Pixar's Eight Beliefs That Create a Culture of Passion
Written by Bill Capodagli from i4cp authors on November 8, 2010
Ask most any owner or executive from the corner ma-and-pa newsstand to the Fortune 100 CEO if he or she is committed to creating an innovative product or customer experience and you will hear a resounding "yes!" from all.
Then why is it that there are only a handful of companies that consistently deliver results that even come close to those wacky, northern California filmmakers at Pixar? Think about it. In the past fifteen years, eleven blockbuster hits in a row grossing over $6.5 BILLION and costing less than $1.5 billion to make.
Are those not-so-innovative companies lying when it comes to commitment? In order to answer that question, let's examine the definition of commitment. Commitment is defined as "being bound intellectually or emotionally to a course of action." When it comes to being innovative and creative, the problem is that most executives are only bound intellectually to a course of action.
Most companies go to great lengths to hire the most intellectually gifted employees. Yes, these are the ones who have had a 4.0 GPA since pre-school; the ones who have always followed the rules to the exact letter; the ones who have never taken a semester off to travel to Africa, South America or China; the ones who have never missed one day of school. What is lacking with most of these people is passion. Most would never think of trying something wacky that would break the rules or consider failure as a valuable learning experience. Now I am not suggesting that all super-bright job candidates and employees are boring, myopic, unimaginative people. After all, Pixar co-founders Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith both have PhDs in computer science. Yet just as important, or maybe even more important, was their independence, passion, and persistence to create the first computer-generated animated feature film.
Passion…that's what it takes to create a culture of innovation. All the vision, mission statements and value propositions in the world will not result in an ounce of creative energy without passionate inspired leadership. Fortunately, passion is contagious…it results in an epidemic of creative ideas! Author, E.M. Foster said, "One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested."
So how does Pixar promote passion in the workplace? It all begins with their leadership. The following are eight leadership beliefs that set the course for Pixar's creative culture:
1. Employees must be linked, not ranked. Pixarians are linked together by complimentary skills, not ranked by level of importance. Pixar co-founders Ed Catmull tells us, "When art and technology come together, magical things happen."
2. Creative ideas come from team collaborations, not top-down mandates. Ed Catmull disagrees with many of his counterparts in Hollywood studios who insist that Pixar and Disney have all the "great idea people." It is not about great ideas… it is all about great teams. Ed's belief in his team is evident in his words: "If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they'll screw it up. But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they'll make it work." It is not about one great idea, it is about the thousands of little ideas that come from everyone on the team that go into the final product.
3. Passionate leaders get their power from enabling others to do their work, not telling them how to do their work.
4. Teaching soft skills such as collaboration and improvisation are as important as teaching the hard occupational skills.
5. Innovation demands the ability to live with ambiguity. When you don't have all the information, intuitive decisions are necessary.
6. Spending time trying to avoid failure often results in stagnation. As Pixar University dean Randy Nelson explained, "failure is that negative space around success." Being able to quickly try, fail and try again.
7. Innovative leaders create teams that are highly diversified. Think beyond achieving a balance of gender and race…hire some "wacky" free-thinking creative folks!
8. Passionate innovate leaders make work fun. Disney and Pixar Animation Studios chief creative officer, John Lasseter reflected: "We worked really hard, but we also had so much fun, and it showed up in our work. We'd goof off, we'd laugh, we'd work together, and we'd look at and give feedback on each other's stuff. And the creativity just sort of overflowed." Remember when you take yourself too seriously, life ceases to be fun.
Whether you are a CEO, vice president, frontline manager or team leader, these eight leadership traits will help awaken the passion that lies in all of us. Remember the words of American dancer Martha Graham: "Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion." Awaken your passion for innovation and as John Lasseter stated, "let the creativity overflow."
Learn more about Bill Capodagli and his book Innovate the Pixar Way.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Hi
Thank you for submitting an application to present at the upcoming Early Childhood Council Conference. This is just a note to let you know that you will be advised of the outcome by the end of next week (Friday 28 January). This is a few days later than previously indicated and we apologise for this small delay.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at any time.
