UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND VICE CHANCELLOR'S TOP MAORI & PACIFIC ISLAND SCHOLARSHIP

Te Kahuwhero Alexander-Tui'inukuafe has been awarded the prestigious Vice Chancellor's Top Maori & Pacific Island Scholarship which will pay for her fees and course costs at the University of Auckland. during her studies. Te Kahuwhero is considering studying a Bachelor of Achitecture. She was an e-student this year, studying Level 3 Statistics and Modelling with Tony Jenkins from East Otago High School, an OtagoNet school. (By the way, I am the proud aunt)!!!

AGRICULTURE SCHOLARSHIP

Rix Wihongi (Year 13) and Jimmy Croft (Year 13), both students in the full-time Agriculture Academy who participated in weekly VCs with Andrew Thompson from Telford Polytechnic have been accepted to attend the Certificate course at Telford in 2009, and better still, they have both received a scholarship worth $5000 to cover their fees. Rix and Jimmy have been e-students for two years now. Their achievements wouldn't have been realised without the support of their Agriculture tutor, Bill Dalton and eteacher Andrew Thompson. It was a very proud moment seeing these boys graduate from NC. Rix had just arrived back from a 10 day, fully paid trip to Italy as a Youth Advocate for indigineous people. A great young ambassador. Jimmy Croft with Northland College Principal, John Tapene

HOSPITALITY ACADEMY STUDENTS

These students have been attending a weekly VC with Sue from Mercury Bay Area School (CoroNet Cluster) as part of their full-time hospitality training with their Chef Robbie Nicholas. These students catered for the graduation dinner, of which two were graduates but are thinking about returning next year.
BACK: Andrea Paul, Chef Robbie, Joseph Renata FRONT: Hine Hohepa, Mina Rurehe, Raewyn Veltmeyer, Fontaine Veltmeyer

Graduation Dinner for Year 13 at Northland College

This week I attended the graduation dinner for the Year 13 students at Northland College. It was a very enjoyable evening, but even more so for me as I was able to enjoy the evening as a whanau member, rather than the organiser. My niece was graduating, along with 25 other Year 13 students who had been involved in elearning this year.

Here are three of the students who undertook their Level 3 Statistics studies with Tony Jenkins from East Otago Boys, part of OtagoNet.
LEFT: Trivia Barrett-Howard, Greer Williams, Te Kahuwhero Alexander-Tui'inukuafe

MORE PHOTOGRAPHS

Update for Term 4

Where has the term gone? I just had my last official VC with my accounting students today. It only seemed like a few months ago that I first met with them.

This term has been really busy with lots of school visits. Where have I been:
DARGAVILLE - 30th October - Week 2 - Met David Bargh and Angela Troath at Dargaville High School. I enjoyed the discussion I had with David, 2 hours and then with Angela about the future of FarNet. They are both really enthusiastic and especially enthusuastic about the TAL Programme. (Tech Angel Leadership Programme). They have suggested that their Head Boy for next year work with the students as a mentor, so very encouraging. David was also very interested to hear about the Web 2.0 tools and how I could work with his staff to integrate some of these wonderful tools into their F2F classrooms.

NORTHLAND COLLEGE - I am probably at NC once a week, mainly because I have been working online with their Year 10 Bilungual Class - 10 Tahi as part of my university study. I have been doing some F2F lessons with them. I also have two accounting students from NC in my online class, so I have been trying to push through the work required for preparation for external exams.

OPONONI AREA SCHOOL - I visited Tiere and her new DP - Natasha Sadler just this week. Whilst they are facing some other challenges at the moment, they are both enthusiastic about the TAL programme and integrating some web 2.0 tools in their F2F classes. Natasha has a wealth of knowledge around Te Reo Maori, having come from NZQA, so I am hoping that we can utilise her expertise and experience amongst our teachers in the Far North.

SOME OF THE THINGS I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON:
Study - I am almost at the end of my journey this semester with the two online papers I have been doing through Canterbury University. I can't say that I am happy it has come to an end because it has been the best PD I have ever done around online learning. I have experienced a huge shift in my pedagogical thinking around elearning as a result, and have some ideas I want to share with some of my colleagues about a different model of delivering elearning. For a start, I no longer support the idea of an hour of VC teaching a week, but rather 4 hours of online learning for students with the use of VC, Skype, Adobe Connect to offer support in the form of a tutorial to students. We need to ensure that our online environment is robust and engaging, interactive and student centred and not just a repository portal for us to dump our work for students to look at if they have missed a class. I am thinking about approaching CAM to discuss how we could utilise some of our very experienced and talented e-educators to support our eteachers in their online environments. - GOSH - I hope that I do pass both these papers after all the work I have done.