March 21, 2023 • 39 mins
It’s never been more important than ever for school leaders to take an active part in connecting their families and wider community together. Schools are often the main point of contact for people now and Mark and Bex unpack some practical ways we can bring people together. Mark also shares a digital tool he’s started using that can help leaders and teachers get some organisation out of the chaos of their professional and personal lives.
Check out the resources mentioned in this episode:
1. Notion link
2. The Better Mindset Podcast Episode 8
We post every week and would love to have you keep up with us. If you know someone who would get value from these episodes, hit the share button and let them know. Lastly, if you have questions or anything to share with us, email us at team@usingtechnologybetter.com. You can also contact Bex at bex@usingtechnologybetter.com to find out how you can get free PD in your schools (NZ) or follow us on Instagram at @usingtechnologybetter or on youtube.com/@utb
We’d love to hear from you! See you next week.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bex Rose (00:00):
We had one of the coolest community events we had
(00:03):
was actually with you last yearin your influence, because we
had UTB come through our school.
And it was right on the brink ofCOVID and Head of Production all
lined up, ready to go. And thenCOVID hit and all the kids were
all given their part. So it wasreally devastating for the kids.
And then Mr. Mark Herring thisday I himself I wI and South
came and he goes, how about youturn it into, like a movie or a
(00:23):
cinema type screening, so weended up flipping it completely.
And it was amazing. The kidswere buzzing, it was so awesome.
The better mindset podcast.
Mark Herring (00:38):
Welcome to the Better Mindset Podcast. I'm Mark
Herring, and I'm the X rays. Andthis is episode 10. A podcast
where our aim is to help you bebetter school leaders and
teachers and drive effectivedigital change in your schools.
On today's episode, we continueour series on building better
communities with our school. SoBex will unpack some really
practical ways that your schoolcan be a community hub. And I've
(01:01):
got a super practical digitaltool to help us better deal with
the overwhelm of ourprofessional and personal lives.
Our books on making waves today,what we've got is something a
little bit different, I'mactually going to do a little
bit of a combination betweenlooking at a trend and find
trying to talk about somesolutions to that. And then what
(01:21):
we've been doing with thetrainers where they've been
talking about an app, becauseI've got a bit of a solution
that's starting to work for meand starting to reap some
benefits. But the making wavetrend that I want to talk about
is overwhelmed. If you say tomost hitters I know we talk
about this a lot, you know we'retalking about make it better. As
one of our core values. Ourpodcast is called better
mindset. And it's about becomingbetter everyday. So what's that
(01:43):
1% thing that we could be doingbetter for ourselves personally,
professionally in our schools asleaders in our classrooms. So if
you think about the overwhelmthat we're feeling in New
Zealand, at the moment, thereare teacher strikes going on, I
think in a couple of days. So itwould have been last week from
by the time this is published inAustralia, I know that teachers
are really struggling to stay inthe profession, I had a number
(02:04):
of conversations when I was overthe last week, where there are a
number of people thinking aboutleaving, and there's some crazy
percentage in the 60s who werethinking about seeing out the
year and then they're going toleave the profession, that's
really becoming something thatis a real need for us to
address. And so there's not oneanswer to it. It's not about
getting paid more, it's notabout doing less work. One of
(02:26):
the things I know that we'vetalked about is looking at the
types of work that you're doing,and maybe trying to lean into
the things that do give youenergy that I think could be one
piece of the puzzle. But there'sanother piece of the puzzle that
I just wanted to give a littlebit of a slant on and a really
practical thing that I'm doingto help me deal with my
overwhelm. Because it's verysimilar in our space where we're
facilitators, we're trainerswith coaches, we're working with
(02:47):
schools to help them and we arejuggling so many different balls
at one particular time, what Iam going to base this kind of
practical tip, and it's actuallya tool that you can go away and
find if this one works for youjump into it and use it. But if
not, then you can go use adifferent one. But it's based on
this whole idea that my headisn't designed to hold
information. It's designed tocome up with ideas. And so that
(03:09):
that's the basic premise. Youknow, we've talked about that
before, our brain wasn'tdesigned to hold information, it
was designed to come up withstuff, which is a whole nother
conversation when the AI can dothat for us as well. Totally.
But But I was I was in a roomfull of admin and operations
staff managers from largeschools, some of them are small
(03:29):
schools. And I said to them,what's one of the main pain
points for you at the moment.
And the overwhelming feedback Igot from the room, it's about 50
in the room was the fact thatthey are feeling overwhelmed
with numbers of complexity ofapps, and software's and
communication channels andeverything that's happening. So
it was very complex for them. Sowhat I think I'm jumping back
into is the need to have anorganizational tool that pulls
(03:51):
all the threads together intoone place. So if you think of
messages that come in throughyour chat channel, whether it's
teams or Google Chat, when youthink of external emails that
come are coming in when you'rethinking about projects that
you're working on, and thenyou've got and that's just work,
right. So as a teacher leader ina school, you've got all of that
coming professionally. But thenyou've also got your private
(04:13):
finances, you've got maybe ahabit tracking system that
you're trying to develop, whereyou're trying to get into some
some routines and some healthyhabits, you might have some
personal goals if you have them.
My wife and I are working onthose at the moment, we've just
achieved our five year goals,which is pretty cool. And now
we're looking at what our nextfive year goals look like. Those
are just some of the examples ofall of these things that are
(04:34):
washing around in your brainfind it like how do I how do I
pay my bills? You know, whatdoes that look like? How do I
make make sure I trackbirthdays, you know, like Have I
missed my father in law'sbirthday again for the fifth
year role or something likethat. So so what I want is I
want to have one system to beable to put all of those in one
place. And so these are thethings that that tool or that
organization tool needs to have.
Number one, it needs to havesome functionality across
(04:57):
devices. So I'm very much in theApple ecosystem. So I have a,
you know, I have a smartwatchthat connects with my, my phone,
and it connects with an iPad anda laptop, and so on. And I need
that to be cloud based and Ineed whatever I've got at one
particular time, I don't want tohave to go back to my laptop to
get that I want to be able toaccess it on my phone as well.
And I need it to be acrossdevices. So if I'm in a
(05:20):
particular place, I can just login and find it. That's number
one. And these have really goodsearch functionality. So I don't
want to have to remember whatfolder did I keep that in? Where
was that template? How do I keepthat site as one search
function, look for it and findit. I need it to be shareable
with my wife. So particularlywhen I'm talking about my own
personal finances, or mypersonal family goals, those
types of things, the BirthdayCalendar, I want to share that
(05:41):
with with her so that she cantrack that and help us both hold
each other accountable forthings. And then I was thinking,
what's the last one I want? Iactually want some AI and built
into it. Because why would Iwant to go to an external
function to use some of thatartificial intelligence to be
able to do things which I don'tknow about you? How many times
have you used it in the lastthree or four days? Well, would
you say he's about four
Bex Rose (06:04):
minutes ago? Yeah, absolutely streamlines your life
and just makes things easier
Mark Herring (06:11):
and better. And so what I've been doing is I've
been going to open our chat GPGPT and getting it and then
copying and pasting it insomewhere else. I was thinking,
wouldn't it be cool to have thatin one place? So let's and you
know, not just going to Bing andthen exporting it and copying
and pasting and putting it insomewhere else? What about if it
was built in? So that when I'mcoming up with ideas for
Instagram, or I'm developing,you know, ideas for this
(06:31):
podcast, or whatever it is thatI'm doing, it's all hardwired
and built in? So are you readyfor all of that? You're pumped?