Kind regards,
Amy Cook
Marketing & Communications Officer
Early Childhood Council
National Office
PO Box 31672
Lower Hutt 5042
Phone: 04 566 4608
Mobile: 021 782 245
Fax: 04 566 4611
Email: information@ecc.org.nz
www.ecc.org.nz
The Early Childhood Council is the largest representative body of licensed early childhood centres in New Zealand. Our 1000+ member centres are both community-owned and commercially owned, employ more than 7000 staff and care for more than 50,000 children.
Thank you for submitting an application to present at the upcoming Early Childhood Council Conference. This is just a note to let you know that you will be advised of the outcome by the end of next week (Friday 28 January). This is a few days later than previously indicated and we apologise for this small delay.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at any time.
Kind regards,
Amy Cook
Marketing & Communications Officer
Early Childhood Council
National Office
PO Box 31672
Lower Hutt 5042
Phone: 04 566 4608
Mobile: 021 782 245
Fax: 04 566 4611
Email: information@ecc.org.nz
www.ecc.org.nz
The Early Childhood Council is the largest representative body of licensed early childhood centres in New Zealand. Our 1000+ member centres are both community-owned and commercially owned, employ more than 7000 staff and care for more than 50,000 children.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Naketa's Newsletter 31/5/10
This evening we looked at the tools of the 21st Century presentation and discussed
wys we can use these in our teaching and learning practices. There were a number of
ICT's presented with examples of how these tools were used to enhance children's
teaching and learning.
Teachers were asked to document in a letter ways in which they themselves could
take responsibility for strengthening their current use of ICT tools for teaching and
learning. These will be scanned and emailed to you indidvidually and posted out to
you in 6-8 weeks. I have noticed in these letters ways that I can support you and will
make a centre visit shortly to support you with your goals. Please contact me at any
time via email to discuss the support you need to reach your goals.
Ulearn 10
Rachel, Louise, Jes and Maddy have indicated their interest in presenting at Ulearn
10. How very exciting. Abstracts for these are due 20th June 2010, please let me
know if you need support in pulling this together.
Integrating 21st Century
tools into Teaching and
Learning
NEXT GENERATION
31ST MAY 2010
Top 10 Tips at Next
Generation
As an extension of the presentation
about 21st Century teaching and
learning we explored the article
from Edutopis - Ten Top Tips for
teaching with new media. Each
group were given 2 Tips each and
asked to explore ways they were
relavent to Next Generation
Childcare. Below are the findings
from those groups:
Tip 1 - Break the Digital Ice
•Voicethread enable teacher and students to
get better acquainted using visuals and
audio comments
•Can be whole class activity
•Useful for goal setting as can be reflected on
throughout the year
•Interaction with parents and their goals for
their children
•Encourage families to share their weekend
with the centre. Take photos
•Email to us we can record the child's voice
•http://voicethread.com Check it out!
Tip 2 - Find your classroom experts:
•Check out children's knowledge
•Students to survey family members to see
what they know
•Expose our children to our digital media
and encourage them to be experts.
•Make sure we can use the equipment to
support the children.
Tip 3 - Get off to a Good Start and Tip 4 -
Think Globally
•Public web page to inform parents
•Get the children motivated from the start
•Teacher needs to know the equipment well
•Have resources available and ready to go.
•Social networking sites
•Encourage children to initiate their own
sites/pages.
•Collaborate with team members
•Take advantage of distant experts
•E-Pals
•Connect globally with video and schools
internationally
•Find others who share the same interests
•Globally - International families we can
email, skype, get their life stories
•Organised, good start, getting all on board
with community blog page.
•Encourage parents to add
•Teachers upskilling with equipment can
peer tutor parents
•Connect with other kindergartens
•Create a Next Generation Skype account
•Send out how to emails
•Skype Over 2's for settle in stage
•Get together with both centre teacher to
learn off each other.
Tip 5 - Find what You Need
•Using sites like Donorschoose.org to ask for
resources. I think the NZ equivalent is
http://www.donatenz.com/
•Scrapaction.org and Freecycle.org
Tip 6 - Make meaning from Word Clouds
•Wordle.net
•Turns a block of text into a cloud pattern
•Frequent word prominent
•Talk about key vocab in a story
Tip 7 - Work better together
•blogging
•wireless, paper + pens
WHAT NEXT?
• Jes and Maddy to work on abstract for Under 2's presentation for Ulearn10
due 20th June 2010.
• Louise and Rachel to work on abstract for Over 2's presenation at Ulearn10
due 20th June 2010.
• Teachers to work on their individual goals (letters emailed and will be sent
again on 24th July 2010)
• I Can Animate has been installed on Rachels computer. Have a go and see
what you think of it :D
• Transition to School - There was lots of discussion on the workshop evening
about working with schools in the local area to support children's transitions
but also having an evening where we share some ICT technologies with them.
• SKYPE - Tip 4 talks about "Taking it global" we discussed that is was timely for
Next Gen to create a centre Skype account (one for each centre) to start
Skype conversations for transition between centres and also other centres
around NZ and the world. Some Skype addresses you might like to start with
Yendarra Kindergarten teacher Kea (kea.te.rurehe.latu) or Manaia
Kindergarten (manaia.kindergarten) or Fiordland Kindergarten (fiordlandk) or
me (naketaferguson). HAPPY SKYPING!!
• Listening with our Eyes workshop - 30th June 2010 - 6pm - Bayfield Pre
School, Jervois Rd
• Wordle.net - Have a go with this and see what prominent words there are for
your centre blogs. What does this reveal about the content of your blogs?
•sharing ideas
•teamwork
•using tools to communicate
•outside the centre
•skyping with wider community
•GOOGLE DOCS
•sharing of work/home
•teachers as a team
Tip 8 - Open a back channel
•Not all participate
•own interests
•smaller group
•Photo Story 3
•Confidence
•Own action plans
•FUN and NONSENSE
•Communicate in different ways, eye contact,
body language
•time to listen to children and each other
•creating stories/characters
•time to talk chat
Tip 9 - Make it visual and Tip 10 - Use the
buddy system
•Keep us up to date
•Powerful - and more than one dimensional
•Wider network
•Media - we can use and extend on
•Look into different visual resources and
media
•Facebook
•Literacy
•Set Goals
•Keep us challenged
wys we can use these in our teaching and learning practices. There were a number of
ICT's presented with examples of how these tools were used to enhance children's
teaching and learning.
Teachers were asked to document in a letter ways in which they themselves could
take responsibility for strengthening their current use of ICT tools for teaching and
learning. These will be scanned and emailed to you indidvidually and posted out to
you in 6-8 weeks. I have noticed in these letters ways that I can support you and will
make a centre visit shortly to support you with your goals. Please contact me at any
time via email to discuss the support you need to reach your goals.
Ulearn 10
Rachel, Louise, Jes and Maddy have indicated their interest in presenting at Ulearn
10. How very exciting. Abstracts for these are due 20th June 2010, please let me
know if you need support in pulling this together.
Integrating 21st Century
tools into Teaching and
Learning
NEXT GENERATION
31ST MAY 2010
Top 10 Tips at Next
Generation
As an extension of the presentation
about 21st Century teaching and
learning we explored the article
from Edutopis - Ten Top Tips for
teaching with new media. Each
group were given 2 Tips each and
asked to explore ways they were
relavent to Next Generation
Childcare. Below are the findings
from those groups:
Tip 1 - Break the Digital Ice
•Voicethread enable teacher and students to
get better acquainted using visuals and
audio comments
•Can be whole class activity
•Useful for goal setting as can be reflected on
throughout the year
•Interaction with parents and their goals for
their children
•Encourage families to share their weekend
with the centre. Take photos
•Email to us we can record the child's voice
•http://voicethread.com Check it out!
Tip 2 - Find your classroom experts:
•Check out children's knowledge
•Students to survey family members to see
what they know
•Expose our children to our digital media
and encourage them to be experts.
•Make sure we can use the equipment to
support the children.
