Author: wenmothd

Derek is regarded as one of NZ education’s foremost Future Focused thinkers, and is regularly asked to consult with schools, policy makers and government agencies regarding the future directions of NZ educational policy and practice.

Derek’s Blog, launched in 2003, serves as a platform for sharing thoughts and reflections related to his work. It offers over 20 years of searchable posts, categorized by the tags below. Feel free to comment, as your feedback contributes to ongoing reflection and future posts.

ECE ICT strategy development

This week I’m involved with a writing team preparing the basis of a national ICT strategy for early childhood. Some really exciting things are happening in the early childhood sector with the use of ICT, including the use of digital cameras and computers to create “learning stories” such as in Roskill South Kindergarten which is part of the Ministry of Education’s Centre’s of Innovation . Also represented on the writing team is the Kohanga Reo Trust which has had a computer in every centre since 1998 for management and administration purposes.
It’s an exciting project to be involved in, addressing the challenge of creating a document that is consistent with the already established aims and principles of the Early Childhood Curriuclum, Te Whariki , while also fitting into the broader, pan-sector vision of a life-long learner in the digital age.

Blog Intro

I’m now back in NZ and have spent some of the day reviewing the stuff I pickied up in New Orleans, as well as items that have come my way via lists etc.
Since blogging was a hot topic at NECC, I thought it might be useful to include here a couple of links that I came across first in George Seimen’s newsletter, and are now posted on “eLearningSpace”.
Part One is titled “The Art of Blogging; Overview, definitions, uses and implications”.
Part Two provides more of a ‘how to’, with tools for blogging and examples.
Although first published in December 2003, the information and links provided in these articles remains current and informative for those starting out in this area.

NECC final day

NECCpose.jpg
It’s all over – NECC has finished with a bang here in New Orleans – the photograph above shows me with Jonathan Beveridge and Douglas Harre (from NZ MoE) who also attended. I’m going to be out of range for connecting to the web for a few days now as I make my way back to NZ – will ponder the things I’ve seen and done and endavour to add these to my blog over the next week.
Meantime – here’s another shot illustrating the hospitality we received here!
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NECC day 2 – National Technology Plan

Am sitting in the middle of a presentation by Susan Patrick form the US Dept of Education, titled “Are Schools Ready for Today’s Students? – A sneak preview of the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP)”. I’m using the extended entry to record my notes from this presentation as it happens – cool eh?
Key points from this presentation

  • change in how funding is provided – now targetting specific educational goals – and matching appropriate hardware/software, PD and resource development to help meet that goal
  • use of online assessment to create more meaningful assessment through immediacy of feedback and use of assessment data to inform future planning
  • need to collect and use data about students to inform future planning – most of this data exists within the business and commercial community, rather than within education.
Continue reading “NECC day 2 – National Technology Plan”

NECC day 1 – Policy Retrospective

At the end of day one of the NECC conference – attended a most interesting session hosted by Margaret Honey from the EDC Centre for Children and Technology in New York titled “A retrospective on 20 years of national technology policy”. Margaret and her group analysed 28 key, national policy documents from the last 20 years as part of a contribution to the development of the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP).
I’ve used the extented entry to record my notes from this session – made me appreciate (yet again) just how important it is to reflect on where we’ve come from when planning for the future.

Continue reading “NECC day 1 – Policy Retrospective”

Blogs and teachers

Have just sat through an intereting research presentation on the use of blogs in a pre-service teacher education programme at San Diego State University with Bernie Dodge (of web quests fame). The focus of this was on a group of English students who used a personal blog to keep a journal of their experiences as a student teacher whilst teaching English to high school students. As such, the presentation provided only a narrow view of what a blog is, limited pretty much to being a semi-private online diary. No coment was made about the use of links and additional features such as “blog-rolling” etc.

The discussion got me thinking about the ways in which Blogs are used, and the connection with Gladwell’s thoughts about connectors and mavins in his book The Tipping Point . Gladwell defines “connectors” as people who have a much wider social circle of friends than most others, while “Mavins” are those who have the unuque ability to gather information from a variety of sources and piece it together in a way that others can access and understand. Both of these sorts of people, Gladwell claims, have what he terms “social power” (as distinct from economic or political power) – and it is this power that is likely to be a dominant determinant of change in the future.

My musings are around what an ideal tool a blog provides for these sorts of people – and how the tool itself, might encourage these attributes in many others! Truly an instrument of social empowerment and social change!

NECC day 1

After a harrowing 27 hours of travelling I finally arrived at the NECC conference in New Orleans on Saturday evening.

On the flight from LA to New Orleans I sat next to Jason Ediger, an Apple Distinguished Educator from Orange County, California, who has established and runs the iSightEd website, a place for educators using Apple’s iSight technology to connect students via video conferencing. There’s a spot on his site to enter your details and be connected with other iSight educators from around the world – Cool!

Spent a good part of Sunday looking around New Orleans before joining the other international conference delegates at the welcome, followowed by the opening keynote speech by Malcom Gladwell of The Tipping Point fame. Having read his book a couple of years ago I was really looking forward to hearding him speak and was not disappointed!

A formal conference opening ‘bash’ was then held on the waterfront, with a free tour of the aquarium thrown in, and a genuine Cajun band to entertain us!

ASTE conference finishes

The ASTE conference finished today – an amazing gathering of many of the key e-educators in the tertiary sector of NZ. A key focus of the conference was to workshop and develop a set of “standards” that might be adopted by TEC and tertiary institutions in an attempt to provide some quality assurance around what is happening in eLearing at the tertiary level in NZ.
While the level of discourse was excellent, and I am optomistic about the outcome, wo things concerned me about the process…

1 – the language that was used to express what those standards might be, although well intentioned, very strongly reflected an “institution-centrted”, industrial approach to the issues. I’m hoping this will be addressed in the work that follows.

2 – I find the idea of ‘standards’ a bit of a difficulty. Technically the term is OK, but the baggage it brings with it is bound to be off putting to many staff – suggesting ideas of ‘judgment’ and ‘absolutes’. I’d prefer to see a term such as ‘guidelines’ used. An institution could then adopt the set of guidelines and develop a set of indicators or criteria that suits their particular context in order to demonstrate how they will ensure those guidelines are being followed in their institution.

I’ll be following the progress in this work with interest.

ASTE conference

It’s been a hectic week or so. No entries in my blog last week. Although I was in CHCH for the whole week working at Ultralab, the days were full and I didn’t have access to the internet where I was staying in the evening which is when I generally find time to complete an entry.

Over the past couple of days I have been attending the ASTE conference in Wellington titled “Professionalism Online”. This morning I presented the keynote on the topic “Quality eLearning and what staff need to ensure it”. What a mouthful. Not my choice of topic, but a useful challenge to create a presentation that explored ideas around the definition of eLearning, notions of quality in education and eLearning, and ideas about professional development.

I chose to focus on the difference between an institution-centred approach to eLearning and a learner-centred approach, pointing out that the ways in which we would consider quality measures in each scenario would differ greatly. I then looked at principles of powerful learning as a basis for designing an effective professional development approach for staff, which models the sorts of things an institution may be trying to achieve with its students.

My powerpoint presentation will be uploaded soon onto the ASTE website and I’ll create a link to it from my blog when that happens.

Teaching in the knowledge age

More reading on the train – got me thinking about the Knowledge Society. There’s so much hype about this – we’ve had the “knowledge wave” and been bombarded with lists of skills we must ensure our students develop – but how helpful is this rhetoric in helping us shape our thinking about what schools should be like in the future, and, more importantly, what teaching in the knowledge society will be (should be) like? An article from Andy Hargreaves is what got me thinking about all of this – for more, click on the extended entry link below…

Continue reading “Teaching in the knowledge age”

What others say

The Learning Environments Australasia Executive Committee  has received a lot of positive feedback, which is greatly due to your wealth of knowledge and information you imparted on our large audience, your presentation has inspired a range of educators, architects and facility planners and for this we are grateful.

Daniel Smith Chair Learning Environments Australasia

Derek and Maurie complement each other well and have the same drive and passion for a future education system that is so worthwhile being part of. Their presentation and facilitation is at the same time friendly and personal while still incredibly professional. I am truly grateful to have had this experience alongside amazing passionate educators and am inspired to re visit all aspects of my leadership. I have a renewed passion for our work as educational leaders.