Yeah, this is a sponsoredmessage, it would be really
helpful before I tell you, whatI'm going to use a few came up
with the types of things thatyou would like to use, I would
go and use that. Now, before Itell you what I have been using
(06:52):
up until now. And I willcontinue to use it. What I have
been leaning into heavily formost of what I'm talking about
is the Apple Notes app, which isa really nice way to just have
folders and subfolders. You canhave passwords on there. You can
drop images on for taking notes,those types of things. It's
fantastic. It's on all of mydevices that does about three
out of the five things that Iwant it to do. But what Apple
(07:15):
notes doesn't do very well isit's not very functional with
tables and tick boxes in a waythat I want it to be able to do
I want to take it to anotherlevel of complexity. So I want
it to be a slightly betterversion of all of those things.
Plus it doesn't have aI at themoment, or not that I know of I
don't think Apple's leaning intothat. So the app that I've got,
(07:35):
drumroll, please. Yeah, no, thatwas terrible. But the app that
I've jumped into was one callednotion in no t i o n, if you're
listening along, you can Googleit, it's free to use to start
with you can just start anaccount, it's fantastic. If you
want to get the AI function, andthere, you get 15 search terms
or the capability to do 15 aifunctionality, sort of spots
(08:00):
within each page, I think it is.
So I've just signed up. It's $10a month. So for me, it's you
know, I'm thinking that'spretty, pretty affordable, if
it's going to be something thatI'm going to run my life out of.
Now, there are some notion nerdsout there. And it's I used it
three years ago, I started touse it for my To Do lists, I had
my calendar lists on there. AndI would set up different
templates for different thingsthat I had to do each week. And
(08:22):
that was how I ran a lot of myorganization. But notion has
gone to a whole nother levelwith its available templates and
the AI function now. So you canjump onto a page in there hit
the spacebar, and then someideas for some prompts can come
up straight away. So there aresome incredible not only some
incredible AI tools that you canuse, but just a couple of things
(08:44):
that are mentioned for peoplethat they may may prompt them to
go away and have a look. Numberone is the template function. So
down the bottom on the left handcorner, you can go down into
templates. And there arecategories of different types of
templates that you can jump intoone of the ones that I found,
which I love, which is reallygoing to help me manage some of
the projects that I'm workingon. And my role with UCB is the
(09:06):
engineering template, whichsounds weird, like, I'm not an
engineer. But what it does is itformulates a template that where
you can have all theseindividual projects, and then
the project opens up with somereally nicely formulated and you
can customize them, obviously.
But it's got some formulatedsteps that you can go through
some links to external ideas.
And what I'm going to do iswhenever somebody brings me an
(09:28):
idea or asked me a question andsays, you know, hey, we've got a
real need in the school for thistype, of course, or this kind of
program. With my learning leadhat on I can jump into my ideas
template, pump that out, getthat started, get it to an ideas
phase where I think there's somereal legs with that. And then
what I'll do is I'll take thatto the team and I'll and I'll
get the team discerning it andthen getting into some
(09:51):
galvanizing and then pass itoff, which is what I'd love to
do.
Bex Rose (09:55):
Yeah, yeah, that sounds awesome. Do you know what
this this f I'm just thinkingrelinking working doing this,
this is how you combat yourworking frustrations isn't that
Mark Herring (10:04):
well, it's funny because if you think about
notion what it is in thebackend, that's actually a
really super powered Excel form.
And so most of the time when,like, we've talked about this on
the podcast before, enabling andtenacity, like particularly with
the details are my weak points.
So those are my frustrations. SoI don't usually like them. But
notion is a spreadsheet that'ssort of I was gonna say
(10:27):
steroids, but it's more likeit's on growth hormone. So human
growth hormone, so it's, itlooks really nice. So it's
visually really good, you canhave a nice templates, it
doesn't have like the tablesthat are visible most of the
time. But what it does, thatcreates a structure where it's
kind of like training wheels forriding a bike for somebody who's
detail impaired like I am. So Ithink we need
Bex Rose (10:49):
to, we need a beanbag, and every time you do a call
analogy.
Mark Herring (10:56):
Or have a shot of coffee or something like that,
play a drinking game, I putteacher framework around that
Unknown (11:06):
sounds really, really cool. Really cool,
Mark Herring (11:08):
too. But two other things that I've started using
one is the habit template, soyou can go on there. And we'll
have the habits mapped out foreach day. And you can look at it
in different ways, you can seeit as a table with all of the
habits vertically, and then yourtick boxes going across the
days. Or you can see it as onelittle box for the day. So on
the day that I'm working on, youcan just go down and quickly
tick and you can get it on yourphone enough. I've got habits
(11:30):
like you know, having a coldshower and drinking four bottles
of water and those types ofthings. And so when I've
completed that in any particularday, I'm just going to tick that
off. And then you get a wholeview of the whole map. So you
can see all these nice littleblue ticks. You know those types
of things. So that's reallycool. And then the last one,
which I'm actually reallyexcited about. In a previous
episode, we talked about a notetaking tool that you can do with
(11:52):
a book, do you remember wetalked about how you can write
the notes and their margin andthat type of thing? Well, what I
want is a way to be able todigitize that. And to summarize
that in some way, shape, orform. So what I'm thinking about
doing is using the template forthe reading list, and you can
have a book, it's like a littlepanel will open up for each book
that you're reading, there's aprebuilt template in there. And
(12:14):
it's got dropdowns for wantingto read reading finish those
types of things do you then havea link to any external things I
can scan with the you know,there's Apple apps that you can
use in the notes that you canconvert your handwriting into
text and drop those notes ontothat notion template. And then
you can save all of those there.
And then if you've got a readinglist over the years, if you
(12:36):
build up all of those notes, youwould be able to search for
leadership or search for inquirylearning. And then all of the
books that you have collatedover the years with the
different topics would appearfor you. So it's a way of
digitizing your physicalbookshelf on the wall, and a
little app. How does that sound?
Bex Rose (12:55):
This is I so desperate, I've taken it all my
might not have to pick up myphone while you're talking.
Mark Herring (13:02):
Discipline, yeah,
Bex Rose (13:04):
my waiting, oh, this sounds so good. And I love the
way that it tracks, you knowthat all the things that you've
got going on in your head, buton an app, you know, so it's
just taking that the invisibleload, you know what I mean? Like
there's, there's an invisibleload that sits on your
shoulders, and you know thatyou've got to do all these
things. But being able to put itdown and write it out is always
so much better. You just feelyou feel that instant relief of
(13:27):
getting it out of your head andsomewhere else. So this, this
sounds really like a reallypractical way like that you can
overwhelm is something that, youknow, it's not just teachers as
everyone's feeling, you know,it's been, it's been a heck of a
last couple of the years. And Ithink everyone's feeling it now.
So having strategies in place,rather than just sort of like
talking about it and talkingabout and talking about it, like
(13:48):
an actual strategy is so goodmark.
Mark Herring (13:50):
Yeah. And I think the main way that I'm going to
start using it as not onlyhaving a place to be able to
store all of those things, butthey talk about the importance
before you go to bed at night ofbeing able to offload or
download. And so just to be ableto get at my iPad or my phone
before I go into the bedroom, ifyou're one of those people who
has those devices out of yourroom, which they say is quite
(14:11):
good. I'm not quite a bit atthat point, it's on my bedside
table. But to be able to bringyour phone out, go through, tick
off the things that you need todo maybe think about for
tomorrow and then just get themout of your head. And then what
you're doing is you're kind ofexporting that brainpower where
you're holding all of thesethings in your head off to
another device that is backed upsaved on the cloud, it's all
ready to go. It's a crossdevice. Now I can just go back
(14:34):
and I can read a book before Igo to bed and have a bit of
sleep. So how do you
Bex Rose (14:38):
find all these things?