Tip 3 - Get off to a Good Start and Tip 4 -
Think Globally
•Public web page to inform parents
•Get the children motivated from the start
•Teacher needs to know the equipment well
•Have resources available and ready to go.
•Social networking sites
•Encourage children to initiate their own
sites/pages.
•Collaborate with team members
•Take advantage of distant experts
•E-Pals
•Connect globally with video and schools
internationally
•Find others who share the same interests
•Globally - International families we can
email, skype, get their life stories
•Organised, good start, getting all on board
with community blog page.
•Encourage parents to add
•Teachers upskilling with equipment can
peer tutor parents
•Connect with other kindergartens
•Create a Next Generation Skype account
•Send out how to emails
•Skype Over 2's for settle in stage
•Get together with both centre teacher to
learn off each other.
Tip 5 - Find what You Need
•Using sites like Donorschoose.org to ask for
resources. I think the NZ equivalent is
http://www.donatenz.com/
•Scrapaction.org and Freecycle.org
Tip 6 - Make meaning from Word Clouds
•Wordle.net
•Turns a block of text into a cloud pattern
•Frequent word prominent
•Talk about key vocab in a story
Tip 7 - Work better together
•blogging
•wireless, paper + pens
WHAT NEXT?
• Jes and Maddy to work on abstract for Under 2's presentation for Ulearn10
due 20th June 2010.
• Louise and Rachel to work on abstract for Over 2's presenation at Ulearn10
due 20th June 2010.
• Teachers to work on their individual goals (letters emailed and will be sent
again on 24th July 2010)
• I Can Animate has been installed on Rachels computer. Have a go and see
what you think of it :D
• Transition to School - There was lots of discussion on the workshop evening
about working with schools in the local area to support children's transitions
but also having an evening where we share some ICT technologies with them.
• SKYPE - Tip 4 talks about "Taking it global" we discussed that is was timely for
Next Gen to create a centre Skype account (one for each centre) to start
Skype conversations for transition between centres and also other centres
around NZ and the world. Some Skype addresses you might like to start with
Yendarra Kindergarten teacher Kea (kea.te.rurehe.latu) or Manaia
Kindergarten (manaia.kindergarten) or Fiordland Kindergarten (fiordlandk) or
me (naketaferguson). HAPPY SKYPING!!
• Listening with our Eyes workshop - 30th June 2010 - 6pm - Bayfield Pre
School, Jervois Rd
• Wordle.net - Have a go with this and see what prominent words there are for
your centre blogs. What does this reveal about the content of your blogs?
•sharing ideas
•teamwork
•using tools to communicate
•outside the centre
•skyping with wider community
•GOOGLE DOCS
•sharing of work/home
•teachers as a team
Tip 8 - Open a back channel
•Not all participate
•own interests
•smaller group
•Photo Story 3
•Confidence
•Own action plans
•FUN and NONSENSE
•Communicate in different ways, eye contact,
body language
•time to listen to children and each other
•creating stories/characters
•time to talk chat
Tip 9 - Make it visual and Tip 10 - Use the
buddy system
•Keep us up to date
•Powerful - and more than one dimensional
•Wider network
•Media - we can use and extend on
•Look into different visual resources and
media
•Literacy
•Set Goals
•Keep us challenged
Listening With Our Eyes
Listening with our eyes
We are delighted to have Hanna Faletaupule from Tots Corner join us to share findings from their ECE ICT PL journey.
Listening with our eyes will explore the impact ICT tools has had on pedagogical practices and assessment with young children. This will suit those working with infants and toddlers but is relevant to all teachers.
Where: Bayfield Early Education Centres, Toddlers Room, 272 Jervois Rd, Herne Bay.
Date: Wednesday 30th June 2010
We are delighted to have Hanna Faletaupule from Tots Corner join us to share findings from their ECE ICT PL journey.
Listening with our eyes will explore the impact ICT tools has had on pedagogical practices and assessment with young children. This will suit those working with infants and toddlers but is relevant to all teachers.
