Media Moments - part 1

This blog post will discuss the four national media events for Kootuitui ki Papakura in the last few months. They are a
1. TV interview - June 2019
2. Radio interview - July 2019
3. Radio news story - August 2019
4. TV news story - August 2019

The media we have been seeking is for national coverage of our Ko Huiamano: Warm, Dry, Healthy Homes programme. This programme is significantly different from other types of provision in this area because it is a community-led development model, being:
- developed by whānau through co-design
- delivered by whānau largely through their commitment to being volunteers
- built on the kaupapa of 'fill my kete, fill your kete'
- focussed on education for behavioural change rather than provision of goods
- not funded through any government scheme such as AWHI (Auckland Wide Healthy Homes)

The first national media event was a short segment on What's Next? where our Kootuitui Whānau were featured on episode 3 being interviewed by Nigel Latta. On Demand here and the text article here. This was excellent timing for us with the winter just getting underway and we felt so proud to be in the spotlight. It was wonderful meeting Nigel and the segment reflected fairly on our work. We received lots of 'congratulations' and 'you guys are doing amazing work' but no direct offers of support. There wasn't any direct link back to us as an organisation as the media didn't actually mention our name 'Kootuitui ki Papakura' or show our logo and the segment sounded a little like a group of people helping others without a charity or organisation behind them. At that stage, I hadn't started to harness the power of social media so after the screening, I shared the On Demand and text links and the euphoria of being on national TV ebbed away. Maybe the viewing demographic for this programme were not the people we were trying to reach?

We recently had support to publish a booklet which details the story of our Homes strand and the Ko Huiamano prototype and I was looking to once again get a national spotlight on our work. I began contacting reporters I knew and emailing TV sites. Then, quite suddenly, I was rung by Radio NZ to do an interview with Jesse Mulligan. This was recorded at 1pm one afternoon and published on their website. Through this interview people were beginning to become more aware of Ko Huiamano: Warm, Dry, Healthy Homes and understand how this part is situated within our whole scope of EDUCATION, HEALTH AND HOMES.

The same RNZ reporter who linked us with Afternoons with Jesse was really keen to attend a home installation and see what happens, in particular the effect of the bubble wrap on the temperature. This led to our Radio news story. This story was broadcast on Checkpoint with photos, video and commentary as well as a short article. This was a tenanted Housing NZ property which showcased our partnership with HNZ. At this stage the social media just took off, maybe because RadioNZ had the story as a feature article on their website.

Even though I had not received any direct replies to my approach to TV media, Te Ao News saw the second RNZ article and contacted me. They wanted to cover our work from a different angle and we agreed on an interview with Māori homeowners. The added piece to this story was that a warm house had had a positive impact on their health. The segment was screened on a cold, Friday, August evening and is here. This is such a positive story of helping our kaumātua and the impact of a home on the health of its occupants.

My next blog post will focus on the social media that has come from the mainstream media above. I am still looking for opportunities for publicity through mainstream media, so if you can assist me in any way, please leave a comment below and I will get back to you. Help us support by Māori, with Māori, for Māori for the improved lifelong outcomes of the young people of Papakura.

Annual Stakeholders' Event

Last Wednesday we held the annual morning where we welcome sponsors, partners, schools and local community organisations to hear about our activities over the past year. It is a short showcase for our funders, sponsors and partners to get an insight into Kootuitui ki Papakura.
This year, the event was hosted at Papakura Central School and included a welcome to the 70-ish attendees, short presentations (above) from representatives who work in each of our three strands and a tour of 1:1 hubs and the school clinic. The Education strand was presented by four PCS students who showed attendees how they learn in an online environment through their teacher's visible website, some of the Google apps they use and the cybersmart learning around making positive, thoughtful and helpful comments on blogs. Having students present is always well received, as is hearing from whaanau who share their stories and others' stories of change through their engagement in the Homes strand initiatives.
This is our third year hosting this event and I have learnt through that time some things that have helped the planning for each successive year. These include the preparations that need to be made at the Trust level, at the school level and at the level of connecting with the various delivery partners. The run sheet invariably gets behind, so I have learnt to factor this into the programme and to break up the 'listening' activities with time for the attendees to talk, walk, network and have refreshments.
The Kootuitui team gets behind this event and pulls together to make it happen. Right now, there are 10 employees, including full and part-timers, with additional volunteers, and we are also supporting the salaries of about 6 FTE - so we are growing as a roopu.
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Connections are continuing to be made with other organisations as we focus on our vision of improving the lifelong outcomes for tamariki in our community.

