Chromebooks make a difference in Lockdown

Genesis School-Gen Trust making home learning possible 

 Thanks to Genesis School-gen Trust and Genesis customers, even more Manaiakanai learners will be able to continue their learning from home despite the closure of their schools during the lockdown. While most Manaiakalani children have their own learning device to enable learning anywhere, any time, not every family is able to manage this. 

So sincere appreciation to Genesis School-gen Trust for its generous donation of 200 brand new Chromebooks in recognition of this issue. As a result, 200 disadvantaged children remain connected and learning, not only during the lockdown but into the future.

 

Chromebooks purchased by the Genesis School-gen Trust and given out the day before lockdown meant 200 students could stay connected with their teachers and continue their learning. Most importantly, it meant the students didn’t risk falling behind.

 

Find out what it meant to Angelica, one of the recipients of a Chromebook, and hear what it meant to her to be able to keep learning.

Read more here

	200 Chromebooks arriving from  Genesis School-Gen Trust. Willing hands at the ready as staff and students from Pt England School, supported by volunteers from Fusion Networks, prepare to provision and deliver the devices to students across Manaiakalani Schools.

MET Chair speaks to NZCatholic

"Manaiakalani Education Trust chairman Patrick Snedden told Catholic journalists at the recently concluded Australasian Catholic Press Association conference in Auckland that digital learning is “truly transformational”." read more here

Fusion Network's Partnership with Manaiakalani

Fusion Networks continue to expand their partnership with Manaiakalani and share their perspective on their website:

Fusion’s dedicated Education Services Leader Matt Elgar says  ‘clustering’ where schools work together to minimise travel time, share knowledge, and work to agreed standards and processes, leads to Fusion engineers being able to spend more time on-site, resulting in enhanced and proactive services.

“There’s a single point of contact, it’s streamlined, and the processes are completely transferable across schools in the clusters. We take sole responsibility for each site so the buck stops with Fusion. The technology works and we haven’t skipped a beat. Often it’s an even bigger challenge than working with corporate clients, pushing the limits of technology if you can imagine for example 30 kids all going on You Tube at once….”

Supporting wifi to our homes

Manaiakalani has had supportive partnerships with Vector and Auckland Transport in our pursuit of providing wifi free to our learners in their homes

Every so often a project comes along that gives everyone a good feeling. Auckland Transport, with help from Vector, has funded the installation of twenty specially designed street light columns in the Glen Innes area to connect local schools to a Wi Fi network. The aim of the project is to help the Manaiakalani Trust to give local children access to high speed internet via Wi Fi. Whilst internet is readily available in the homes of most New Zealanders the affordability of internet and broadband still puts it out of reach in lower decile areas like Glen Innes.

This article describes more about how the wifi to homes project was implemented.

Manaiakalani Summer blogging

Dr Rachel Williams has been giving media interviews about the success of the summer blogging programme the WFRC has implemented for Manaiakalani children during the holidays.

"Students across 10 [sic] east Auckland schools can read and share their blogs with one another, giving and receiving feedback.
It’s paying off, she said: "We’re seeing incredible gains personally, socially, developmentally, in terms of literacy achievement in both reading and writing".

The full newspaper report is here

Fusion Networks Announces IT Internship Pilot

One of Maniakalani's key partners, Fusion Networks,  recently announced an IT Internship Pilot which it will be undertaking with students from Tamaki College. The programme will allow students to gain practical, hands-on experience in the IT sector, where they can develop skills and competencies which will help them when they enter the workplace.

Click the image below to find out more:

Technology: What's it really doing to our kids? - NZ Herald

A recent article by NZ Herald's science reporter, Jamie Morton, investigates how the increasing prevalence of digital technology is affecting child development.

The article includes comments from Professor Stuart McNaughton, director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre at the University of Auckland's Faculty of Education. Professor McNaughton mentions Manaiakalani and the research into digital devices within education which Manaiakalani and Woolf Fisher have been working on together.

To read the full article, click the image below: