DFI #6 Getting Connected

 DFI #6 Getting Connected

Connectedness is the state of being joined or linked. 

When I was a child in the 60's I lived in the country and our small rural area was linked in way that would horrify children today. We had a party line! I wonder if you know what I mean? Everyone on our road shared the same phone connection, with each household having a slightly different ring notification - so you knew whether or not you needed to pick up the phone when it rang. Ours was two longs and a short. We ignored everything else. If you wanted to make a call, you had to check that no one else was already talking on the line, and you did this by simply picking up the phone and listening to see if anyone was talking. Sometimes, you heard things that you shouldn't. We were connected, and while it may not have been visible it was certainly audible!

Connectedness is also the feeling of belonging to or having an affinity with a particular person or group. 

When the country was plunged into COVID-Alert Level 4 at relatively short notice we were so grateful as a staff that we belonged to the Te Ara Tuhura Manaiakalni Outreach Programme and were linked to so many people around New Zealand who could support us in delivering distance learning. While we had quite a few children who did not have access to a suitable device at home, from a teaching perspective we had everything that we needed to 'keep calm and carry on'. 

How different it was from the last time that Christchurch school children were forced to stay away from school for their own personal safety following the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. On reflection, our lack of connection to the internet was not really our primary concern back then - it was the lack of connection to power, water, and sewerage systems that caused the most angst! 

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Dorothy described a time in the early days of Manaiakalani when the schools involved were disconnected, even though they were geographically close. Exactly the same could be said in regards to the early days of our own cluster. 

It has been our involvement in the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme that has really forged the connection between our schools. Connected leaners share - and so do connected schools and connected school leaders. 

I enjoyed having the opportunity to work on a Google site with my colleague Lauren who, like me, does not have her own class and therefore does not have the need for a class site. We have taken on the task of creating a site for our upcoming school A and P show. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, Christchurch is unable to have the annual A&P Show so Rāwhiti School is going to have its own show instead, which links nicely to this year's school learning theme of Growing. All of the information about the day - categories to enter, competitions, and events - will be on our site, along with Google entry forms. It took a bit of thinking to work out to include multi-modal aspects, but we are working on including movie clips to inspire creative ideas and instructional 'how-to' videos for whanau working at home on their entries.

We had a lot of decisions to make today, and also had to determine who would do what - so that we weren't both working on the same thing, or deleting each other's efforts! However, we are making progress.