Changing lives one home at a time

A TSI (The Southern Initiative) collaboration with Kootuitui ki Papakura set out to support whaanau to create solutions to the challenges they are facing in day to day living.

This project came about as we were looking to establish an initiative focussed on 'Homes' for families in Papakura. This resulted in a unique peer-to-peer model aimed at empowering locals to improve housing conditions in Papakura in a practical way, while delivering positive social outcomes.

TSI input led to a co-design process that built the capability of whaanau. It then helped them develop a low-cost home intervention kit to create warmer, drier and healthier homes. 

By using a strength-based approach, the whaanau involved experienced greater social connectedness, built a network of authentic and trusting relationships, learnt how to implement their innovative ideas and grew their self-confidence and basic DIY skills.

Due to the high level of training the Kootuitui Whaanau have received, they expanded their knowledge of their tenancy rights, learnt budgeting skills and through whakawhanaungatanga (the building of authentic and trusting relationships), the families transferred what they learnt to whaanau across the community through a 'Fill my kete, fill your kete' approach.

The initiative delivered specific results – meaning many whaanau now have warmer and drier homes. This model will continue to be developed and opportunities sought to scale it further.

Kootuitui ki Papakura would like to thank TSI for its support to produce this document which chronicles the story of our Homes strand. 

Focus on the Homes strand

The Warm, Dry, Healthy Homes programme came about as a direct result of the prototyping from co-design over 2016 and 2017. The Kootuitui voluntary whaanau learnt about the elements of a home that are important for the health of its occupants - namely insulation, moisture control, mould control, heating and ventilation. They then worked with stakeholders - Habitat for Humanity, Beacon Pathway and Auckland Council, to identify how houses could be simply remediated to make them warmer and drier. Whaanau offered their homes for testing to find out the effect of bubble wrap on windows, draft stoppers on doors, v-seal around windows and long curtains. These had an immediate and positive effect.

Ko Huiamano - Warm, Dry, Healthy Homes has three parts:

1. Education workshops on the elements of a warm, dry, healthy home
2. House assessments and a written report provided
3. House installation and minor repairs service

During 2018, a programme of workshops, house assessments and interventions rolled out.

• - 11 home performance workshops were attended by 102 people. This resulted in 63 homes being assessed and 41 interventions being carried out.
• - Three of the Kootuitui Whaanau gained employment and others have taken up community leadership roles, such as school Board of Trustee membership. 
• - Many families in Papakura not normally reached by traditional services now have better housing conditions. 

The 2019 programme is underway. Watch videos of stories from whaanau who have been impacted by this prototype and listen to an interview on Radio NZ here.

Evaluation of Kootuitui's holistic approach

In the period 2016-2018, Kootuitui ki Papakura was excellently supported by the Middlemore Foundation for Health Innovation. The Foundation provided most of our funding and also offered expertise in system development and the building of stakeholder relationships. With our pilot period coming to an end, the collection of data across all three strands was pulled together and analysed. The report attached here is a testament to the hard work of everyone involved - the trustees, employees, volunteers and key partners. Although our outcomes may be more apparent in the medium and long term, there are many indications that such an holistic approach as we take does lead to some very real positive outcomes, even in the short term. Coupled with recommendations for further development, this document both acknowledges areas of strength and achievement and encourages us to continue to iterate to achieve our vision of ensuring lifelong outcomes for tamariki.