How do you find these, like,really come up with these
because this is what used to dofor me when you came into school
was like be like, Hey, have youtried this, this this? We hear
about them?
Mark Herring (14:49):
Well, I think it's part of my genius area. So it's
about I'm always askingquestions, how can I do this
better and then so you'll searchfor things but and then coming
up with ideas. That's Mike On ajam as well. So wondering
invention, check out one of theprevious episodes on working
genius if you're interested indiving into that, but I think
YouTube is a great suggested forme. So I find it for me it came
(15:13):
up because I was looking at AIagain and looking at the
different things that AI arecoming into. And I know that
notion I had seen somethingpreviously where notion had
adopted an AI functionality. Sothat kind of hooked me. And then
when I when I've seen theadvancement that it's made in
the last couple of years, andthis is probably one last point
that I'll make on making waves.
Social media apps like YouTube,Instagram and Twitter get a
(15:34):
really bad rap at the moment. Idon't know if you've noticed,
but there's a lot out on theuniverse, about how those things
are terrible. And there is asense of, of them being a big
sense of overwhelm. And youknow, particularly for a young
people, you know, the wholecomparison nature and those
types of things. But I love GaryV's interview recently where he
talked about how social mediafor him is a real empowerment.
(15:59):
And he said that you will getout of that tool. Basically, I'm
paraphrasing, he said, you'llget out of social media, how you
use it. So it's like doughnuts,you know, they're good for
parties. They're good for, youknow, for when you want them.
But to have them every day.
Yeah, absolutely. It's gonna beterrible. And you've got to get
the right. Yeah, you've got toget the right kind of face. Yes.
(16:20):
But But what he was saying is hesaid, if you look at my social
media, it's complete sunshine,because of the people that he
follows. He said, it's just,it's just a really positive
tool. And so I use Twitter, andInstagram, and YouTube, those
are probably the three that I goon the most. And the people that
I follow are people that Ifollow, who give me value. So
every time I go to YouTube, I'mseeing things that are hobbies,
(16:41):
I'm seeing things that areadding value productivity,
living minimally, how to youknow how to cope with the
overwhelm. And the same withTwitter. If I'm an on Instagram,
I don't tend to follow peoplewho are posting this is me on
the beach in Hawaii, check outmy abs, I tend to follow people.
Yeah. Or if I do I mute them.
Right. Yeah. So that I don'thave to see them. And so how are
Bex Rose (17:02):
you? Have you muted
Mark Herring (17:05):
your front, your front and privacy. So it's about
using those tools for a waythat's going to give you value
and give you benefit. And forsome of you listening, you may
want to jump into notion andhave a look at that. Or you may
want to find other apps. Butdefinitely if you're somebody
who's struggling with overwhelm,go through your feeds, mute or
unfollow people who are justcreating noise for you. But
(17:29):
definitely find the things thatI kind of give you value and
help you move forward. And Ithink that's one of the pieces
of the puzzle for people.
Bex Rose (17:36):
Great service. Mark, thank you so much.
Mark Herring (17:42):
On today's handy houses, we're going to carry on
with the segment that we'vestarted to do with building
community in your school. And solast week, we looked at social
media and different ways thatyou can use those platforms to
be able to build community, withthe families, the extended
family, the businesses, youknow, the people who live in
your region and grow thoserelationships are big. So you've
got something for us today.
That's going to be talking aboutyour school as a community hub.
(18:04):
I'm excited about this.
Bex Rose (18:08):
Yeah, I'm a firm believer that that schools
should be community hubs wherepeople feel like they can go to
and feel a sense of belonging isas essential to engage the
school community because ithelps build that sense of
belonging and ownership. Andwhen people feel like they have
a stake in the Scott the successof a school, they're more likely
to support it and work to makeit better. And I think this can
(18:31):
lead to a far more positiveschool culture, better student
outcomes, and a more supportivelearning environments so
engaging the school communitycan really help increase. The
parent involvement in researchdoes show that when parents are
actively involved in theirchild's education that leads to
better academic outcomes, andemployee behavior and higher
(18:51):
levels of student engagement. Sowe need to create opportunities
for parents to participate inschool life, such as
volunteering, attending schoolevents, because it can
strengthen that homeschoolpartnership. So we talked about
establishing clear communicationchannels through social media
last week. And so this time, I'mgoing to be talking about sort
(19:12):
of like that real hands on inschool sort of stuff. So we're
gonna start with hostingcommunity events. So host
community events like back toschool nights, we always had
like a back school barbecueinvited the families to come
back in have parent teacherconferences to encourage parents
to and caregivers to visit theschool and meet with the
(19:33):
teachers and whoever their kidsare interacting every day. We
had so many community eventsprobably a little bit overkill
to begin with. And we startedrolling it back because you
could see there was like a dropoff. So initially, there was you
know, lots of people coming andit was kind of like this is a
little bit too much. So we readthe room or have that in kind of
it's in play once and I havenoticed now though, after COVID,
(19:55):
especially a community eventshave been far more well
attended. I can't have that Theother night, we had my son's at
quite a large, IntermediateSchool. And intermediate is kind
of like that point wheresometimes that that community
involvement drops off a littlebit. But we went up to the
family night and they had abouncy castle on food and drinks
(20:16):
and all the things and there wasa lot of people there that
turned up, and I was talking tothe principal. And she said,
Yeah, this is, by far the mostpeople that have showed up to a
community event. So I thinkgiving people to have
opportunities to be back onschool grounds is really
important, especially after thisdisconnect being going through
COVID For the last couple ofyears.
Mark Herring (20:37):
It's funny when you when you think back to our
experience, when we werestudents school, I can't
remember my parents ever comingonto the roads for anything.
Yeah, well, you know, we'redifferent generation, because
we're kind of like 15 yearsapart or something, like I went
to, I went to primary school inthe 80s, basically, and then,
you know, I, I'm not going totell my age. But um, but in
(21:00):
though, in the 80s, pretty muchyour parents dropped you off at
school, if they did, most ofthem say goodbye to you at the
gate, the home gate, because youjumped on the bus. And that was
that was the whole process. Andreally, schools only, they were
only really involved in school,if they went for the first day
or something like that, or itmight have been the end of your
assembly so definitely haschanged. And all of that
societal shift that's happenedover the generations, where, you
(21:23):
know, we're really in the lastplace for a lot of people to
have that connection with, withtheir community is through
school. And so, you know, youdon't have the church
involvement that you used toback in the days, you don't have
the sports club involvement,because people people's lives
are busy. So the school has gota really opportunity, a real
opportunity to do that. Nowhaving that?
Bex Rose (21:43):
I think yeah, no, you're right. It's and I think
maybe that maybe that isreflected like as when you're a
parent, what your parents, youknow, kind of showed you as a
kid, like, my parents reallyeverything, like everything, and
we're, you know, the helpers.
And in my mom was, you know, howI'm teaching is hereditary. My
mom was a teacher as well. So itwas just that they were always
there. But, and I'm thinking to,like, we will host some of the
(22:07):
cool things. We have hosts likeBook, book character days, and
you know, you'd have you know, afew parents show up, but it was
always the same way. You know,like, it's always the same
parents, they show up. But theywould be there no matter what.
So yeah, book character days,were always a really fun one to
host to sort of launch. Ifyou're having a book here that
week, that was always a reallygood one. We had one of the
(22:28):
coolest community events we hadwas actually with you last year
in your influence, because wehad UTP come through our school.
