Late_July 2010            Letter from NZACDITT President

Holiday conferences report back
Achievement Standards Writing
Professional Development

Hello All

Beautiful sunshine day in Christchurch after a frosty morning. Spring is just around the corner – must definitely lift the spirits.
A quick update of current affairs in Digital Technologies.
Put PD funds aside to attend the Digital Technololgies Symposium in Auckland on 17,18,19 November, and put these dates into your diaries!!
The AGM for NZACDITT will be on Thursday 18 November – plan to be there.
Registration details will be out shortly.

Holiday conferences report back

At the Dunedin conference, organised by CITRENZ (Computer and Information Technology Research and Education NZ), the two points of interest were:
i)    Meeting the rep for South Pacific for CISCO and talking through what could be offered to teachers in this area
ii)    Hearing part of a great talk on design and Digital Technologies being used in museums and the development of software based on this learning that may be used at the Rugby World Cup next year. Not that I agreed with everything, but fascinating to listen to.
At the PPTA conference for subject associations in Wellington, I learnt that for a young association like ourselves, we are not doing too badly at all. Coming in to the achievement standards writing process so much behind other associations, actually worked to our benefit. It was good to network with other associations and Karen and I came away with some good ideas for our association, which we will be discussing at our next face-to-face committee meeting in August.
A talk by the secondary manager for NZQA was very enlightening:
NZQA are bringing in a QAAM certification – see http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/providers-partners/assessment-and-moderation/ass... for further details - most of which should be in schools by now.
Teachers mark very well against assessment task schedules. The problem is that the assessment task schedules are faulty. I have taken this into account and NZQA will be running some workshop training with our writing groups – see PD paragraph – to give us some training in how to grade the assessment schedule for Achieved, Merit and Excellence.
Also heard that PD budget this year is same as last year, with additional funding for Technology.

Other points of interest from a PPTA perspective and from someone on a number of high level committees and groups:

• The process of curriculum alignment of standards has meant that a) only 21 standards across whole range of learning areas has not been changed and b) aligning standards with level 6 of NZC has resulted in decisions being made with far-reaching consequences. There is a major tension in curriculum vs assessment. Qualifications seem to dominate what is being taught. “If no credits then kids won’t learn it”;  “Where is love of learning in all this?”.
• Phase 1 is curriculum alignment and credit parity. The raising of standards to level 6 across the board will have a flow-on effect of a drop in achievement - issues for us as teachers.
• Phase 2 is the rewriting of unit standards by ITO’s to have credit, merit and excellence. Has issues of duplication and credit parity
• Standards Review Expert Panel recommended the maximum of three external (examined) standards (not necessarily examinations) per ‘subject’. More issues.
• University Entrance –all still very much in the ‘unknown basket’.
• Course endorsement encourages cross-curricular courses, as well as specialist courses; but not without problems.
• New MNA (Management National Assessment) process

Bottom line is that there is an awful lot of change going on.

Achievement Standards Writing

Please refer to my earlier July letter for a more detailed report on the writing of Achievement standards last term
Latest up date is that all subjects (including us!) have the draft level 1 Achievement Standards out. ‘Draft’ because not yet registered, but there will probably be no significant change when they are registered in December.
http://www.tki.org.nz/e/community/ncea/alignment-standards.php
and look under Technology.
Note the new numbering of the standards.
Now that the Level 1 standards are in the registration process, the Level 2 draft standards for Digital Technologies should be out for consultation in September. At least we don’t have the huge time pressure we had for level 1. The draft matrix for Level 2 is just that – a draft, based on the draft level 2 achievement standards.
Wow! Who thought 18 months ago that we would have ‘caught up’ with our colleagues in the other learning areas. We have made huge progress in our ‘space’ and must acknowledge the willingness and help from our MOE and NZQA colleagues to help us get to where we are. Yes… there have been issues – but communication and negotiation between all parties have got us good standards for our students, and more to come.
I know there are some individuals in our community who still feel badly done by, and are not satisfied with the process and the progress to date, but there is room for review and commitment from the authorities that regular reviews will certainly take place in the next few years. Let’s work through what we have got, and then see what needs fixing.

Professional Development

There has been huge, positive progress in this area, thanks to support from NZACDITT and MOE. See my earlier July letter for more detail. The proposal I put forward at the end of last term has been accepted and is going ahead.
Thank you to all those members who put their hand up for helping with writing of resources in response to my request in my last letter. Each region based on a DTG cluster has a leader for the writing team, and volunteers will be contacted by their leaders. Each team will meet one ‘weekend’ (Friday and Saturday) to write two resources. A unit of work on the Friday and an assessment task on the Saturday.
Relief for four teachers in each region will be jointly funded by NZACDITT and MOE.
That means that potentially 12x4 = 48 teachers throughout New Zealand will be getting great PD in Digital Technologies in the writing of Units of work and in drawing up assessment tasks for the new Achievement Standards. The assessment tasks will be critiqued by NZQA, and teachers will again be getting great PD at this second phase, which is still being developed. These teachers will then be able to share their learning with other members in the region. I am glad to be part of a ‘hands up’ association, and not a ‘hands out’ one.

Other Professional Development:

There will be great workshops offered at the Digital Technologies Symposium on 17, 18 and 19 November in Auckland. There will be skills workshops as well as lesson planning and assessment task writing workshops. The AGM is on the Thursday 18 November – plan to be there.
There is support from all the NZ Universities to help teachers. See the NZACDITT website for names and emails to contact.
Natcoll are putting together a package that will enable teachers to get certificate of proficiency in various topics for Level 1, leading on to level 2 proficiency etc. Means that teachers will have evidence of learning in Digital Media. They are also developing useful units of work aimed at level 1 for 2011, and are also development assessment tasks for the new Achievement Standards in their area of expertise. Contact Natcoll to find out when all this would be available – probably towards end of this term. Price looks to be fairly reasonable as well.
CISCO want to support teachers in learning Digital Infrastructure. To that end, as a start, you can contact Andy Blackmur at CPIT to enrol as a student and work through the IT essentials program. blackmura@cpit.ac.nz I will be talking to the CISCO rep on Monday to find out how else teachers can be supported.
Bottom line is that there is a lot of help out there.
Learning new skills takes time, and teachers have very little of that. Don’t do it all at once. Take a small step – try just one new area for next year. And remember we are all on a learning curve next year, but have to start somewhere.
Please join your local cluster group and get involved in learning with, and helping each other. “Hands up” not “Hands out”  ?
Folk to contact are:

A big thank you to these leaders for putting up their hands, and volunteering to do this work. It is very much appreciated by the committee and the community as a whole.
Cluster group leaders are meeting on 16 August to get PD under way. All volunteers should have been contacted by then.

Is it really only week 2 of this term??
Best wishes to you all,
Vilna Gough-Jones
President: New Zealand Association for Computer, Digital and Information Technology Teachers