Where: Bayfield Early Education Centres, Toddlers Room, 272 Jervois Rd, Herne Bay.
Date: Wednesday 30th June 2010
NewsLetter from Naketa
Kia ora koutou
Welcome to the first edition of News from Naketa. A regular newsletter for the teachers involved in the
CORE Education Mentoring Programmes in Auckland. These newsletters will include a range of
tips, tricks and things I think would be useful to you in your centres. The first term of the year has
gone by so quickly, and while I know that most of you work through the school holidays those of us
that have children in school are very aware that our kids are on holiday! I can hear the "I'm bored"
chanting already. I have made it to all of your centres this term and have enjoyed a mix of centre
visits, workshops, informal conversations and
Currently there are six centres signed up for Mentoring Programmes in Auckland. Details of these
are below:
NEWS FROM NAKETA
TERM ONE: 2010 ISSUE ONE
Pupuke Early Education Centre
20-22 Pupuke Road
Takapuna
AUCKLAND Bayfield Early Education Centre
272 Jervois Road
P O Box 46119
Herne Bay
Natural Steps
75 Ballarat Street
Ellerslie
AUCKLAND
Next Generation Childcare Ltd (Under
2's)
12 Westglade Cres
Birkenhead
AUCKLAND
Kids Domain Early Learning Centre
1 Park Road
Grafton
AUCKLAND
Next Generation Childcare Ltd (Over 2's)
19 Gatman St
Birkenhead
AUCKLAND
Hopefully, throughout the year there will be opportunities to visit eachothers space and enjoy
collobrative workshops together. If your centre is keen to host a workshop on a particular topic -
please feel free to let me know. Congratulations to you all for embarking on this journey, the
content of your Mentoring Programmes is mostly based on the use of ICT to enhance curriculum.
Below is a sample of workshops that have been delivered already.
WORKSHOP
CONTENT
Mac 101 - exploring your Mac
Possibilities workshop - so what can be achieved
with ICT, and what difference does can it make?
Cybersafety - unpacking the safe and responsible
use of ICT.
E-Portfolios - the purpose and hands on
component.
Comic Life - How to workshop.
Digital Storytelling - Using KidPix to create
digital stories
WARM FUZZIES:
Create a jar or cup for each teacher in your
team and have them set up somewhere
permanently. Over the course of a week each
team member to write 'Warm Fuzzies" for
their colleagues. (No matter how big or small).
At the end of each week each teacher takes
their warm fuzzies home for the weekend and
returns the cup empty for the next week
I have for the past 3-4 years enjoyed the awesome luxury of having amazing thought leaders and their content delivered
straight to one central point on my computer. I get PD every day through my Blog Roll because I subscribe to hundreds
of blogs through my Google Reader.
Auckland Centres in Mentoring Programmes:
Natural Steps http://naturalsteps.blogspot.com/
Next Generation Childcare (Over 2's) http://nextgenerationchildcare.blogspot.com/
Next Generation Childcare (Under 2's) http://nextbabiesdailydairy.blogspot.com/
Pupuke Early Education Centre http://pupukeearlyed.blogspot.com/
Bayfield Early Education Centre http://bayfieldeec.blogspot.com/
Other early childhood blogs:
Manaia Kindergarten Blog: http://www.manaiakindergarten.blogspot.com/
Pioneers in blogging in early childhood and have researched for the past 3 years the impact of blogging for creating
community.
Heretaunga Kindergartens: http://hunterparkkindergarten.blogspot.com/
This blog is great for identifying curriculum in their everyday experiences e.g. science, literacy etc.
Inspirational Blog
Wake Up Tiger Blog http://wakeuptiger.blogspot.com
Love this blog! Have some fantastic quotes for life.
Blogs worth checking out!
NAKETA
ON LEAVE
I am on leave from 6th April 2010 and return on 26th
April 2010.
Many of you will already know I'm off to get married and
enjoy a Honeymoon in Bali.
When I return I have workshops scheduled with some of
you and/or either Tania or Sharon (Early Years
facilitators) have arranged to deliver some PD in your
contexts.