And it was right on the brink ofCOVID. And which I think I've
spoken about this before we hada production all lined up, ready
to go. And then COVID hit andall the kids were all given
their part. So it was reallydevastating for the kids. And
(22:48):
then Mr. Mark Herring, Mr. Ihimself, I wI and South came and
he goes, how about you turn itinto, like a movie or a cinema
type screening. So we ended upflipping it completely. Having
the kids film the whole entireCharlie and the Chocolate
Factory, it was an absolute epicevent. And then once we started
allowing, having people deck onschool grounds, we hosted this
(23:09):
like red carpet Avita. And itwas amazing. The kids were
buzzing, it was so awesome. Soyeah, just coming out with those
outside the box type communityevents, may may get people more
people involved. Another anotheropportunity would be encouraged
parent involvement. So offeropportunities for parents to
feel part of school life. Soencourage parents to volunteer
(23:31):
the classroom come along onfield trips and participate in
school activities likeathletics, or sports events. And
this not only helps build asense of community, but it also
shows students that theirfamilies care about the
education. So I think that's areally important point. I know
that I also know as a very busyworking mom that I don't get to
(23:51):
everything I try to I know thatmy son's got athletics next
week, and I'm away, again, forwork. And so about that, I know
that I'll check in with him. Butyou know, being able to get to
just one is really cool. Youknow, just seeing your kid in
action and showing them that youreally care about the fiscal
life. But I also think that someschools don't also offer that
(24:14):
opportunity. So there's in theend, that really, that's when
you start seeing the Facebookposts, you know, so the school
assemblies are really a reallygood one too. I know that
there's a couple of schools outhere that don't invite the
community to the schoolassemblies. bone of contention
on most Facebook groups youknow, there's some schools
that's vital the phone O N andparents is always set to the
(24:36):
back for the parents and there'sthe principal ways makes a
really a really big effort toinvolve them and get them to
come in and then there's someschools that are like no closed
or not having you in theassembly, what's a weaver in
that and that's when theircompetence or that's when it
just starts cracking a littlebit because they don't feel like
they're invited and they're not,you know, not there and watch
(24:57):
the kid get this to forget them.
Yeah, as soon as we startedopening up for parents coming in
for assemblies, it was just agame changer. They just
absolutely loved it. And that'swhen that whole home, do you
know that the school does this,this and this and that, because
they've been there. They've seenthe assembly they've seen, you
know, celebrating their success.
And that's that's it, word ofmouth stuff that goes out into
the community.
Mark Herring (25:18):
Yeah. Do you think those schools that don't allow
or have a have a guideline whereparents aren't invited to some
of them have Facebook streaminglive so that you can jump on our
Instagram Live? Is thatsomething that you've seen them?
Do? The ones
Bex Rose (25:31):
that have said no, not on school site don't tend to be
the ones that stream it either.
I think, for us, we would streamit and have parents so I'd have
parents watching from theiroffices while they were working.
The the assembly as well ashaving kids on site, I guess
it's yeah, it's down to thevalues and in what their vision
is, and the why behind it. Andit is just to celebrate student
(25:53):
success with the kids in it'sone of those. But yeah, I think
involving parents and schoollife is just a really important
thing. It's the same with havingparents in the classroom, you
know, my students up here andhelp us Yeah. And of course, you
do get the one sometimes thatI've also seen this where they
go, do you know, Billy didn'tfinish his work, because I
(26:15):
wasn't there being a parenthelper, blah, blah, blah. But
you soon weed those ones out.
There's generally just reallywant to help and be part of the
kids school life. So of thoseopportunities. Another
opportunity would be partneringwith community organizations. So
partnering with local communityorganizations, such as
libraries, or museums, ornonprofits to create learning
(26:37):
opportunities outside of theclassroom. So one thing that we
did was that we would bring ourchoir oh my gosh, I would always
burst into tears, and take themto rest homes and things.
Mark Herring (26:49):
I've been involved with schools that have done
that, you know, there was oneschool I knew in Palmerston
North that had a rest home rightnext door. And so they would
have a regular schedule withstudents that would go next door
to read and buddy up with withsome of the some of the reasons,
Bex Rose (27:03):
it's an invaluable resource. These people have got
all the time to listen to kids,you know, like really like, oh,
yeah, hurry up, finish talking,because we've got all this stuff
to do. But these, these peopleknow what life is all about.
They've loved it. And now theyjust want to spend that time.
And I remember going bring yourkids to the restaurant, and my
Nana had just passed away. Andso I went and took these kids,
(27:26):
and they would they sangbeautifully. And all the all the
grandees were just absolutelyloving it. I'm sitting in the
back and bawling my eyes out.
But it was, but it was such anice thing to do, and having a
cadence of those kinds ofopportunities to go and visit
communities. The other one eyewe also did was, whenever we had
some sort of property projectsthat were going on, like we
there was money that came fromthe government after COVID. And
(27:48):
we could do it yeah, like alittle. You could do projects
with that money. And we alwaystender it out to local family
businesses, so that we had, youknow, builders, or electricians
and things like that. And wereally supported those
businesses that were local,rather than the big, big
businesses try and support themas much as we possibly could,
just to show that we appreciatethem, and we appreciate our
(28:10):
community. So you're gettingthem on site and doing a lot of
the work for us. Another onewould be celebrating diversity.
So celebrate the diversebackgrounds and cultures of the
students and families in yourschool community through
cultural events, getting guestspeakers in and, and curriculum
that reflects the diversity ofthe community. So really
acknowledging that, that thecommunity that your school
(28:32):
holds, and we loved hosting thecultural festival with food and
dancing, it was always such ahighlight on our calendar, we
taste all the different food andthe families would absolutely
love it, you know, like ourIndian families would love
cooking or the Indian would justlove lapping it up and sushi and
all the things so that wasalways a really well attended
community event. And thenGrandparents Day that was always
(28:55):
a really favorite, we are veryrelative to that, why they would
come in the inch rows they wouldstart with it would start at
like 130 or they'd start packingup at about 1130 And then they'd
make their way over and theycould see the kids in action at
lunchtime and then we'd have ourstudent leaders out there, you
know, ushering them all in, oh,gosh, now that absolutely loved
(29:15):
the afternoon tea that theycould have at the end with the
kids. And it was always such ahighlight. And I'm we always get
such beautiful feedback fromfrom grandparents that would
come from far away. In fact, wealways made sure that date was
out from the beginning of theyear. So that if the parents or
grandparents were, you know,from all over New Zealand, or
even sometimes overseas, to behonest, they would they would
(29:38):
put their dates around that sothey could attend it. And then
we had we actually had a couplethere was an American student
and so her her grandmothercouldn't attend. So I would just
have a little I just gave herthe mum would come and I gave
her a laptop and she could, youknow, film it with it and we'd
stream it and things like that.
So yeah, so having those thosediverse you Celebrating the
(30:00):
diversity of your school,encouraging feedback is always a
scary thing. But always a reallyimportant thing to do. So
encourage feedback from parentsand community members to
continuously improve thecommunication or events or
initiatives that are going on inthe school. And this can be done
through surveys that we've got abunch of surveys that we can
help you with from UTV to surveyyour community through Google
(30:22):
Forms, or Microsoft forms,suggestion boxes or just open
for us or a Hawaii. In fact, myhusband is attending a moldy
family Hawaii this evening to toget his feedback on what's going
on in the school. So I thoughtthat was really cool that he's
been invited to that. So justmaking sure that they feel like
their voice is heard. And, yes,I've also had forms that have
(30:45):
come back and send surveys thatabsolutely broke me into
smithereens because you thinkthat you've got these awesome
things going on. And it justgets slandered. And sometimes
that happens, and to be fair,it's only like 1% of the school
population that just have a havea bugbear with your or bugbear
with whatever's going on. Butthe 99% of it really love it.
