What does Maori culture look like in the digital world?

I am an education professional, working with schools to build capacity for learning and teaching with digital technologies. As a middle class white woman teacher, I tried to build good relationships with all of my students and honour the intention of the Treaty of Waitangi which I believe laid the foundation of a bicultural nation. I am not sure if that was the intention of the Treaty of Waitangi, but but it certainly influenced my practice in that I wanted my Maori students to achieve and flourish in my classes.
 Acutely aware of my lack of knowledge around Maori culture, I tried to learn more and make connections to what I did in the class. Years on, I am still in the same predicament, - a middle class white woman trying to learn more and reach out and make connections. How do you capture the essence of Maori culture in a digital world? Efforts that I have made so far are almost a bastardisation of the Maori culture. I don't believe that culture is a static concept - it changes as the world progresses, but is it just downright rude of me to try to incorporate what I know of the culture in my work, or should I graciously bow out of trying? These are my thoughts this morning.

Disadvantages of using digital technologies in schools.

I read a blog today on Mindshift about what students think about using ipads in school. I skipped through the positive comments pretty quickly.  After all, I am a big fan on using digital technologies for learning and I pretty much have all the positive things in my heart.
But then the last comment (voice and text) on the page was from a student, Anthony Mainiero, who says there are disadvantages, like when there are glitches.  And there are times when the pen and paper would work just as well than the $US600 device that the school gave him.  This is so true!  For those of you who are familiar with the SAMR model, you will no doubt immediately realise that the learning in this instance is at the S or substitution level.  As one of my colleagues would say - "ipads are very expensive pen and papers".

But Anthony had more to say.  He talked about the fact that they did less field trips at school now.  This is another very valid point.  Are schools relying on the technology to connect them to experiences that would take hours of paperwork to prepare for? There are all the things that can go wrong on a field trip.  And you are responsible for getting all the little (or big) darlings back to their mamas and papas.  Far too easy just to do a virtual field trip and there are many good ones around.  Learnz in New Zealand provide a fabulous range of virtual field trips for students, backed up with awesome resources, prior learning and next steps and so on.  You can visit Art Galleries, World Wonders and Online Exhibitions using the Google Cultural Institute site or even explore space and our planets using Google Sky.

Still, I don't blame Anthony for wanting the school to make learning more fun by having more field trips.  I will always remember that class trip to W(h)anganui (the spelling changed to the correct Maori version from when I went to school), where we climbed the Durie Hill Tower, the Water Tower, visited the underwear factory, and I rode on a town bus to school for the first time from my billet host home.  All the sights and sounds of the city were pretty exciting to me and they became etched in my memory from first hand experience.

I also know that my own students will remember forever the 8 day trip a colleague and I took them on a trip to Fiji.  It was an awesome experience for them sit in open motorised canoes, travelling inland up the river to a remote school and to suddenly feel utterly privileged to be from Ohakune, Waiouru and Raetihi, where they had books, pens and beautiful classrooms.  But I digress. These field trips were once in a school lifetime experience.  They were not the normal classroom activities and will continue to be the special events that teachers selflessly craft for their students.  School camps will not fade into oblivion, nor will trips to the swimming pool, or on a bus to the marae, or local farm.

The technology, on the other hand should be seamlessly integrated tool for learning that students use as second nature, just as they once used the pen and paper.  The learning will need to be a bit more relevant for the students though.  If Anthony's teacher knows her/his stuff, she/he will be using it to enable the students to cross barriers that have never been crossed before.  Teaching and learning will be collaborative, connected and students will be confident learners.

I recently heard a teacher bemoaning the fact that kids just dont remember stuff any more.  Well guess what?   They don't need to any more. They can google almost any bit of knowledge they want to if they have the skills.  That is what they need to learn - skills and attitudes and dispositions that allow them to LEARN.

The students  will know themselves well, their strengths and weaknesses and what they have to work on. They will be creating their own personalised learning journeys, and learning to learn as they go.  They will have choice, decisions to make about which way to go and what goals to reach.  They will be making stuff and communicating with others about what they have made.  They will be taking photos and making slide shows and videos and voice recordings of the events in their lives and have permanent records of the awesome times they spent in their school years.
I hope Anthony does not give up hope.  I hope he can teach his teacher about what matters to him, what is going to hook him into his own learning journey and develop into the best human being he possibly can be.  And most of all, what digital technologies will help him on that journey.

