our most rational moments, the chances of returning to life as it was at the beginning of 2020 is real...

Contemplating silver linings... There is one thing for sure. We are living in complex times. As teachers, and educational leaders we are in the throes of planning how we might deliver remote teaching and learning when and if we need to. Personally, I am quite excited as to how we are going about this and get the sense that whatever the outcome, whether we go remote or not (I very much suspect we will), the kind of urgency this situation has created is exactly the context needed for innovation and all teachers willingly becoming agents of change. Don't get me wrong, I am not thankful for the crises we are experiencing, I am simply thankful that teaching and learning has the potential to be moved forward and improved exponentially in the coming months. But what about NCEA? Would now be the perfect opportunity to alleviate a whole lot of pressure on students and teachers alike whilst also imagining a definition of success that is actually fit for purpose?? I say - HELL YES! W...

These recent months have seen a number of groups start putting their stake in the ground around the NCEA Review. It has been interesting seeing people reveal their cards, and often exposing some odd assumptions about what is actually being reviewed and who is shaping the review within the Labour/Green/NZ First camp. For the sake of "joining the conversation" I thought I might share some my personal thoughts about the NCEA Review and it's proposed "Big Opportunities". Note - the parts in italics are taken from this document:  Download the Big Opportunities discussion document  which can be found here .  For what it's worth I actually think NCEA is pretty cool as it is. I like it's flexibility and that it already let's "you do you". If anything I think it is our mindsets that needs to be reviewed first before we get to the actual framework. Here is my pondering about that perspective:  NCEA - we need to review our mindset first But t...

On Friday I attended a NZQA Principal's Nominee (PN) Seminar that happens every year. Based on past experience I had braced myself for messaging that always felt completely at odds with the messages I had heard from NZQA whilst involved with their Future State Brainstorming Group. In the past I always felt I heard (from the top) a very genuine desire for schools to get on and innovate and really test the capacity for NCEA to be genuinely personalised to meet the needs of students. I would then head along to a PN Seminar and feel like that message had been lost, with PNs being encouraged to maintain relative conservative gatekeeping habits that so often meant schools are no where near as creative and responsive as they might (and should) be. Last Friday was different. For the first time I got the sense that NZQA was challenging PNs to evolve and adapt their practice. Hoorah! However what did still concern me was the prevailing mindset of the room. When asked to identify barriers f...

Over the last year or so I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of the establishment of what looks to be a particularly fabulous West Auckland COL - Te Whiria te Tangata. It is great to see school communities of schools coming together to collaborate to improve student outcomes. It is great to see school communities of schools collaborating, full stop. However I do have a concern. I am not concerned that communities of learning won't see schools coming together to improve learner outcomes, what I am concerned about is that they may not, because of their very structure and achievement challenges, actually change much else. When scanning the endorsed achievement challenges and in the conversations I have had with many colleagues from a range of communities, I keep thinking, is there much within COL plans and achievement challenges that move beyond the paradigm of business as usual? Or are we simply going to see communities of schools holding hands, singing kumbaya and patting t...

Today I was lucky enough to attend the Ministry of Education Cross Sector Forum where they were launching the Digital Technologies curriculum draft ( check it out here and provide your feedback ).  It was an excellent event. The Lynfield College Robotics group kicked off the event, charming the room with their articulate argument for technology across and within the curriculum. Then our new Minister of Education, the Honourable Nikki Kaye, provided an excellent insight into her vision for education, I got the sense that the Minister is well positioned to prepare the sector for the exponential change that is closer than we think. Her vision for digital transformation was bold (the need for which was excellently articulated by Frances Valintine's keynote) and her message was clear - we need to act and we need act now! It was also clear that the Minister understands that there are very real issues with teacher wellbeing and workload and intends to address this head on as well. ...

Image Source Earlier this week (Mon-Wed) I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural SingularityU NZ Summit in Christchurch. Since then (Thurs-forever) my brain has a been a whirl as I have tried my best to understand and appreciate exactly what it is I learned and heard at the event. The saying "the more you know, the more you know you don't know" kept coming to mind. I went in to the event fairly confident I was abreast technological developments, what was in store and what that meant for education. I came away from his event patently aware that whilst I am relatively aware of technological developments, my knowledge really only skipped across the surface like a skittery ol' skipping stone and my understanding of the impact it is going to have on education was way short - I need to stop thinking Blue Sky High and need to start thinking Intergalactic Intelligence Building! The SingularityU NZ website describes the event as bringing "the world’s top s...

Claire Amos: Realising the Future of New Zealand Education   from Festival of Education on Vimeo . On the eve of the inaugural SingularityU NZ Summit I am continuing to build some very genuine levels excitement about what I might learn and how it might reframe my thinking about the future of education. It has been awesome to be part of what feels like a groundswell of educators who share a passion for futures thinking and educational change and it has been equally exciting to see this become a theme of large scale conferences such as Ulearn and EduTech and the many smaller corporate organised edu-conferences that have popped up in recent years. However alongside this excitement this excitement there has also been a sense of frustration. Whilst there is absolutely a growing demand for educational change, there is also sense that these "edu-changemakers" still, in a sense live within a bit of a bubble. Head to any conference and you see the same lovely group of educa...

Source: TV3 News Journalists love a bit of scaremongering and in many ways I can't help feeling that the reporting of a recent OECD report on the impact of technology on results is just that. As I read news report after news report last night (many of which seemed to be either directly taken from Reuters or an OECD press release with little or no critical analysis) I could nearly hear the shrieks of delight from the pearl clutching naysayers bubbling with excitement at the "evidence" that, clearly, change is bad. Now don't get me wrong, I have no issue with the report itself, or the fact that the OECD are looking at the impact that tech has on results such as PISA. Look at the actual OECD site and it is interesting reading (you can also see the full report here), their discussion actually focuses on the need for a "new approach needed to deliver on technology’s potential in schools" - and they are absolutely right. Technology integration needs to b...