https://sites.google.com/kootuitui.org.nz/papakura-kootuitui-trust/research

Manaiakalani Innovation Team - Connecting with Each Other

Today I spent a great day with the Manaiakalani Innovation Team which comprised the Manaiakalani leaders, the outreach facilitators and education programme leaders of the first and second outreach clusters. The second outreach is beginning and the team has expanded greatly with wonderful educators coming onboard.
Through the day everyone delivered their 5-minute introduction. This was a way for people to connect with one another. The DLO above was my introduction. I have changed the first slide because I didn't have my pepeha (introduction in Te Reo Māori) written on it at he time. I hadn't put it there because I didn't want to read it. So I had it on my phone as a reminder. However, I used my phone too much and have decided to learn this by heart for the next time and learn to rely solely on my memory.
I shall not be able to join the group again during the week as I have Kootuitui orientation and meetings scheduled, but I am keen to join the weekly online meetings from the start of the term. There is so much we can share about our work and I can learn from the others of the group.

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.

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!

Cluster Schools video

What a long way we have all come in 2016. When I watch this video, I see children and young people happy at school, learning with each other and with their devices, showing their parents what they are learning, teachers working together and learning from each other and the origins of the Trust and its logo.
I also reflect on my learning journey over the year. Being a newcomer to Google apps, I have had a huge learning curve and I continue to find out more each day - Google apps, Google Admin, Google site-building, blog creation and blogging, Hapara Teacher Dashboard, extensions, add-ons, a You Tube channel, more web tools and apps, the Manaiakalani Cybersmart curriculum.....the list continues to grow.
All this with thinking about how to use the affordances of the digital age and the pedagogy of learn-create-share in new ways that were previously unimaginable but personalised, authentic and relevant to the students of our community.
Onwards to another year of clustering, teaching and learning in 2017.

Sparkshop

I went to a Sparkshop recently which was a day of some great google learning organised by the Google experts of Auckland. The day began with a slam session of the potential workshops that would be held. All potential presenters had added a slide to a slideshow and were given two mins to give their pitch. There was a google form that everyone used to rate whether they'd like to attend each potential session. After this, the organisers took 15 mins to sort through the voting results and then presented a board of the sessions that had received the most interest, separated into sessions and locations. We were able to pick three sessions and then all joined together at the end to share a slam of one min each for new ideas. I was keen to show everyone my new Google Space.  I attended sessions on sites, forms and extensions/add-ons. It was a really worthwhile day.

The Sparkshop Participants

The Workshops Most Highly Sought

My Spaces

Manaiakalani Visitors' Day 15th June

    The day began with individual student presentations from many of the Manaiakalani schools: these children each did a speech about a particular aspect of their learning, eg an inquiry topic and its process, supported by video, slideshows, and explanation.
    After this, the Chef Executive of the Trust, Jenny Oxley, made a presentation. This began with the visit of the Hawaiian waka in 2015, which was a hugely important day for the cluster as the visitors spent time in Pt England school sharing the learning with students and teachers.

    Next, the cluster was explained via key labels and themes, eg decile 1a, geographical location, 2500 children, 13 schools, kura kaupapa, Catholic, and a special school and the paramount importance of equity. Links to the cluster include twitter.com/clusternz and manaiakalani.org. Followed by the members of the team, the trust (to provide more resources than the schools had access to), and the many commercial and philanthropic partners.

    The 3 main elements of the programme were then explained as:
1. Acceleration: children talking about their learning and using technology as a tool.
2. Whanau engagement: parents invest by paying for their children's device. The Trust makes this affordable via micro-financing.
3. Research: investigation of the effect of the programme on student achievement.

