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Sunday, April 26, 2020

Authenticity

Authentic: the adjective authentic describes something that is real or genuine and not counterfeit ... something reliable, based on fact, and believable.

Whaea Heather teaches a Year 4-6 bilingual class (Level 2). Each year we have an Anzac Service at the Hornby War Memorial on the school grounds. Last year's service below.
                                                                   

Under lockdown this year, such a service was impossible ... but check out the video link below to see what this year's service looked like ... it was authentic!
Here is a short movie of our google hangout.

I found this learning creation inspiring! Why ... it included all the underlying principles of Learn Create Share, where the learning was
- authentic (culturally responsive practice)
- visible
- connected
- ubiquitous
- empowered
Our pupils were still able to Learn, Create and Share in lockdown without physically being at school. Arabella posted about her great grandfather who was a member of the 28th Maori Battalion and Mikaylah posted about her koro who served in WW11.

Side note: this learning experience was enriched by supporting roles from
- Matua Hector; reading the Ode in te reo Māori
- Arabella's mum sharing about great grandfather
- Whaea Christine our wonderful Resource Teacher of Māori (RTM)
This strengthened the authentic learning context further.

This was possible due to the affordances of the technology and Google Meet/Hangout. This is just another example of the learnings that are arising during Distance Learning. The challenge for us is to ensure we incorporate these learnings into our teaching and learning practices so that we engage and motivate all of our learners when we return to school and face-to-face.

8 comments:

  1. Gary
    Kia ora e hoa.
    What a wonderful wonderful 'Meet' Whāea Heather ran for ANZAC, and well done to those tamariki. Rawe, truly inspiring.

    In 5 weeks we have as a nation come so far, and we must NOT allow ourselves to revert to what we were. Your last comment is our wero, our challenge.. HOW will we do this?
    Ka mau te wehi

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  2. Malo Robin, thanks for commenting. As you and I have discussed, a good starting point will be student voice to help answer our wero.

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  3. Kia ora Gary. I really enjoyed watching this ANZAC memorial and hearing the students share about their relatives who served in the war.
    It seems that many people took time to learn more about the ANZACs this year and our country will be all the richer for this.
    We enjoyed listening to an ANZAC service via the website standatdawn.com
    As you said, let's use these resources when we return to face-to-face learning.

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  4. Kia ora Trish, thank you so much for taking the time to comment. I look forward to HHS and HPS continuing to work together and use the learnings from this pandemic to ensure our learning programmes are authentic and empowering for all of our learners.

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  5. Kia ora Gary, thank you for your post. We enjoyed running the Google Hangout and it was so nice for the tamariki to be able to share 'their stories' to an authentic audience. I know that at a usual ANZAC day service they may not have had the chance to do this and so it was wonderful to use the Google Hangout as a platform and to record the hangout to rewind for those who missed the service.

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    Replies
    1. Kia ora Heather, thanks for commenting! You make a great point about rewindable learning, another affordance of the technology!

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  6. Kia ora koutou, Firstly a big mihi to the Matthews whānau who are always there to support in so many ways. It was a surprising thing for me to see that the connection to our own inside stories and experiences within our whānau were more present and visible in this forum than in our usual commemoration service. This intimate online meet provided a real nest for sharing things close to us. Kia kaha tātou ki te pūmau tonu ki ēnei āhuatanga.

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  7. Kia ora Christine, thank you for taking the time to comment. I loved your comments about connection, inside stories and experiences. How we embed these strategies into our practice when we return from lockdown is going to be one of our driving questions.

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