PPTA

Notes from the ICT Advisory Committee meeting on 2nd December 2011

Notes of the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association / Te Wehengarua (PPTA) ICT Committee meeting, held in PPTA National Office on December 2, 2011.

To have items added to the agenda of the next meeting or to find out more about any of the items discussed please

Contact the ICT Advisory Committee

Next Meeting Friday 9th March 2012

Topics Discussed

Web.2 advice for teachers
Ultra Fast Broadband. Visit from Marg McCleod Ministry of Education
Access to workplace ICT resources
Professional development in ICT for secondary teachers
ICT workload
Backing up school data
Face Book hate sites
KAMAR/MUSAC and the STAR database.
Composition of the committee

Web.2 advice for teachers

The meeting reviewed the PPTA advice to teachers in the light of some recent comment that concerns about such things as teachers' use of Facebook are overblown. On balance, the committee felt the advice is still relevant and useful. Teachers in New Zeland have lost their jobs as a result of unwise activity on social networks so care is required.

Online safety - advice for teachers

Ultra Fast Broadband: Visit from Marg McCleod Ministry of Education

The establishment of the Network for Learning (N4L) will be a four year process (in contrast to Australia where they tried a simultaneous roll-out which was not successful. All the current services schools receive from the ministry (licensing etc) will continue. The tender for N4L includes a requirement for core sources such as internet access, filtering and firewalls. It is hoped, as well, that data will get cheaper for schools over time. In the interim schools are being advised not to sign up to long-term data agreements. $11 million has been set aside for PLD to help build up the collaborative, blended practice that teachers will need.

Network for Learning (N4L)

Access to workplace ICT resources

It is frustrating for teachers to work in schools where non-teaching network managers may be gatekeeping the ICT hardware, software and pd. If this is really interfering with teaching and learning, the PPTA Branch should call a meeting to discuss the issue and posit solutions. It was noted that one secondary school that reversed a decision to ban student mobile devices found no increase in negative effects as a consequence.

Professional development in ICT for secondary teachers

It was observed that secondary teachers have been slow to develop best practice around ICT - probably because of the time sink of NCEA. Moreover, the requirement for writing in NCEA militates against digital teaching so students actulaly take a step back at secondary. Also, primary schools, being smaller can more easily access shared pd. For secondary teachers there has been a problem with the relevance and appropriateness of the ICTPD provided.

The VLNC encourages professional learning communities and invites everyone to join their relevant professional development community

Virtual Professional Learning & Development (VPLD programme)

ICT workload

The group discussed the issue of workload generated by ICT and concluded that it has also reduced workload in a number of ways (eg hand-written reports) and that the real problem is intensification, over-assessment and managerialism.

Backing up school data

The lesson from the Christchurch earthquake is how vulnerable schools are if they don't have good back up systems. There are range of risks associated with disaster recovery (or business continuance) - for example if only one person has the admin password. Teachers need to back up their own data. The cloud offers some answers for the future. At the next meeting the group will develop some advice for schools on this topic.

Face Book hate sites

Some teachers have been subject to creation of malicious sites in their name. They may illegal if they are defamatory of threatening. PPTA will develop some advice on this topic.