But it's also the feedback thatyou get you haven't even thought
(31:07):
of it that way. You know, that'sa really cool way of thinking.
So getting that feedback fromthe community is really
important just because it's thatkey stakeholder buy in as soon
as they feel like they've hadthe voice that they've been
heard. And that even some changemay occur from that. That's a
really nice way to engage yourcommunity.
Mark Herring (31:26):
Like I think what you're saying is true, too,
when, you know, sometimes youcan be a little bit nervous,
especially in the leadershipspace to open up the opportunity
for feedback, because you neverknow what's going to come back.
But I think if you've got amindset, you know, that better
mindset of, you know, how can wemake this better? How can we
improve what we're doing? I'dmuch rather as a leader know
what's out there? And what kindof feelings people have towards
(31:47):
things and what conversationspeople are having them not know,
you know, that there's nothingworse than trucking along
thinking you're doing a greatjob. And then there are those
carpark conversations as
Bex Rose (31:56):
I was just gonna say, ideas. Yeah, absolutely. That
then eliminates, hopefullyeliminates those car park
conversations because they feellike they've got to, they've got
a channel where they can voicethose opinions rather than just
escalating and snowballing andthe car park with all the with
all the parents. So I thinkthat's a really, really
important one. It is scary, Iunderstand that. But it's
(32:17):
absolutely crucial. And thenways to incorporate authentic
learning projects into schoolsreally can bring community
development as well. So you canidentify community needs. So you
can, these are problems thatstudents can address through
their project. So this could bean environmental or
sustainability. This is a reallya cool way that we incorporate
(32:38):
enviroschools into our school.
So it identifies areas wherestudents can make a difference.
And then yeah, and then thisleads on to involving community
members, so involving communitymembers in the design and
implementation of the project.
So this could be invitingcommunity members to serve as
members or advisors or guestspeakers and providing students
(32:59):
for providing opportunities forstudents to present their
projects to the community. Sohere's his problem. And we've
come up with a way to a solutionfor this through our learning
and class, like how cool isthat, you know, just making it
really authentic and relevant towhat's going on in their own
community. And you can alignthese projects with the
curriculum. So align theprojects with the curriculum to
(33:21):
ensure that students aredeveloping the knowledge and
skills they need to besuccessful. And so it could
involve designing projects thatalign with specific standards or
learning objectives, andproviding opportunities for
students to explore topics thatare meaningful and relevant to
them in greater depth. So we hadon the podcast in episode eight,
we had miles weed from odourskull, and it was all about the
(33:42):
trapping the possums arena. Andthat's an absolutely fantastic
way to get that community by inthat community involvement. It
was really relevant to the kidsbecause on their farms, they had
all these possums that were, youknow, wrecking the wrecking
their properties. So that's,that's a really, you know,
authentic, relevant, engagingcurriculum isn't there that's
involving the community. So itdoes all those things for us. So
(34:06):
yeah, so by implementing thesestrategies, schools can build a
stronger sense of communityengagement and create a
supportive and inclusivelearning environment for
students to learn and grow andhave that really beautiful sense
of community engagement. And howWait, no stop fit was going
nowhere.
Mark Herring (34:27):
Yeah, that's right. One of the one of the
thoughts I've had, you know,when you're a leader organizing
these community events,sometimes the community events
can be an ongoing, you know,becomes an annual thing that you
do. And one of the disconnectsthat I've observed in the
schools that I've been involvedin, not only, you know, as a
consultant now, when we'reworking with schools, but also
something I observed when I wasin school and embedded in the
(34:48):
school as a leader, and as ateacher, sometimes, you need to
make sure that the team at yourschool so your teachers, your
support staff, even yourcaretaker understand the why
behind the community eventbecause it's so easy with the
season that we're in whereteachers are overloaded,
sometimes to ask them, Hey,we're going to have a cultural
festival on this date, and we'regoing to, you know, get you to
(35:09):
come along. And they'rethinking, well, that's like a
Friday night, I'm absolutelyexhausted. No, I've got a whole
day of teaching. Now you'reasking me to do something
external. And I've got supporton Friday as well. I think as a
leader, if you can, make surethat you're reinforcing the why
behind why you're doing it, geteverybody bought in, build that
motivation, have people talkingabout it at a staff meeting, and
(35:30):
give them some practical tipsfor how they can not only take
the why into that event, butthings to do to connect with the
community, and the way that youcan give them those practical
sort of social skills really, asa teacher that sometimes we
think we assume that ourteachers know, that can be the
glue for that event that reallymake it successful. So it's not
(35:50):
just about making sure thatyou've got everything
coordinated, and people doingthe right thing. But who are the
key people on your team who arejust extroverts who have got a
lot of energy, really empowerand enable them to go out there
and start talking to familiesthat they don't know. And, you
know, introducing themselves topeople having a conversation,
connecting families together,you know, something as simple as
that. Being one of thoseteachers who can say, hey,
(36:12):
there's a new family over there,there's a new family over there,
I'm gonna say, Brian, come overhere and have a chat for Sam,
because I know that you guys areboth builders. And so you know,
you say to Sam, you know, Brianis a new builder in the area,
they've just moved in, you know,and then you start the
conversation, and then you justsort of do Homer Simpson into
the heads and you back away.
Like, it sounds so silly, likewe go to teachers college to
learn how to teach. But the roleof a teacher now is so complex
(36:34):
and so involved, but it's not somuch that we want to force it on
people, it's that we have anopportunity to do that. So if
you're listening to this, andyou're thinking as a leader,
yeah, we do a lot of theseactivities, how can I get it's
not that I need to do more, butlet's do less, but do it better.
So who are the people on my teamwho can help be the glue for
(36:55):
those for those activities, andnot just run an event, but do it
really well in a way that Bond'sand gels everybody together? And
think think, you know, you maynot be the right person to be
able to, to do that. But it'sjust about teaching and
empowering and upskilling yourteam to be thinking a little bit
beyond the classroom. So notjust knowing the why but having
(37:17):
the skills to be able to do itreally well. Does that make
sense?
Bex Rose (37:21):
Absolutely. Great chat.
Mark Herring (37:25):
Alright, Episode 10 wraps up next.
Bex Rose (37:28):
All right. So community engagement can be
something that may feel hardwork, but it's absolutely worth
the time and effort. So whenpeople feel like they've got a
voice or a place in thecommunity, it'll foster their
sense of belonging andownership. I also think Mike's
comments about really findingthe opportunities to utilize
your staff geniuses or skillsets to enhance the
(37:49):
relationships between family andschool life is a great way to
also involve the staff, whichwill also enhance that sense of
belonging for them too. Andthat's that culture building
stuff. So it's a three prongapproach. They're also
overwhelmed as a widely spokenabout feeling right now. So
please be able to being able tofind strategies and ways to
(38:10):
combat this is imperative. Sotalking about it is the first
step, but finding ways to dealwith it is the next one that we
have to take. So having tools tosupport your well being that can
keep you accountable to yourgoals and actions will
automatically make you feelbetter as you're making tracks
or being better. So I'm totallygonna go and download notes and
straight after we finish uphere.
Mark Herring (38:31):
Cool. And so if you know somebody who's dealing
with that overwhelm, or couldreally get benefit from just
being a little bit moreorganized, absolutely let them
know about this episode, shareit with them, hit the share
button, text it to them, oremail it to them, or if you know
your team, if you think yourstaff and your team would get
value from this, definitelyshare that with them at school.
(38:52):
If you're after some of thelinks to the resources like
notion or anything else thatwe've mentioned today, have a
look on the show notes and makesure that you're subscribed
because these episodes landevery Wednesday, or as much as
we did. Lastly, if you've gotany questions or anything to
share with us, email us at teamat Using Technology Better, we'd
love to hear from you. We'd loveto work with you. Let us know if
there's anything we can do tosupport you for your digital
(39:14):
learning needs in your school.