Principals, Schools and Communities Held to Ransom

What is the problem? As I go into a lot of schools across the country, it is evident that there is a real problem holding up progress for the successful implementation of digital technologies into classroom practice for learning. This problem is the source of a mountain of barriers that educators come to when they find they they don't have access to all the resources that they need in the short time that they have for preparation or learning how to use a new bit of software.
These barriers have been put in face by their "friendly" technical staff. 
Now I must make it clear from the outset that not all technicians are tarred with the same brushes.  There are some fabulous technicians out there whose businesses are booming because they make digital technologies so easy for teachers and principals.
But there are too many who do not. They might be school based or they might be local or distance companies who hold the passwords and keys that the educators and their learners need.  I am not talking about firewalls which are absolutely necessary to protect students. I am talking about the holding of the balance of power in the school when it comes to using digital technologies for learning.

Some examples I have personally encountered in schools are:

• Technicians advising and pushing schools which devices to buy, often whole sets of tablets, or only certain platforms that they can configure and maintain, and sometimes devices which are just not suited to learning.  Schools are at the mercy of these sales-oriented people pushing their own products and planning their future business around ongoing maintenance issues.
• Technicians advising which software to use for learning including one who said that Myportfolio should not be used as it was too difficult to set up in the school.
• Technicians preventing teachers from being administrators of the TELA laptops that they use. (And sometimes advising principals that this is the right thing to do.) Then teachers are unable to download software for their printers at home or any programme that they would like to investigate for use in the classroom. And, what a coincidence, the technician can charge for the time to install these programmes for the teachers. If you sense a touch of cynicism there, you are on the right track.
• Technicians being the only people administering passwords for teachers and students so that no one can get on the system unless they are around AND technicians not providing passwords unless personally advised by the principal. 
• Technicians locking up servers and software with passwords that they fail to release to principals, and then leave, when they fall out with the school personnel, leaving all systems locked up and tied up so tightly that they school has to spend even more $$$ on new technicians to untangle the unholy mess.

Why it is wrong. For a start technicians are not teachers for the most part - why would they feel they should choose the right products for learning? The teaching professionals are the ones who should be allowed to do this.  Sure, show them how things work, but give them the opportunity to compare and contrast before they make their decisions.

I just don't get it.  There is a relationship of trust between a school and a technician or tech company to do the right thing when you are paying for their services.  Its like paying for a painter to paint your bathroom.  You trust that the painter will use his expertise to allow you to choose the right paint, also the right colour of paint, offer to you to include a fungicide with the paint and recommend to seal the bathroom beforehand to prevent water damage so that down the track you don't find that the paint peels off in the humidity or gets covered in unsightly mould.  You don't invite that same painter back to do other rooms in your house if you find he stuffed up first time, just went ahead and painted the bathroom his favourite colour and didn't put fungicide in it because you didn't ask for it.

What should happen.

Principals:  Trust your teachers. Ask around other principals and teachers outside your schools about the effectiveness of certain devices.  Don't jump on the local bandwagon of getting a certain device without some thorough research on alternatives.  Get a variety of devices - that is what students will come across when they go into the workplace.  Join the VLN or twitter and start asking questions across New Zealand.

Teachers: Ask for (and demand) full access to all software you want to use for learning (You wouldn't accept a textbook in your class that had some of the pages bound up so you couldn't even see them let alone judge if they were suitable for your students.)  Form networks with other teachers from other schools to see what they use and what barriers there are.  Join the VLN.  Start tweeting and asking questions.

Technicians:  Build your business around making things work for teachers and schools, not tying them up so you are the resident "expert" who must be consulted at all times.

I am not saying all technicians are the same.  I am not saying they even do these things knowingly and  deliberately in some cases.  What I am saying is that technicians are the key people in making systems workable for schools, principals, and teachers, and they should be doing their utmost to make access to technology for education a piece of cake, not an ongoing source of income for their own ends.

I am really interested to know if you have come across this problem.