Ask the Connected Learning Advisory

By Education Gazette editors

Issue: Volume 95, Number 12

Posted: 4 July 2016

Reference #: 1H9d2d

The Ministry of Education’s Connected Learning Advisory is committed to supporting schools and communities as they plan for, manage and use digital technologies for learning.

This month we look at the Advisory’s strategic thinking roadmap.

Strategic Thinking Roadmap

The Connected Learning Advisory has recently produced the strategic thinking roadmap(external link) to support school leaders to implement a strategic direction that ensures technologies are integrated into a schoolwide drive for effective teaching and learning.

The purpose of this guide is to facilitate the strategic discussions needed to ensure your school, or group of schools, develops a practicable digital technologies action plan. The roadmap is intended:

To support principals and the team leading your strategic discussions around digital technologies
To help those using the e-Learning Planning Framework(external link) or the Māori Medium e-Learning Planning Framework(external link) respond to identified priorities for those leading a Community of Learning that wants to consider the advantages of a community-wide strategy leveraging digital technologies.

The guide starts by highlighting the fundamental conditions underpinning successful planning for learning with digital technologies.

It then considers the eight key strands your school needs to integrate in their strategic thinking.

These strands are shown in the diagram and you can find descriptors of each strand within the roadmap guide:

Intentional leadership
Genuine learning partnerships
Powerful pedagogy
Purposeful curriculum
Expanded teacher capacity
Innovative learning environments
Robust digital infrastructure
Cohesive digital services.

The roadmap then provides various templates to support your discussions and planning. There are videos and instructions on how to use these templates to support the development of your digital technologies action plan. There are also exemplars based on actual school plans.

As you develop your action plan, this guide helps you:

Consolidate your vision and principles for using digital technologies, aligned to wider school thinking
Make an assessment of where your school is currently – consider components, relationships, strengths, barriers, initiatives, and collaborations
Articulate a sense of progression from current to an improved future state
Identify specific goals and actions, and how these will be achieved
Plan to monitor progress and evaluate impact against expectations.

This resource provides a coherent framework so you can confidently plan for effective teaching and learning enabled by digital technology to achieve better outcomes for all your students.

Further support can be obtained by getting in touch with the Connected Learning Advisory.

Contact the Connected Learning Advisory

The Connected Learning Advisory is supporting hundreds of schools, and now also Communities of Learning, as they make strategic decisions related to learning with digital technologies.

If you have a query about integrating technology with teaching and learning, or you want to suggest a topic for this column, contact the Connected Learning Advisory.