Putting my Google Calendar on my blog

Here is a great example of a teacher using a website to show students how to embed a Google Calendar on their blog. Thanks to Jason Borland who covered this with one of his year 9 ICT classes, I watched his screencastify on his class website and followed his instructions.
There were a couple of issues to overcome. The first is that for all the items on the calendar to be visible, the calendar must be set to 'public'. If it isn't then people from outside the users organisation will not be able to see these. The second is the name at the top of the calendar. As you can see, it shows the full name and we would like to avoid that with students. To change this, teachers would need to make sure that the name of the calendar is just the first name of the students.

Kootuitui ki Papakura in action

I created this video, to be played before the beginning of Kootuitui's second AGM, rushing to do it before YouTube video editor ceased to exist on 20th September. I thought at first that I would create a slideshow of photos using Driveslides as I didn't need any sound. However, then I considered the time I was going to put into choosing photos for both options and decided that a video with music that could be turned on or off would be better. So then it was just a question of choosing photos and transitions of about 2 mins in length and an ambient piece of music to go in the background.
I chose photos of the Education and Homes strands mostly, with a few of the high school Health strand. I haven't been able to source any pictures of the health professionals in the primary schools' programme, so this is a gap in this video. In my speed to publish, another omission is that I forgot to add a date, a thank you or web address of Kootuitui at the end. Despite these things, the video is a pretty good montage of what has been happening in Kootuitui over the last year.

Kootuitui's first Unconference

At the Leaders' PLG in Term 2, the idea of an unconference for Kootuitui was raised and discussed. It was decided to go ahead with our first in Term 3. The format would be slam down 1 followed by a 20 minute workshop, a Kahoot quiz for everyone and then slam down 2 followed by a 20 minute workshop. The top presentation is the slide deck that was used to gather offerings for the 20 minute sessions. Dave Winter, our wonderful Manaiakalani Outreach Manager, prepared and ran the Kahoot. Two of the school leaders sourced prizes for the Kahoot winners. These were one chromecast from Cyclone and two portable wifi storage devices from Noel Leemings, Papakura. Papakura Kootuitui Trust sponsored sweet treats. The second presentation is a range of photos taken at the unconference.
About 80 teachers/personnel attended with 19 individuals offering workshops.
How did it go and what was the feedback? The location of the high school was very good. Everyone gathered in the hall and it is a large enough space to accommodate everyone. The workshops were held in different classrooms. The original plan had been to have the workshops in the hall. However issues such as noise and the lack of portable data projectors and screens, necessitated a change of plan. It seemed to run smoothly and meet most people's needs. Some feedback included:
- it was good to have everyone together for clustering and networking
- keep the same venue for subsequent unconferences
- maybe a few of the workshops could be held in the hall next time so that people could find it easier to move from one to another within the 20 minutes
- the 20 minutes was a good length of time to have a discussion or get information that I could then look at later in my own time
- prizes were great
- I wanted to go to two in the first session and none in the second
- there wasn't anything for complete beginners
The Leaders were buoyed by the overall positive response and are now planning another unconference for Term 4. There will be a few tweaks to the first as we want to provide a way for attendees to express their interest in learning about certain things rather than being the receivers of predetermined workshops. The first time through we considered providing afternoon tea of some kind and decided that it would take time from a very tight schedule. However, having tea, coffee and biscuits available may be a way around this. We also need to ensure that all schools are clear that their staff bring their laptop with them as some teachers claimed they weren't told to bring one and so couldn't fully participate.
It certainly was an excellent way of gathering for a purpose - learning, creating and sharing, and it will be interesting to see where the idea heads over the next year. It has been suggested that unconferences happen once a term and replace one of the sets of Toolkits. It has been fantastic working with the Leaders on this and achieving something much bigger as a group than any one of us could alone.

Reflections on 'no internet at home for a week'

Recently we moved house and had to wait for a week for our phone and internet services to be established in our new home. This post reflects on the lack of connectivity over this time.

It was extremely quiet. My husband and I both have notifications switched on and our environment was one of silence as very little came through. There was the odd text message but no whatsapp, no viber, no facebook, no emails, and sometimes no text messages. A couple of times I had to use my mobile data to send a text. A few mobile phone calls punctuated the tranquility.

We don't have tv. Well, we do have an actual tv but we stream everything we watch through our internet connection, so we didn't have tv in this time. This made it doubly quiet as even though not always on during the week, the tv is definitely used every weekend to catch up with ondemand shows, just not this weekend.

But, we did have a number of visitors. These visits provided opportunities for us to communicate and socialise and be connected with those ordinarily 'outside' us. How welcome they were.

Of course, we also talked to each other. Nevertheless, we have always talked together. I don't think there was any less or any more talking, just nothing that quite seemed like it filled the 'talk free' spaces. My husband started reading some books that he had unpacked and I wondered how many emails I would have come Monday morning.

I had understood that we would be connected on Saturday afternoon. However, an online chat using mobile data confirmed that this wouldn't be the case. Apparently, there was some issue with the exchange and we would have to wait. It couldn't be done Monday because the technician's time was already fully booked. No, he didn't have to come to the house, but nevertheless we would have to wait until Tues. This had me wondering just where did the technician work on our connection, how long would it take to connect us and why couldn't the available workforce do it on Monday?

Anyway, why was it so important for us to be connected immediately? We had mobile phones and mobile data, although more pricer options, that we could use if we chose to. Was it perhaps the principle? We live an urban, connected lifestyle and it should just be possible in this day and age to have a home move completed immediately and seemlessly.

Somehow it felt a little like our home was this deserted island in the middle of a bustling archipeligo of one huge connected island.

Thank goodness our 'internet fast' is over and full services are now restored. I feel like I've completed some kind of spiritual retreat and I'm ready to face the world again, renewed and ready for whatever live throws at me!