Create: Kootuitui ki Papakura

This was my first real creation project using imovie. It took me some time to get my head around how the video editor works. The features are similar to but a little different from others that I've used, eg wevideo, so discriminating what was alike and what was different was something that kept me thinking and testing, especially in the beginning. 

After that, it was quite straightforward to use. I was able to place and trim the videos, add photos, download and upload ambient music, add titles and labels.

Then I uploaded the finished video into my YouTube channel. From here I played around with the captions. The captions that YouTube gave me could not transcribe the Māori words, so I typed and placed the captions myself. I'm pretty proud of the end result.

Things I could work on next are getting better videos and photos, as well as more voices - as us four only represents a small portion of the people and groups who have a part of our work.

Thanks to Maria, for some of the imovie tips and to Jason, for the YouTube caption help.

Kootuitui ki Papakura AGM September 2016

I have recently started my own Youtube channel and this was an early attempt to use Youtube video editor to create a movie from some of the photos taken at Kootuitui ki Papakura's first AGM in Sep 2016. It is quite easy to use. There is 1 track for the photos/video and 1 track for the audio. I chose an audio track from the list that Youtube offered.

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".

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.

Kootuitui logo

"Kootuitui means connecting/linking or weaving together. In this programme it is about connecting the dimensions of Digital Education, Students’ Health and Healthy Homes. The name has been chosen in consultation with manawhenua for Papakura schools participating in the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme.

The logo in the first instance is the result of collaboration between Year 7&8 students and a teacher at Edmund Hillary School. The teacher crafted the logo by combining the main themes and colours from students’ work. Edmund Hillary School’s business partners KPMG created the digital format. Then the teacher painted the logo in oils (pictured).

The logo depicts Uenuku, the Rainbow God, as the source providing clarity from heaven. The purple koru represents Education. The green koru represents Health and the lavender koru below represents Healthy Homes and Whanau. All three koru connect/link to the universe through the name Kootuitui. 

The three waves depicted in the purple koru represent kia ako (to learn), kia hanga (to create) and kia tohatoha (to share). This is the pedagogy central to the Manaiakalani Outreach programme."

na Kataraina Nock Principal Edmund Hillary School October 2015

Kia ora Kootuitui ki Papakura

I am so delighted to be appointed to the new role of Education Programme Leader for the Kootuitui ki Papakura schools' cluster. In my first two weeks I have visited five of the six schools and met the principals, attended three Manaiakalani and one Kootuitui professional development days, started working with Dave Winter, the Manaiakalani Outreach Delivery Manager and Maria Krausse, the cluster's Outreach Facilitator and spent time at my base school, Edmund Hillary School, with the Principal Convenor, Kataraina Nock, and her staff. What a dedicated group of professionals there are in this cluster and working with this cluster, all with their focus firmly on the children and their learning.

"He waka eke noa"

We are all in this canoe together and I am privileged to have been given a seat in this waka.

My blog is going to chronicle our journey. I will write about our plans, activities, successes, failures, and things we learn along the way, and discuss how these shape our direction. Along with the narrative, I will add my reflections and ideas, especially in relation to the quality of my paddling in the waka. 

Well hello Google! Since 2011, I have had just a few forays into the world of Google, sharing documents in Drive and forming circles in Google +. As Kootuitui ki Papakura operates in a Google world, I am busy getting to grips with this world so that I am conversant within it. I now have three 'user' profiles in Google so that I can separate Kootuitui from home and from my base school through which I blog. I have joined a number of communities in Google+ and shared into the Kootuitui site from other sites. I have started using Google calendar, had my first Hangout and have started learning the basics of a Google Site. Finally, Blogger is my first serious attempt at blogging.

I look forward to your comments and feedback.