    There are 5 Outreach clusters of about 40 schools throughout NZ, of which Kootuitui ki Papakura is one, being supported by the Manaiakalani vision, structure and pedagogy. There is also another group of schools that has taken onboard different versions of the programme.
    Next came the goals of the programme followed by the background from the beginnings and the shift in student achievement. The opportunities for teachers were discussed in relation to the digital teacher academy, the innovative teacher programme, the professional learning groups, the toolkit sessions, the GEG groups, the annual GAFE Summit, the Google ClassOnair, the annual hui, f2f opportunities and the relationship with Auckland University. The Trust is thinking about establishing a housing trust which could benefit teachers as well as whanau.
    Participants were told about the cybersmart curriculum, the use of Blogger as the platform for sharing learning, and shown the circular model which combines LCS and the principles- visibility, ubiquity, connectivity and empowerment. There was quite a lot of discussion around the principle of visibility for both teachers and students. Once a student goes digital, parents can be disadvantaged if they don't have access because the opportunity to view bookwork may have disappeared. 
Dave Winter, Outreach Delivery Manager said, "Privatisation restricts the opportunity to improve. Visibility and Kawa of Care sessions also reestablish the relationship between parents and schools, as schools may have been unpleasant experiences for them in their childhood."
    GAFE, Google sites, Google+ Communities and Hapara were discussed and how they operate together. Also, how the work may be referenced to SAMR and technology is implemented into teaching and learning. Everything in Manaiakalani has Creative Commons so can be copied and repurposed.

Next, it was time for school visits. I meet Fiona Grant, the Lead Facilitator, at Kura Kaupapa Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa o Puau. The children were working on their digital footprint and public/private. The resources are in their class folder and there was plenty of discussion.
    Everyone met back together again for the afternoon session. We listened to 3 teachers about their digital 1:1 teaching-learning environment. 

The first was a year 4 teacher from Pt England School, Room 11, where she'd been for 15 years through the journey. She was in her 6th year 1:1 with both ipads and chromebooks. The approach was to chose a student and follow their learning through the class site. The 'Teacher Notes' were on the site accessible to the teachers and management, not to the students. The student had watched the videos, done a writing task, resolved comments by the teacher, loaded the learning to his blog and by 9.30pm his parents had commented on his blog post. The average child posted about 1-2 times a week. The teacher put folders on her site which contain photos and pictures she has taken through the day.

    The second teacher was a junior teacher in Room 19 at Pt England who used ipads with Explain Everything in her class. She started by working through the tools and then followed up with rewindable reading activities which took the whole lesson eliminating the need for a reading rotation. All activities had audio instruction so that the children didn't have to continuously come up to the teacher. Writing was still done in a book with a pencil, but 
augmented with an ipad and stylus. 


Lastly, we met a teacher from the high school who is a 
participant in the Google ClassOn Air. She talked about applications with the SAMR model and that the ClassOn Air lessons are potentially to be used with training teachers while at training college. Discussions are continuing with Auckland University Teacher Education Department.

This was a very enjoyable and interesting day. It confirmed the journey that Kootuitui ki Papakura are on. I could understand the presentations, the class facilitation and the teacher presentations due to my learning over the last 6 months. Even though our cluster is much younger than Manaiakalani in its digital enablement journey, it is still a work in progress that we are all collectively on. Thanks Jenny, Dave, Fiona, student and teacher presenters.

Kootuitui ki Papakura Trust

Here are most of the members of the Kootuitui ki Papakura Trust at one of their recent meetings. They are community representatives working together for positive change in the lives of families and young people in Papakura. As the name suggests, the programme interweaves education, health and homes, to build social infrastructure and deliver life outcomes for children in the low decile schools of the area. The trust sits at the nexus of a number of collaborative endeavours:
- the collaboration among six schools with the implementation of digital pedagogies;
- the collaboration with health providers;
- the collaboration with local government, local community organisations, businesses and support agencies;
- the collaboration with corporate sponsors and philanthropic trusts.
Through the formation of the Trust, the framework has been established to provide leadership for the community from within the community. Finding local solutions from within is a partnership model in which all participants are invested in the outcomes and therefore have a huge stake in ensuring these are positive and significant. It gives agency to this community to determine and take their own actions without having to continually be on the receiving end of assistance from outside. Which even if it is well-intentioned, it does not take account of the Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".