And we'll see you next week.
We had one of the coolest community events we had
(00:03):
was actually with you last yearin your influence, because we
had UTB come through our school.
And it was right on the brink ofCOVID and Head of Production all
lined up, ready to go. And thenCOVID hit and all the kids were
all given their part. So it wasreally devastating for the kids.
And then Mr. Mark Herring thisday I himself I wI and South
came and he goes, how about youturn it into, like a movie or a
(00:23):
cinema type screening, so weended up flipping it completely.
And it was amazing. The kidswere buzzing, it was so awesome.
The better mindset podcast.
Mark Herring (00:38):
Welcome to the Better Mindset Podcast. I'm Mark
Herring, and I'm the X rays. Andthis is episode 10. A podcast
where our aim is to help you bebetter school leaders and
teachers and drive effectivedigital change in your schools.
On today's episode, we continueour series on building better
communities with our school. SoBex will unpack some really
practical ways that your schoolcan be a community hub. And I've
(01:01):
got a super practical digitaltool to help us better deal with
the overwhelm of ourprofessional and personal lives.
Our books on making waves today,what we've got is something a
little bit different, I'mactually going to do a little
bit of a combination betweenlooking at a trend and find
trying to talk about somesolutions to that. And then what
(01:21):
we've been doing with thetrainers where they've been
talking about an app, becauseI've got a bit of a solution
that's starting to work for meand starting to reap some
benefits. But the making wavetrend that I want to talk about
is overwhelmed. If you say tomost hitters I know we talk
about this a lot, you know we'retalking about make it better. As
one of our core values. Ourpodcast is called better
mindset. And it's about becomingbetter everyday. So what's that
(01:43):
1% thing that we could be doingbetter for ourselves personally,
professionally in our schools asleaders in our classrooms. So if
you think about the overwhelmthat we're feeling in New
Zealand, at the moment, thereare teacher strikes going on, I
think in a couple of days. So itwould have been last week from
by the time this is published inAustralia, I know that teachers
are really struggling to stay inthe profession, I had a number
(02:04):
of conversations when I was overthe last week, where there are a
number of people thinking aboutleaving, and there's some crazy
percentage in the 60s who werethinking about seeing out the
year and then they're going toleave the profession, that's
really becoming something thatis a real need for us to
address. And so there's not oneanswer to it. It's not about
getting paid more, it's notabout doing less work. One of
(02:26):
the things I know that we'vetalked about is looking at the
types of work that you're doing,and maybe trying to lean into
the things that do give youenergy that I think could be one
piece of the puzzle. But there'sanother piece of the puzzle that
I just wanted to give a littlebit of a slant on and a really
practical thing that I'm doingto help me deal with my
overwhelm. Because it's verysimilar in our space where we're
facilitators, we're trainerswith coaches, we're working with
(02:47):
schools to help them and we arejuggling so many different balls
at one particular time, what Iam going to base this kind of
practical tip, and it's actuallya tool that you can go away and
find if this one works for youjump into it and use it. But if
not, then you can go use adifferent one. But it's based on
this whole idea that my headisn't designed to hold
information. It's designed tocome up with ideas. And so that
(03:09):
that's the basic premise. Youknow, we've talked about that
before, our brain wasn'tdesigned to hold information, it
was designed to come up withstuff, which is a whole nother
conversation when the AI can dothat for us as well. Totally.
But But I was I was in a roomfull of admin and operations
staff managers from largeschools, some of them are small
(03:29):
schools. And I said to them,what's one of the main pain
points for you at the moment.
And the overwhelming feedback Igot from the room, it's about 50
in the room was the fact thatthey are feeling overwhelmed
with numbers of complexity ofapps, and software's and
communication channels andeverything that's happening. So
it was very complex for them. Sowhat I think I'm jumping back
into is the need to have anorganizational tool that pulls
(03:51):
all the threads together intoone place. So if you think of
messages that come in throughyour chat channel, whether it's
teams or Google Chat, when youthink of external emails that
come are coming in when you'rethinking about projects that
you're working on, and thenyou've got and that's just work,
right. So as a teacher leader ina school, you've got all of that
coming professionally. But thenyou've also got your private
(04:13):
finances, you've got maybe ahabit tracking system that
you're trying to develop, whereyou're trying to get into some
some routines and some healthyhabits, you might have some
personal goals if you have them.
My wife and I are working onthose at the moment, we've just
achieved our five year goals,which is pretty cool. And now
we're looking at what our nextfive year goals look like. Those
are just some of the examples ofall of these things that are
(04:34):
washing around in your brainfind it like how do I how do I
pay my bills? You know, whatdoes that look like? How do I
make make sure I trackbirthdays, you know, like Have I
missed my father in law'sbirthday again for the fifth
year role or something likethat. So so what I want is I
want to have one system to beable to put all of those in one
place. And so these are thethings that that tool or that
organization tool needs to have.
Number one, it needs to havesome functionality across
(04:57):
devices. So I'm very much in theApple ecosystem. So I have a,
you know, I have a smartwatchthat connects with my, my phone,
and it connects with an iPad anda laptop, and so on. And I need
that to be cloud based and Ineed whatever I've got at one
particular time, I don't want tohave to go back to my laptop to
get that I want to be able toaccess it on my phone as well.
And I need it to be acrossdevices. So if I'm in a
(05:20):
particular place, I can just login and find it. That's number
one. And these have really goodsearch functionality. So I don't
want to have to remember whatfolder did I keep that in? Where
was that template? How do I keepthat site as one search
function, look for it and findit. I need it to be shareable
with my wife. So particularlywhen I'm talking about my own
personal finances, or mypersonal family goals, those
types of things, the BirthdayCalendar, I want to share that
(05:41):
with with her so that she cantrack that and help us both hold
each other accountable forthings. And then I was thinking,
what's the last one I want? Iactually want some AI and built
into it. Because why would Iwant to go to an external
function to use some of thatartificial intelligence to be
able to do things which I don'tknow about you? How many times
have you used it in the lastthree or four days? Well, would
you say he's about four
Bex Rose (06:04):
minutes ago? Yeah, absolutely streamlines your life
and just makes things easier
Mark Herring (06:11):
and better. And so what I've been doing is I've
been going to open our chat GPGPT and getting it and then
copying and pasting it insomewhere else. I was thinking,
wouldn't it be cool to have thatin one place? So let's and you
know, not just going to Bing andthen exporting it and copying
and pasting and putting it insomewhere else? What about if it
was built in? So that when I'mcoming up with ideas for
Instagram, or I'm developing,you know, ideas for this
(06:31):
podcast, or whatever it is thatI'm doing, it's all hardwired
and built in? So are you readyfor all of that? You're pumped?
Yeah, this is a sponsoredmessage, it would be really
helpful before I tell you, whatI'm going to use a few came up
with the types of things thatyou would like to use, I would
go and use that. Now, before Itell you what I have been using
(06:52):
up until now. And I willcontinue to use it. What I have
been leaning into heavily formost of what I'm talking about
is the Apple Notes app, which isa really nice way to just have
folders and subfolders. You canhave passwords on there. You can
drop images on for taking notes,those types of things. It's
fantastic. It's on all of mydevices that does about three
out of the five things that Iwant it to do. But what Apple
(07:15):
notes doesn't do very well isit's not very functional with
tables and tick boxes in a waythat I want it to be able to do
I want to take it to anotherlevel of complexity. So I want
it to be a slightly betterversion of all of those things.