I'll be in touch when I return :)
Join the online community http://earlytransitions.ning.com/ to catch up
and converse with other teachers (both early childhood and junior
primary) about the notion of transition.
Welcome to the first edition of News from Naketa. A regular newsletter for the teachers involved in the
CORE Education Mentoring Programmes in Auckland. These newsletters will include a range of
tips, tricks and things I think would be useful to you in your centres. The first term of the year has
gone by so quickly, and while I know that most of you work through the school holidays those of us
that have children in school are very aware that our kids are on holiday! I can hear the "I'm bored"
chanting already. I have made it to all of your centres this term and have enjoyed a mix of centre
visits, workshops, informal conversations and
Currently there are six centres signed up for Mentoring Programmes in Auckland. Details of these
are below:
NEWS FROM NAKETA
TERM ONE: 2010 ISSUE ONE
Pupuke Early Education Centre
20-22 Pupuke Road
Takapuna
AUCKLAND Bayfield Early Education Centre
272 Jervois Road
P O Box 46119
Herne Bay
Natural Steps
75 Ballarat Street
Ellerslie
AUCKLAND
Next Generation Childcare Ltd (Under
2's)
12 Westglade Cres
Birkenhead
AUCKLAND
Kids Domain Early Learning Centre
1 Park Road
Grafton
AUCKLAND
Next Generation Childcare Ltd (Over 2's)
19 Gatman St
Birkenhead
AUCKLAND
Hopefully, throughout the year there will be opportunities to visit eachothers space and enjoy
collobrative workshops together. If your centre is keen to host a workshop on a particular topic -
please feel free to let me know. Congratulations to you all for embarking on this journey, the
content of your Mentoring Programmes is mostly based on the use of ICT to enhance curriculum.
Below is a sample of workshops that have been delivered already.
WORKSHOP
CONTENT
Mac 101 - exploring your Mac
Possibilities workshop - so what can be achieved
with ICT, and what difference does can it make?
Cybersafety - unpacking the safe and responsible
use of ICT.
E-Portfolios - the purpose and hands on
component.
Comic Life - How to workshop.
Digital Storytelling - Using KidPix to create
digital stories
WARM FUZZIES:
Create a jar or cup for each teacher in your
team and have them set up somewhere
permanently. Over the course of a week each
team member to write 'Warm Fuzzies" for
their colleagues. (No matter how big or small).
At the end of each week each teacher takes
their warm fuzzies home for the weekend and
returns the cup empty for the next week
I have for the past 3-4 years enjoyed the awesome luxury of having amazing thought leaders and their content delivered
straight to one central point on my computer. I get PD every day through my Blog Roll because I subscribe to hundreds
of blogs through my Google Reader.
Auckland Centres in Mentoring Programmes:
Natural Steps http://naturalsteps.blogspot.com/
Next Generation Childcare (Over 2's) http://nextgenerationchildcare.blogspot.com/
Next Generation Childcare (Under 2's) http://nextbabiesdailydairy.blogspot.com/
Pupuke Early Education Centre http://pupukeearlyed.blogspot.com/
Bayfield Early Education Centre http://bayfieldeec.blogspot.com/
Other early childhood blogs:
Manaia Kindergarten Blog: http://www.manaiakindergarten.blogspot.com/
Pioneers in blogging in early childhood and have researched for the past 3 years the impact of blogging for creating
community.
Heretaunga Kindergartens: http://hunterparkkindergarten.blogspot.com/
This blog is great for identifying curriculum in their everyday experiences e.g. science, literacy etc.
Inspirational Blog
Wake Up Tiger Blog http://wakeuptiger.blogspot.com
Love this blog! Have some fantastic quotes for life.
Blogs worth checking out!
NAKETA
ON LEAVE
I am on leave from 6th April 2010 and return on 26th
April 2010.
Many of you will already know I'm off to get married and
enjoy a Honeymoon in Bali.
When I return I have workshops scheduled with some of
you and/or either Tania or Sharon (Early Years
facilitators) have arranged to deliver some PD in your
contexts.