Students' Digital Footprint and the 'Cloud'

      It came as a revelation to some students this week that everything they do online is 'visible'. We have started working with them on their digital footprint and this has raised some questions and discussion. Some students think that everything they write gets saved only on the computer they are working on and if they destroy it, then their activity will be gone. We explain that it is the opposite and that nothing they do on their chromebook is actually saved their local hard drive. All of their commenting, drawing, slide-making, and blogging etc is stored on a huge cloud, which by association is somewhere up high in the atmosphere, away from anyone being able to delete or destroy it. In reality, everyone's data must be stored somewhere though and the 'cloud' storage is on large servers in large rooms of large buildings on large campuses of large IT corporations in large countries.
      I was fortunate enough to visit one of these cloud facilities in August 2015, where I was shown the new Z Series computers which operate in the cloud. They are just huge black cabinets with lots of flashing lights, electrical leads and fans to keep the machines cool. There was tight security so just nobody could gain access, but they could be destroyed by natural disasters, fires and malicious damage. In addition, storage media can fail, large corporations can get hacked, and data can get deleted just as easily on a server as it can on anyone's computer.
      Even so, it is important to realise that living in a world of connection through any device, at any time and from anywhere in the world, necessitates that users understand the implications of both their passive and active digital footprints being able to be stored and accessed. This may be through the tracking of our IP addresses, web browsing, facebook, twitter histories, and leaving comments on blogs etc. Have you ever realised that data about you has been collected via the internet without your knowledge? Every time you answer a quiz, buy something online or use social media, machines, and by default people, are collecting information about you and this information can be packaged and sold was IP addresses, mailing and telephone lists. While this can be used for good and things you need, want and care about, other less desirable uses, from pestering to bullying to breaches of your privacy could result. Children need to understand the need, skills and tools to safeguard their online character and reputation in their ever-expanding digital world.

Chromebook Launches

   A number of schools in the cluster have now launched their chromebooks. What this means is that the parents of all the classes involved in the 1:1 digital immersion programme have all committed to purchasing a device for their child/ren. This commitment is expressed in a $40 deposit and weekly on-going payments for 1, 2 or 3 years.
   When you consider that some families have multiple children in the programme, perhaps at both a primary and high school, this is a very significant commitment. These schools are all decile 1, bar one, which means that families have the lowest incomes, the most crowded homes, and the least education of everyone in the country. Just putting food on the table each day is a challenge, which some primary schools have responded to by providing a free breakfast, morning tea and lunch everyday for their students.
   The Papakura community is one of the poorest in NZ, yet, families have signed up for these chromebooks because they are intent on providing the same opportunities for their children as those in more wealthy communities have. One parent at a recent launch was seen to hold a chromebook and express the idea that now, her children will become the doctors, lawyers and teachers of the local community.
   These children indeed have their hands firmly on their own device for learning: for opening up to them the world of knowledge, of creativity, of thinking, of learning, of setting their own path into their futures. All credit to the parents and whanau for their support of their children and the schools. We are excited to be in partnership with you all.

Sponsorship Announcement Breakfast

Last week I was invited to a breakfast launch of Westpac's sponsorship of the Mana-a-Riki programme. This programme is run by the Middlemore Foundation which supports the Kootuitui Cluster through the provision of funding for aspects of our work. At this breakfast were a number of Westpac employees, people representing other community funding organisations, representatives from the Middlemore Foundation, the health sector and our own educational institutions.

There was an enormous amount of goodwill in the room to get behind this initiative. But as I looked around I realised one important thing: that the community all these people were here to support was not very well represented. Yes, there was the chair of our Trust, two school principals, two board of trustees chairmen. But where were the people of this community whose children attend our schools? While never under-valuing the leaders of our community who are driving this programme, it will be good to see the 'ordinary' people; the recipients; the mums and dads who are paying their $3.75 per week to purchase a chromebook for their child; in the room as real people rather than just statistics.