During our first KMPG meeting, we drew up a plan for our prototype. We then had to go away and refine it. I presented my idea to my principal and DP just before I had to urgently leave for South Africa as my mum fell ill. I took my MIT work with me in case I had time on hand in the 48-hour flight journey and could fit in some work. Unfortunately mum passed away while I was on my way so I didn't look at this for a couple of weeks. As the dust settled and I shared about my life in NZ, MIT always came up. I shared my ideas with family members. Especially the ones involved in IT or management, herefore all the wrinkles and tears on my sheet. And when I came back to NZ and managed to go to school for 1 day before being diagnosed with COVID, I presented my idea to my Kootuitui leader. Each and every person thought my idea was good and added to it. They helped me to refine it to make it practical and user friendly. These were the inputs that stood out for me.
Principal: It was so helpful to talk to Michelle as she had the overall knowledge of what new teachers struggle with.
- We added how teachers can plan by tapering down from the curriculum, achievement objectives, LPF's to learning intentions in their daily planning.
- We clarified which assessments are applicable to Manaiakalaani schools.
- She suggested that instead of just giving links to teachers to sites that could help them with their planning, to add a little video of how to navigate these sites.
- We clarified which sites would truly be helpful to teachers in order not to confuse them.
- And lastly, she suggested that I could embed a calendar of when Manaiakalaani assessment data is due.
DP: Gretchen was my reality check. She thought the idea was great but cautioned me at it could easily get really big. We talked about what my focus or priority should be, in order to present to the principals at the end of the year.
Anthony: Anthony is an addition to our family, he works in IT in South Africa and runs his own security company. He added that I should have a place where teachers can see who they can talk to if they get stuck. Like a helpdesk. So I decided to add emails of subject leaders or contact persons with their email addresses.
Jono: During our last MIT meeting at KPMG, I asked Jono if he had some ideas of resources that could be helpful to teachers. He gave me a few names which I wrote down. I went through each of these to determine if they were easily accessible, whether they were free or whether it was appropriate for our curriculum. I eliminated one or two.
Kootuitui Leader: Cam also liked my idea. She suggested that I could use Google Forms instead of a Google sheet for the induction track. She also offered to help me clarify my understanding of how to navigate some of the sites I suggested, in order to make Screencastify video clips. The first one we looked at was Edpotential. I realised how easy it was to navigate and understand after only a few minutes, whereas when I was just given the link and had to understand how to use it by myself, I found it quite confusing to read the data. And all it took was the clarification of what TMP01 meant, and how to find the different reports for the cluster and the school. This confirms what Michelle suggested, that a little navigation video will be very helpful to new teachers, instead of just giving the link to the site.
This was a really interesting part of my journey as I loved sharing my idea with everybody that was willing to listen, and getting their feelings on it. Everybody felt that it was something that will be helpful and can prepare teachers better.
Next step: I am now starting on my prototype. Creating my site and collecting all the information I need to link. Also, identifying all the abbreviations or acronyms that are important to know, I. will do this by asking the teachers and management at my school.
