Raranga Matihiko | Weaving Digital Futures

The Raranga Matihiko programme delivers innovative digital technologies to those with limited digital learning opportunities, while increasing access to national and local exhibitions and collections. Funded by the Ministry of Education Digital Technologies for All Equity Fund, the project is led by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in collaboration with its partners. Current partners are Waitangi Treaty Grounds and Auckland Art Gallery. Past partners have included MTG Hawke's Bay, Auckland Museum and Waikato Museum.In Raranga Matihiko the pedagogy supports learners, teachers and whānau (family) to all be learners. Teachers are supported to build their confidence and knowledge in digital technologies and to integrate this learning throughout the curriculum. Whānau gain knowledge of digital technologies, the rich museum collections and how to support their children. Museum educators facilitate, at the museum, teacher only learning days and teacher and learner learning days with whānau in support. Outreach visits by museum educators to schools, to build on and extend learning opportunities, are also available. The learning of the teachers and the whānau means learning opportunities for learners are maximised long after the actual programme is completed. Students are from 5-14 years of age.A bespoke approachNo single programme is identical. Each class has a bespoke programme plan designed for their learners. This ensures the needs of the learners are met, and provides support to each learner as they develop digital fluency skills in a cross-curricular approach. This includes building students’ understandings of computational thinking, digital citizenship, and literacy.Throughout the programme, students solve real-world problems, while enriching their knowledge of their communities and regions. Through accessing national and local collections, learners can co-create and curate their own learning using digital technologies. The solutions developed will be shared using a range of digital media. Programme StructureThe programme is delivered over three years. In the first year, students, whānau and their teachers spend two days in the museum engaging with a range of digital technologies, inquiry learning and dual-medium delivery. For many students, this is their first experience of museums. Following the museum learning experience, our facilitators visit the students in their classroom to further the learning that occurred in the museum. Each student has 14 hours of face-to-face learning and experiences spread across a 10 week period. In the second and third years of the programme, students, family and teachers have one-day in the museum with the museum facilitators visiting the classroom. In addition, the museum educators, work with leaders to develop an implementation plan to integrate digital technologies across the school.The programme is provided at no cost to the school. Costs covered include teacher learning day, two-day museum learning experience, transport while visiting the museum, facilitation, and technology use.  EvaluationThe Raranga Matihiko | Weaving Digital Futures project has produced some valuable evidence about what learning could look like in this ecosystem in both Māori and English medium. Learners are supported to participate, solve real-world problems and enhance and enrich their identities. They access the rich national and local collections that the network of museums hold in the public trust and co-create and curate their learning using digital technologies. Learning is responsive to locally based contexts and relevant for all learners, their histories and their stories.  The impact of family and community has the greatest impact of anything on the educational outcomes achieved. Wider than the immediate whānau, and in support, there is untapped and rich resource in communities that can support specialised, relevant and exciting learning (for example the child’s marae, local library or museum, community organisations or place of worship etc.). Research also shows that parents and whānau want to support their children’s learning but they need support do this in a way that is evidence-based and has a positive impact on learning outcomes. If not supported in an evidence-based way well-meaning intentions can have a negative impact. The programme builds capability within communities and is transferrable across topics and foci as well as scalable across the country/world.“Raranga Matihiko is a highly effective and responsive learning system. Its success is the result of positive museum-school relationships built over time; collaboration between museums and museum facilitators; quality programme design that integrates digital technologies with local curriculum, taonga, and histories; expert co-facilitation that models Treaty partnership and caters for both Māori and English-medium settings; and proactive removal of equity barriers to school and student participation.” - Dr Melanie Riwai-Couch, Evaluation Associates, Nov. 2020Raranga Matihiko TVTo support student learning from home during Covid-19, the Raranga Matihiko and Te Papa teams were asked to develop a 16 episode series on using digital technologies in learning. The episodes screened on national television during May and June 2020.What our participants say about the programme"As well as developing digital tech skills it gives learners an opportunity to base their learning around their culture, genealogy, history of Māori and to see themselves at the heart of learning" - Northland Teacher"In my family, doing stuff like that was hardly ever done and it was a new experience. The future of technology is changing rapidly, learning how to use it prepares us" - Auckland based student"For inquiry...it clearly showed me that kids can come up with that, with the right tools they can do this themselves. With more opportunities, kids can decide on that without the kaiako [teacher] driving it all...it should be ākonga-driven [learner driven]. It was PD to show me how to give kids the opportunities and set out the tools and let them come up with what they want to do. It really showed how you need to be less controlling of how things run" - Kaiako [teacher] from Northland.https://rarangamatihiko.com/