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