I'll be in touch when I return :)
Join the online community http://earlytransitions.ning.com/ to catch up
and converse with other teachers (both early childhood and junior
primary) about the notion of transition.
Letter from Ann Hatherly
16 February 2010
Kia ora ECE ICT PL Colleagues!
Ngā mihi o te Tau Hou!
If you are anything like me, Christmas and New Year seem a very distant past already. However, I hope you were able
to take a relaxing break and have some fun after all the effort finishing off the ECE ICT PL programme.
I am writing to give you an update on what has happened since you completed your Milestone 7 report and ‐ probably
somewhat relieved ‐ pressed that ‘send’ button for the final time.
Writing the final report
Vince Ham, Laura Evans (a research assistant working for CORE) and myself spent the best part of four weeks reading
and synthesising approximately 1400 pages of data generated by the centre reports. From the information gleaned,
we wrote a 110‐page report that was sent to the Ministry of Education. This was structured around three main
headings, ‘Children’s Learning’, ‘Engaging Communities’ and ‘Teacher Learning’. The findings were supported by
numerous examples taken directly from the milestone reports. An appendix in the report contained half‐page
summaries of what each centre investigated and what was found as a result.
Vince and I then presented the essence of the report to a meeting at the National Office of the Ministry on 21st
December. Nick Billowes and Tara Fagan from our team were there in support. In the audience were people from
research, policy and ECE divisions of the MOE. This photo was taken after we presented.
Since then, I have received very positive feedback on the report along the lines of its usefulness to the sector in
general. Pru Drybrugh, who has most recently been responsible for our programme and is holding a copy of the report
in the photo, is very keen to get it on the MOE site as a PDF document. In order for this to happen, there needs to be
some further ‘high end’ editing and tidying up of the layout, both of which I am negotiating at the moment. I will email
you when it is published.
Online exemplars
At the moment it is not clear whether these will end up on the MOE site or the new CORE ECE site (the MOE would
link to them there). The reason for this is the stringent requirements of Government e‐publishing that make putting
them directly on the MOE site quite difficult in their current form. CORE has an editor working on brief scripts to
introduce the videos and on editing some of the written exemplars to make them web‐friendly. I will keep you posted
on these developments.
ECE ICT PL Online
The end of the ECE ICT PL programme means that there is no‐one now being paid to ‘host’ and monitor this site. CORE
is developing a new site for ECE, part of which will be open to everyone and part of which will be ‘subscribe only’.
Some of the material, eg facilitator blog entries, will be transferred to the new site when it is up and running. In the
meantime, we are leaving the old site available to those with ECE ICT PL logins so that you can still access material.
Just be aware please that new items will not be put up and facilitators are not able to address queries and requests as
they did in the past. When the new CORE site is operational we will let you know that we are closing down ECE ICT PL
Online.
Margie Carter article
A couple of weeks before Christmas, I received the final copy of an article written by Margie Carter, who some of you
will remember hearing at the ECE pre‐conference workshop prior to Ulearn last year. The article speaks of her new
view of the place of ICT in ECE as a result of the work she saw generated through our programme. This has been
published in Childcare Exchange in America and will have been distributed very widely across the States. I will attach a
copy of the article for you.
Update on our facilitator team
We have grown from nine to twelve! On February 1st, three PD facilitators from University of Canterbury joined CORE
Education – Jocelyn Wright, Keryn Davis and Justine Mason. This amalgamation of talent gives us a broader base of
expertise across the country as we move into the new user‐pays professional learning environment. Shortly, you will
be receiving a mail out containing information on what we are offering. Information will also be available on the new
ECE area of the existing CORE website (www.core‐ed.net) when that is launched.
Final word
Finally, my heartfelt thanks for all the effort you and your team put into the ECE ICT PL programme over the time it
was running. At times the programme seemed tough I know but then I look at the amazing changes and developments
that you managed to achieve for children and families and I feel confident that, at the end of the day, the NZ tax payer
got a good return on their investment. The work you did will not only live on in your practice ‐ wherever that might be
‐ but also through the report when it becomes available to centres and teacher education providers across the
country.
