Gisborne Kindergarten Association strives to create pro-active, digitally aware young learners across rural districts of the North Island of New Zealand. With the help of software donated by Microsoft, its 38 full-time and 30 part-time employees have created a learning narrative pedagogy that enables teachers to easily capture key learning moments, share with parents, and build collaborative learning programs. As a result, teachers are maximising kindergarten face time.
Challenge
With 10 premises across the rural Tairawhiti and Wairoa districts of the east coast of North Island, New Zealand, Gisborne Kindergarten Association is a trailblazer for parent/teacher-child shared learning. “Our goal is to nurture children who are active learners and confident in their thinking,” says David Spraggs, Senior Teacher, Gisborne Kindergarten. “We succeed when our children leave ready to take on the challenges of the modern education environment — and that includes knowing how to use technology as a tool.”
Gisborne Kindergarten is publicly funded, but has to generate revenue to help pay for a fully professional staff. Many children are from isolated and lower socio-economic areas, so not all parents are able or expected to pay kindergarten fees for their children’s attendance. As a result, the kindergartens have limited resources for IT, including the technology teachers use to gather learning evidence in the classroom, and enrich parent-teacher conversations.
“We wanted to capture learning moments and share them with families so we synchronise our efforts,” says Spraggs. “Originally we only had 13 computers, so we didn’t have the resources to equip our 38 full-time employees, our relief teachers and head office. “IT support was also a challenge, because some of our kindergartens are located over an hour’s drive from Gisborne. We wanted the IT tools to compile digital learning conversations in busy kindergartens, and they had to be consistent, cost-effective and easy to maintain.”
Solution
Starting in 2011, Gisborne Kindergarten has accessed Microsoft Office, Windows and other software through the Microsoft Donation Program, facilitated by TechSoup New Zealand. By utilising this program, Gisborne Kindergarten Association was able to reduce software costs by over NZ$1,000 per machine and equip 70 teachers and administrators — something that wouldn’t have been otherwise possible.
“The donation program means every teacher has a device, so our practices aren’t limited by access to technology,” says Spraggs. “Today, all devices use Window 8.1 with Microsoft Office Professional Pro. A uniform fleet is easier for us to support remotely. Also, with updated Microsoft Office teachers will be able to sync their Outlook calendars with smartphones, see when colleagues are free, and share notes in the cloud.”
With one device for every teacher, the kindergartens have developed their own digital tool for reporting all the different types of evidence of learning. Teachers use Microsoft Office PowerPoint to create documents that record the learning moments and experiences of each individual child. These documents are called learning narratives.
“Each learning narrative captures activities in videos, photos or soundbites live in the kindergarten,” says Spraggs. “With up-to-date devices to hand, teachers can easily compile logs of the ‘firsts’ in each child’s development. These learning narratives are shared between teachers and parents and provide a common understanding of what each child is doing, so teachers and parents can jointly assess and plan for the child’s progress.”
Benefits
With the help of up-to-date software, Gisborne Kindergarten Association is bringing innovative and mobile kindergarten practices to remote centres in isolated and lower socio- economic areas of rural New Zealand.
More interactive teaching
For teachers, one of the key benefits of each having their own device is the freedom to spend more time interacting with the children. Today, teachers aren’t competing for time on scarce machines.
“With learning narratives teachers can spontaneously capture significant moments with the use of technology,” says Spraggs. “Our teachers do this in the course of the day, then the learning narratives are ready to share with parents. Now, each centre produces 400-500 learning narrative documents each year using the Microsoft suite.”
Engaging parents in day-to-day learning
According to Spraggs, these learning narratives have proved a game-changer for teacher-parent collaboration. Teachers have the flexibility to share learning narrative updates via email, in print, or live by replaying clips when parents collect their children. By working from a shared log of each child’s progress, it’s proving far easier for teachers to gain parental support for day-to-day learning objectives.
“These days, many parents expect rich media updates about their children,” says Spraggs. “However, with learning narratives – and the ability to easily share them – we’re having more conversations about the relevance of each learning moment.
More confident children
The learning narratives strategy is providing great benefits for the children of Gisborne Kindergarten Association. According to Spraggs, the children are discovering at an early age that technology is not just for play, but can be used to transfer thinking, solve problems and build knowledge with other children.
“In the past knowledge was transferred; now it is built collaboratively. By helping kindergarten children and teachers become co-learners, we are giving young children the best possible start to their schooling.”
About Gisborne Kindergarten Association
Gisborne Kindergarten Association is a community-based not-for-profit organisation that supplies early childhood learning to around 450 children. It employs 38 teachers and 10 kindergaren aides along with relief teachers and administration staff in 10 centres. www.gisbornekindergartens.org.nz
Industry: Education
Customer Size: 70
Software and Services:
Windows 8.1
Microsoft Office Professional Pro