Plus it doesn't have aI at themoment, or not that I know of I
don't think Apple's leaning intothat. So the app that I've got,
(07:35):
drumroll, please. Yeah, no, thatwas terrible. But the app that
I've jumped into was one callednotion in no t i o n, if you're
listening along, you can Googleit, it's free to use to start
with you can just start anaccount, it's fantastic. If you
want to get the AI function, andthere, you get 15 search terms
or the capability to do 15 aifunctionality, sort of spots
(08:00):
within each page, I think it is.
So I've just signed up. It's $10a month. So for me, it's you
know, I'm thinking that'spretty, pretty affordable, if
it's going to be something thatI'm going to run my life out of.
Now, there are some notion nerdsout there. And it's I used it
three years ago, I started touse it for my To Do lists, I had
my calendar lists on there. AndI would set up different
templates for different thingsthat I had to do each week. And
(08:22):
that was how I ran a lot of myorganization. But notion has
gone to a whole nother levelwith its available templates and
the AI function now. So you canjump onto a page in there hit
the spacebar, and then someideas for some prompts can come
up straight away. So there aresome incredible not only some
incredible AI tools that you canuse, but just a couple of things
(08:44):
that are mentioned for peoplethat they may may prompt them to
go away and have a look. Numberone is the template function. So
down the bottom on the left handcorner, you can go down into
templates. And there arecategories of different types of
templates that you can jump intoone of the ones that I found,
which I love, which is reallygoing to help me manage some of
the projects that I'm workingon. And my role with UCB is the
(09:06):
engineering template, whichsounds weird, like, I'm not an
engineer. But what it does is itformulates a template that where
you can have all theseindividual projects, and then
the project opens up with somereally nicely formulated and you
can customize them, obviously.
But it's got some formulatedsteps that you can go through
some links to external ideas.
And what I'm going to do iswhenever somebody brings me an
(09:28):
idea or asked me a question andsays, you know, hey, we've got a
real need in the school for thistype, of course, or this kind of
program. With my learning leadhat on I can jump into my ideas
template, pump that out, getthat started, get it to an ideas
phase where I think there's somereal legs with that. And then
what I'll do is I'll take thatto the team and I'll and I'll
get the team discerning it andthen getting into some
(09:51):
galvanizing and then pass itoff, which is what I'd love to
do.
Bex Rose (09:55):
Yeah, yeah, that sounds awesome. Do you know what
this this f I'm just thinkingrelinking working doing this,
this is how you combat yourworking frustrations isn't that
Mark Herring (10:04):
well, it's funny because if you think about
notion what it is in thebackend, that's actually a
really super powered Excel form.
And so most of the time when,like, we've talked about this on
the podcast before, enabling andtenacity, like particularly with
the details are my weak points.
So those are my frustrations. SoI don't usually like them. But
notion is a spreadsheet that'ssort of I was gonna say
(10:27):
steroids, but it's more likeit's on growth hormone. So human
growth hormone, so it's, itlooks really nice. So it's
visually really good, you canhave a nice templates, it
doesn't have like the tablesthat are visible most of the
time. But what it does, thatcreates a structure where it's
kind of like training wheels forriding a bike for somebody who's
detail impaired like I am. So Ithink we need
Bex Rose (10:49):
to, we need a beanbag, and every time you do a call
analogy.
Mark Herring (10:56):
Or have a shot of coffee or something like that,
play a drinking game, I putteacher framework around that
Unknown (11:06):
sounds really, really cool. Really cool,
Mark Herring (11:08):
too. But two other things that I've started using
one is the habit template, soyou can go on there. And we'll
have the habits mapped out foreach day. And you can look at it
in different ways, you can seeit as a table with all of the
habits vertically, and then yourtick boxes going across the
days. Or you can see it as onelittle box for the day. So on
the day that I'm working on, youcan just go down and quickly
tick and you can get it on yourphone enough. I've got habits
(11:30):
like you know, having a coldshower and drinking four bottles
of water and those types ofthings. And so when I've
completed that in any particularday, I'm just going to tick that
off. And then you get a wholeview of the whole map. So you
can see all these nice littleblue ticks. You know those types
of things. So that's reallycool. And then the last one,
which I'm actually reallyexcited about. In a previous
episode, we talked about a notetaking tool that you can do with
(11:52):
a book, do you remember wetalked about how you can write
the notes and their margin andthat type of thing? Well, what I
want is a way to be able todigitize that. And to summarize
that in some way, shape, orform. So what I'm thinking about
doing is using the template forthe reading list, and you can
have a book, it's like a littlepanel will open up for each book
that you're reading, there's aprebuilt template in there. And
(12:14):
it's got dropdowns for wantingto read reading finish those
types of things do you then havea link to any external things I
can scan with the you know,there's Apple apps that you can
use in the notes that you canconvert your handwriting into
text and drop those notes ontothat notion template. And then
you can save all of those there.
And then if you've got a readinglist over the years, if you
(12:36):
build up all of those notes, youwould be able to search for
leadership or search for inquirylearning. And then all of the
books that you have collatedover the years with the
different topics would appearfor you. So it's a way of
digitizing your physicalbookshelf on the wall, and a
little app. How does that sound?
Bex Rose (12:55):
This is I so desperate, I've taken it all my
might not have to pick up myphone while you're talking.
Mark Herring (13:02):
Discipline, yeah,
Bex Rose (13:04):
my waiting, oh, this sounds so good. And I love the
way that it tracks, you knowthat all the things that you've
got going on in your head, buton an app, you know, so it's
just taking that the invisibleload, you know what I mean? Like
there's, there's an invisibleload that sits on your
shoulders, and you know thatyou've got to do all these
things. But being able to put itdown and write it out is always
so much better. You just feelyou feel that instant relief of
(13:27):
getting it out of your head andsomewhere else. So this, this
sounds really like a reallypractical way like that you can
overwhelm is something that, youknow, it's not just teachers as
everyone's feeling, you know,it's been, it's been a heck of a
last couple of the years. And Ithink everyone's feeling it now.
So having strategies in place,rather than just sort of like
talking about it and talkingabout and talking about it, like
(13:48):
an actual strategy is so goodmark.
Mark Herring (13:50):
Yeah. And I think the main way that I'm going to
start using it as not onlyhaving a place to be able to
store all of those things, butthey talk about the importance
before you go to bed at night ofbeing able to offload or
download. And so just to be ableto get at my iPad or my phone
before I go into the bedroom, ifyou're one of those people who
has those devices out of yourroom, which they say is quite
(14:11):
good. I'm not quite a bit atthat point, it's on my bedside
table. But to be able to bringyour phone out, go through, tick
off the things that you need todo maybe think about for
tomorrow and then just get themout of your head. And then what
you're doing is you're kind ofexporting that brainpower where
you're holding all of thesethings in your head off to
another device that is backed upsaved on the cloud, it's all
ready to go. It's a crossdevice. Now I can just go back
(14:34):
and I can read a book before Igo to bed and have a bit of
sleep. So how do you
Bex Rose (14:38):
find all these things?
How do you find these, like,really come up with these
because this is what used to dofor me when you came into school
was like be like, Hey, have youtried this, this this? We hear
about them?
Mark Herring (14:49):
Well, I think it's part of my genius area. So it's
about I'm always askingquestions, how can I do this
better and then so you'll searchfor things but and then coming
up with ideas. That's Mike On ajam as well. So wondering
invention, check out one of theprevious episodes on working
genius if you're interested indiving into that, but I think
YouTube is a great suggested forme. So I find it for me it came
(15:13):
up because I was looking at AIagain and looking at the
different things that AI arecoming into. And I know that
notion I had seen somethingpreviously where notion had
adopted an AI functionality. Sothat kind of hooked me. And then
when I when I've seen theadvancement that it's made in
the last couple of years, andthis is probably one last point
that I'll make on making waves.