Warm regards
Ann Hatherly
Early Years Team Leader
CORE‐Education
Kia ora ECE ICT PL Colleagues!
Ngā mihi o te Tau Hou!
If you are anything like me, Christmas and New Year seem a very distant past already. However, I hope you were able
to take a relaxing break and have some fun after all the effort finishing off the ECE ICT PL programme.
I am writing to give you an update on what has happened since you completed your Milestone 7 report and ‐ probably
somewhat relieved ‐ pressed that ‘send’ button for the final time.
Writing the final report
Vince Ham, Laura Evans (a research assistant working for CORE) and myself spent the best part of four weeks reading
and synthesising approximately 1400 pages of data generated by the centre reports. From the information gleaned,
we wrote a 110‐page report that was sent to the Ministry of Education. This was structured around three main
headings, ‘Children’s Learning’, ‘Engaging Communities’ and ‘Teacher Learning’. The findings were supported by
numerous examples taken directly from the milestone reports. An appendix in the report contained half‐page
summaries of what each centre investigated and what was found as a result.
Vince and I then presented the essence of the report to a meeting at the National Office of the Ministry on 21st
December. Nick Billowes and Tara Fagan from our team were there in support. In the audience were people from
research, policy and ECE divisions of the MOE. This photo was taken after we presented.
Since then, I have received very positive feedback on the report along the lines of its usefulness to the sector in
general. Pru Drybrugh, who has most recently been responsible for our programme and is holding a copy of the report
in the photo, is very keen to get it on the MOE site as a PDF document. In order for this to happen, there needs to be
some further ‘high end’ editing and tidying up of the layout, both of which I am negotiating at the moment. I will email
you when it is published.
Online exemplars
At the moment it is not clear whether these will end up on the MOE site or the new CORE ECE site (the MOE would
link to them there). The reason for this is the stringent requirements of Government e‐publishing that make putting
them directly on the MOE site quite difficult in their current form. CORE has an editor working on brief scripts to
introduce the videos and on editing some of the written exemplars to make them web‐friendly. I will keep you posted
on these developments.
ECE ICT PL Online
The end of the ECE ICT PL programme means that there is no‐one now being paid to ‘host’ and monitor this site. CORE
is developing a new site for ECE, part of which will be open to everyone and part of which will be ‘subscribe only’.
Some of the material, eg facilitator blog entries, will be transferred to the new site when it is up and running. In the
meantime, we are leaving the old site available to those with ECE ICT PL logins so that you can still access material.
Just be aware please that new items will not be put up and facilitators are not able to address queries and requests as
they did in the past. When the new CORE site is operational we will let you know that we are closing down ECE ICT PL
Online.
Margie Carter article
A couple of weeks before Christmas, I received the final copy of an article written by Margie Carter, who some of you
will remember hearing at the ECE pre‐conference workshop prior to Ulearn last year. The article speaks of her new
view of the place of ICT in ECE as a result of the work she saw generated through our programme. This has been
published in Childcare Exchange in America and will have been distributed very widely across the States. I will attach a
copy of the article for you.
Update on our facilitator team
We have grown from nine to twelve! On February 1st, three PD facilitators from University of Canterbury joined CORE
Education – Jocelyn Wright, Keryn Davis and Justine Mason. This amalgamation of talent gives us a broader base of
expertise across the country as we move into the new user‐pays professional learning environment. Shortly, you will
be receiving a mail out containing information on what we are offering. Information will also be available on the new
ECE area of the existing CORE website (www.core‐ed.net) when that is launched.
Final word
Finally, my heartfelt thanks for all the effort you and your team put into the ECE ICT PL programme over the time it
was running. At times the programme seemed tough I know but then I look at the amazing changes and developments
that you managed to achieve for children and families and I feel confident that, at the end of the day, the NZ tax payer
got a good return on their investment. The work you did will not only live on in your practice ‐ wherever that might be
‐ but also through the report when it becomes available to centres and teacher education providers across the
country.
Warm regards
Ann Hatherly
Early Years Team Leader
CORE‐Education
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