Karyn Gray Principal, Raphael House Rudolf Steiner

I was in desperate need of a programme like this. This gave me the opportunity to participate in a transformative journey of professional learning and wellbeing, where I rediscovered my passion, reignited my purpose, and reconnected with my vision for leading in education. Together, we got to nurture not just academic excellence, but also the holistic wellbeing of our school communities. Because when we thrive, so does the entire educational ecosystem.

Tara Quinney Principal, St Peter's College, Gore

Refresh, Reconnect, Refocus is the perfect title for this professional development. It does just that. A fantastic retreat, space to think, relax and start to reconnect. Derek and Maurie deliver a balance of knowledge and questioning that gives you time to think about your leadership and where to next. Both facilitators have the experience, understanding, connection and passion for education, this has inspired me to really look at the why for me!

Jan McDonald Principal, Birkdale North School

Engaged, passionate, well informed facilitators who seamlessly worked together to deliver and outstanding programme of thought provoking leadership learning.

Dyane Stokes Principal, Paparoa Street School

A useful and timely call to action. A great chance to slow down, reflect on what really drives you, and refocus on how to get there. Wonderful conversations, great connections, positive pathways forward.

Ursula Cunningham Principal, Amesbury School

RRR is a standout for quality professional learning for Principals. Having been an education PLD junkie for 40 years I have never before attended a programme that has challenged me as much because of its rigor, has satisfied me as much because of its depth or excited me as much because of realising my capacity to lead change. Derek and Maurie are truly inspiring pedagogical, authentic leadership experts who generously and expertly share their passion, wisdom and skills to help Principal's to focus on what is important in schools and be the best leader they can be.

Cindy Sullivan Principal, Kaipara College

Derek Wenmoth is brilliant. Derek connects powerful ideas forecasting the future of learning to re-imagine education and create resources for future-focused practices and policies to drive change. His work provides guidance and tools for shifting to new learning ecosystems through innovations with a focus on purpose, equity, learner agency, and lifelong learning. His work is comprehensive and brings together research and best practices to advance the future of teaching and learning.  His passion, commitment to innovation for equity and the range of practical, policy and strategic advice are exceptional.

Susan Patrick, CEO, Aurora Institute

I asked Derek to work with our teachers to reenergise our team back into our journey towards our vision after the two years of being in and out of 'Covid-ness'.  Teachers reported positively about the day with Derek, commenting on how affirmed they felt that our vision is future focused.  Teachers expressed excitement with their new learning towards the vision, and I've noticed a palpable energy since the day.  Derek also started preparing our thinking for hybrid learning, helping us all to feel a sense of creativity rather than uncertainty.  The leadership team is keen to see him return!

Kate Christie | Principal | Cashmere Ave School

Derek has supported, informed and inspired a core group of our teachers to be effective leads in our college for NPDL. Derek’s PLD is expertly targeted to our needs.

Marion Lumley | Deputy Principal |Ōtaki College

What a task we set Derek -  to facilitate a shared vision and strategy with our Board and the professional and admin teams (14 of us), during a Covid lockdown, using online technology. Derek’s expertise, skilled questioning, strategic facilitation and humour enabled us to work with creative energy for 6 hours using a range of well-timed online activities. He kept us focussed on creating and achieving a shared understanding of our future strategic plan.  Derek’s future focussed skills combined with an understanding of strategy and the education sector made our follow up conversations invaluable.  Furthermore, we will definitely look to engage Derek for future strategic planning work.

Sue Vaealiki, Chair of Stonefields Collaborative Trust 

Our Principal PLG has worked with Derek several times now, and will continue to do so. Derek is essentially a master facilitator/mentor...bringing the right level of challenge, new ideas & research to deepen your thinking, but it comes with the level of support needed to feel engaged, enriched and empowered after working with him.

Gareth Sinton, Principal, Douglas Park School

Derek is a highly knowledgeable and inspirational professional learning provider that has been guiding our staff in the development of New Pedagogies’ for Deep Learning. His ability to gauge where staff are at and use this to guide next steps has been critical in seeing staff buy into this processes and have a strong desire to build in their professional practice.

Andy Fraser, Principal, Otaki College

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