Kuranui is a country school nestled beneath the Kaimai Ranges in a well-resourced and tranquil setting. The Learning Community is based on a shared vision, values and expectations that are articulated and demonstrated through their Kura Kid Culture.  They see learning as a partnership based on respect between all involved, where students develop caring values and are encouraged to make positive choices.

Focus

To develop a shared understanding of Digital citizenship amongst the students and staff of Kuranui School, that encompassed the values and attitudes used at school and home. This will be a planned approach to develop a programme of teaching and learning in conjunction with the goals set by our school within our ICTPD Cluster.

Rationale                                                

In order to address the need of the students in the school and to educate them about cyber safety and use of Web2 tools within classroom, we needed to develop understandings of what digital footprints were, how to behave online and how students could protect themselves on line.  We planned our journey with our facilitator around cyber safety to be delivered at the beginning of the school year, across the whole school. We decided as teachers that we would be able to utilize this and have peer tutors to assist students transitioning through the school. This would also be effective in dealing with new students arriving annually and mid year across the school due to the nature of the farming we live in.

What did we do? 

We collected base information by interviewing students about their knowledge and understanding of digital citizenship across the school. From there we analysed the interviews and assessed knowledge and then planned action steps. Originally it was planned as individual teaching lessons but then through necessity we reflected on the implementation problems due to the school infrastructure and modified the plan to allow access to web links for as many as possible at one time.

What is a global digital

What happened?                                                                                               

Across the school we noticed:

•  Teachers reflected formally and informally about the impact of learning after each teaching session modifying and adapting plans to suit.
• The collaborative approach utilized teacher's individual strengths and knowledge in differing areas.
• The enormous amount of peer tutoring opportunities available by using the whole school approach.
• By using this approach the students received the same message at the same time - everyone knew the rules, had common understandings of expectations and boundaries.
• That the imbedded values that had been developed through Kura kid values across the school played a major part in the successful collaborative group work with the students.
• There were several teachable moments that arose instigated by both the teachers and students. Teachers and parents were seen as fellow travelers in the learning, this was a huge bonus socially and on a community level.
• There was an extremely successful outcome as a result of the sharing of learning with parents. The Police Education Officer also use this opportunity to inform and connect with the community.

What did we learn: 

• There is value to teaching using the whole school approach where the ground work had been done in regards to group work, values teaching and respect for others.
• Good preparation allowed us to be flexible in the teaching and learning.
• The resources used were engaging, required thought, resources were on hand and easily accessed by all teachers.
• Students were able to easily integrate and apply their learning into the classroom, acknowledging change in classroom practice by the teachers e.g. computers rearranged to allow teacher access to all displays on the monitors.
• Students had exposure beyond the classroom and feel prepared to meet a wider world and be cyber safe within it.
• Knowledge and understanding is evident with the whole school community as they are more aware of safety issues and protection mechanisms.

Next steps: 

• Upload PowerPoint to all classroom blogs to ensure it has ongoing accessibility.
• Plan an ongoing approach and cycle of teaching to ensure it is embedded within the school culture and caters to the ever-changing school community.
• Modify the original planned approach to better cater to infrastructure and student needs (this was modified during delivery).
• Review continually due to the rate at which technologies change.

For further planning documents and links go to http://matamatadistrict.wikispaces.com/VLN+School+Stories