Projects

The Digital Opportunities (2005-2007) programme is a Ministry of Education initiative that replaces the first round of DigiOps projects which started in 2001. DigiOps projects are joint partnerships between the Ministry, ICT-related businesses, and schools. The 13 projects cover a wide range of schools and themes. CORE Education is contracted by the Ministry to evaluate 10 of the DigiOps projects.

The Curriculum Project Online (CMP) and Te Kaupapa Marautanga o Aotearoa (MoA) are part of the New Zealand Curriculum Marautanga project. CORE manages the CMP and MoA websites (which use the Interact platform), and liaises with Ministry of Education facilitators to publish project material and organise related online discussions.

CORE Education organises conferences on Information and Communications Technology in Education (ICT). We have now run many successful educational events and our aim is to build on the growing momentum of the Ministry of Education's ICT PD Clusters project which has made New Zealand a world leader in the successful introduction of ICT for the enhancement of learning at all ages.

The ECE ICT Professional Learning Programme is a national pilot programme for early childhood services initiated by the Ministry of Education and aimed at developing the innovative integration of ICT into teaching and learning and/or administration. CORE Education manages this project and provides professional learning support to centres. Ann Hatherly is the national facilitator team leader and there are six cluster facilitators working in the regions around the country.

CORE Education works in partnership with two economic development agencies on two different pilot Enterprise for Education (E4E) projects. The Enterprise Champions Network is run by Canterbury Development Corporation, and is supported by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE). Development West Coast runs one of four Regional clusters, and is supported by the Ministry and NZTE. CORE Education is contracted by these agencies to work with teachers on enterprising teaching and learning practice within the classroom.

Enhancing Effective Practice in Special Education (EEPiSE) is a Ministry of Education Group Special Education project. CORE is supporting ministry personnel to develop and foster an online community of practice (using the Interact platform) to support geographically-distanced participants of this project.

The e-Learning Fellowships initiative was launched in 2003 by the Ministry of Education. Annually, up to ten teachers in early childhood, primary and secondary sectors are released from the classroom to conduct a one-year e-learning research project. CORE Education provides e-fellows with academic support and mentoring including professional learning workshops for two weeks each term and participation in an online learning community.

CORE Education was commissioned by the New Zealand Ministry of Education to develop the Educational Positioning System (EPS) for teachers to use to self-evaluate their use of ICTs with classes. Just as a GPS (Global Positioning System) is an online tool for finding out where one is geographically, the EPS is an online tool for New Zealand teachers to find out ‘where they are at’ in terms of integrating ICTs for student learning.

eXe provides teachers with a pedagogically sound tool that enables them to author and publish their own high quality educational resources without having to learn the technical intricacies of packaging standards.

eXe is freely available open source software that has been developed in New Zealand since its inception in 2004 as part of the Tertiary Education Commission's e-Learning Collaborative Development Fund (eCDF) initiative.

Key members of the eXe development team have recently joined CORE Education, and will continue to provide ongoing support and development of the product as a part of CORE’s commitment to supporting eLearning approaches that are future-focused and support effective pedagogical practice.

First Films is a four-day digital film-making workshop. The course celebrates the movie-making genre by harnessing students’ creativity and giving them a new media platform to tell their stories.

The ICT PD Clusters project is an initiative of the New Zealand Ministry of Education, outlined in the Digital Horizons – Learning through ICT strategy document 2002-2004 and continued in Enabling the 21st Century Learner, An e-learning Action Plan for Schools 2006-2010.

Under the ICT PD initiative, clusters of schools throughout New Zealand are contracted for up to three years to provide ICT professional development programmes.

CORE Education is contracted to evaluate the Information and Communication Technologies Professional Development (ICT PD) school clusters programme.

The TV2 series Jane and the Dragon has been a huge hit in New Zealand and around the world. The animated adventures centre on a partnership between Jane, a feisty red head, and her giant green dragon. CORE Education has partnered with Weta Productions to develop a website, Knight School (http://www.janeandthedragon.school.nz/), that will be the platform for creative participation by New Zealand students.

KidsCongress™ is a unique award-winning technology and learning conference for 9-12 year olds. Open to all primary schools in New Zealand it’s fast becoming a regular must-do event in the school calendar.

The Pasifika Digital Navigators Project is a collaborative initiative between Core Education and Canterbury Pasifika Ltd, which has been made possible by the NZ Government's Community Partnership Fund.

CORE Education together with leading educational facilitators, Joan Dalton and David Anderson offer school leadership teams the opportunity to transform their school into communities of learning, taking them to the next level with high quality face-to-face workshops and access to a comprehensive and richly-resourced website for professional learning (PLOT).

T4T4T was a Ministry of Education-funded 15-month pilot project undertaken during the 2004 academic year. T4T4T was a web-supported professional development community designed specifically for groups of tertiary teachers working within four Canterbury tertiary institutions.

Recently CORE has been involved in projects where workplace training and development has taken advantage of e-learning initiatives alongside face-to-face experience. These projects and future prospects in this area are explained here.

The Quality Teaching Research and Development in Practice Project (QTR&D) is an exploratory research and development project, funded by the Ministry of Education. This project is intended to support teaching and learning within social studies/tikanga-a-iwi across Maori medium and Samoan bi-lingual/bi-literacy teaching settings. The outcomes of the QTR&D project will inform policy, and future research and development work with teachers in schools.

Learn-Now is an internationally popular online extension and enrichment programme for 7-14 year olds. It is a thematic, cross-curriculum, project-based programme, designed to extend students of any ability.

The KPEC (K-Perak E-Learning Cluster) project was a school-based programme designed to provide professional development for teachers in a cluster of five selected schools in Perak, Malaysia. CORE joined with some of New Zealand's other leading providers of e-learning products and services to form the iNZed (Innovation New Zealand Education) Group which managed the 3-month demonstrator project to build e-learning capability within the schools.

CORE Education in conjunction with the Halal Slaughtermen's Union of New Zealand and the Muslim Association of Canterbury has received funding from the Department of Internal Affairs to determine the level of access to, and skills using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) within the Canterbury Muslim Community and the Halal Slaughtermen nationwide.