Social media apps like YouTube,Instagram and Twitter get a
(15:34):
really bad rap at the moment. Idon't know if you've noticed,
but there's a lot out on theuniverse, about how those things
are terrible. And there is asense of, of them being a big
sense of overwhelm. And youknow, particularly for a young
people, you know, the wholecomparison nature and those
types of things. But I love GaryV's interview recently where he
talked about how social mediafor him is a real empowerment.
(15:59):
And he said that you will getout of that tool. Basically, I'm
paraphrasing, he said, you'llget out of social media, how you
use it. So it's like doughnuts,you know, they're good for
parties. They're good for, youknow, for when you want them.
But to have them every day.
Yeah, absolutely. It's gonna beterrible. And you've got to get
the right. Yeah, you've got toget the right kind of face. Yes.
(16:20):
But But what he was saying is hesaid, if you look at my social
media, it's complete sunshine,because of the people that he
follows. He said, it's just,it's just a really positive
tool. And so I use Twitter, andInstagram, and YouTube, those
are probably the three that I goon the most. And the people that
I follow are people that Ifollow, who give me value. So
every time I go to YouTube, I'mseeing things that are hobbies,
(16:41):
I'm seeing things that areadding value productivity,
living minimally, how to youknow how to cope with the
overwhelm. And the same withTwitter. If I'm an on Instagram,
I don't tend to follow peoplewho are posting this is me on
the beach in Hawaii, check outmy abs, I tend to follow people.
Yeah. Or if I do I mute them.
Right. Yeah. So that I don'thave to see them. And so how are
Bex Rose (17:02):
you? Have you muted
Mark Herring (17:05):
your front, your front and privacy. So it's about
using those tools for a waythat's going to give you value
and give you benefit. And forsome of you listening, you may
want to jump into notion andhave a look at that. Or you may
want to find other apps. Butdefinitely if you're somebody
who's struggling with overwhelm,go through your feeds, mute or
unfollow people who are justcreating noise for you. But
(17:29):
definitely find the things thatI kind of give you value and
help you move forward. And Ithink that's one of the pieces
of the puzzle for people.
Bex Rose (17:36):
Great service. Mark, thank you so much.
Mark Herring (17:42):
On today's handy houses, we're going to carry on
with the segment that we'vestarted to do with building
community in your school. And solast week, we looked at social
media and different ways thatyou can use those platforms to
be able to build community, withthe families, the extended
family, the businesses, youknow, the people who live in
your region and grow thoserelationships are big. So you've
got something for us today.
That's going to be talking aboutyour school as a community hub.
(18:04):
I'm excited about this.
Bex Rose (18:08):
Yeah, I'm a firm believer that that schools
should be community hubs wherepeople feel like they can go to
and feel a sense of belonging isas essential to engage the
school community because ithelps build that sense of
belonging and ownership. Andwhen people feel like they have
a stake in the Scott the successof a school, they're more likely
to support it and work to makeit better. And I think this can
(18:31):
lead to a far more positiveschool culture, better student
outcomes, and a more supportivelearning environments so
engaging the school communitycan really help increase. The
parent involvement in researchdoes show that when parents are
actively involved in theirchild's education that leads to
better academic outcomes, andemployee behavior and higher
(18:51):
levels of student engagement. Sowe need to create opportunities
for parents to participate inschool life, such as
volunteering, attending schoolevents, because it can
strengthen that homeschoolpartnership. So we talked about
establishing clear communicationchannels through social media
last week. And so this time, I'mgoing to be talking about sort
(19:12):
of like that real hands on inschool sort of stuff. So we're
gonna start with hostingcommunity events. So host
community events like back toschool nights, we always had
like a back school barbecueinvited the families to come
back in have parent teacherconferences to encourage parents
to and caregivers to visit theschool and meet with the
(19:33):
teachers and whoever their kidsare interacting every day. We
had so many community eventsprobably a little bit overkill
to begin with. And we startedrolling it back because you
could see there was like a dropoff. So initially, there was you
know, lots of people coming andit was kind of like this is a
little bit too much. So we readthe room or have that in kind of
it's in play once and I havenoticed now though, after COVID,
(19:55):
especially a community eventshave been far more well
attended. I can't have that Theother night, we had my son's at
quite a large, IntermediateSchool. And intermediate is kind
of like that point wheresometimes that that community
involvement drops off a littlebit. But we went up to the
family night and they had abouncy castle on food and drinks
(20:16):
and all the things and there wasa lot of people there that
turned up, and I was talking tothe principal. And she said,
Yeah, this is, by far the mostpeople that have showed up to a
community event. So I thinkgiving people to have
opportunities to be back onschool grounds is really
important, especially after thisdisconnect being going through
COVID For the last couple ofyears.
Mark Herring (20:37):
It's funny when you when you think back to our
experience, when we werestudents school, I can't
remember my parents ever comingonto the roads for anything.
Yeah, well, you know, we'redifferent generation, because
we're kind of like 15 yearsapart or something, like I went
to, I went to primary school inthe 80s, basically, and then,
you know, I, I'm not going totell my age. But um, but in
(21:00):
though, in the 80s, pretty muchyour parents dropped you off at
school, if they did, most ofthem say goodbye to you at the
gate, the home gate, because youjumped on the bus. And that was
that was the whole process. Andreally, schools only, they were
only really involved in school,if they went for the first day
or something like that, or itmight have been the end of your
assembly so definitely haschanged. And all of that
societal shift that's happenedover the generations, where, you
(21:23):
know, we're really in the lastplace for a lot of people to
have that connection with, withtheir community is through
school. And so, you know, youdon't have the church
involvement that you used toback in the days, you don't have
the sports club involvement,because people people's lives
are busy. So the school has gota really opportunity, a real
opportunity to do that. Nowhaving that?
Bex Rose (21:43):
I think yeah, no, you're right. It's and I think
maybe that maybe that isreflected like as when you're a
parent, what your parents, youknow, kind of showed you as a
kid, like, my parents reallyeverything, like everything, and
we're, you know, the helpers.
And in my mom was, you know, howI'm teaching is hereditary. My
mom was a teacher as well. So itwas just that they were always
there. But, and I'm thinking to,like, we will host some of the
(22:07):
cool things. We have hosts likeBook, book character days, and
you know, you'd have you know, afew parents show up, but it was
always the same way. You know,like, it's always the same
parents, they show up. But theywould be there no matter what.
So yeah, book character days,were always a really fun one to
host to sort of launch. Ifyou're having a book here that
week, that was always a reallygood one. We had one of the
(22:28):
coolest community events we hadwas actually with you last year
in your influence, because wehad UTP come through our school.
And it was right on the brink ofCOVID. And which I think I've
spoken about this before we hada production all lined up, ready
to go. And then COVID hit andall the kids were all given
their part. So it was reallydevastating for the kids. And
(22:48):
then Mr. Mark Herring, Mr. Ihimself, I wI and South came and
he goes, how about you turn itinto, like a movie or a cinema
type screening. So we ended upflipping it completely. Having
the kids film the whole entireCharlie and the Chocolate
Factory, it was an absolute epicevent. And then once we started
allowing, having people deck onschool grounds, we hosted this
(23:09):
like red carpet Avita. And itwas amazing. The kids were
buzzing, it was so awesome. Soyeah, just coming out with those
outside the box type communityevents, may may get people more
people involved. Another anotheropportunity would be encouraged
parent involvement. So offeropportunities for parents to
feel part of school life. Soencourage parents to volunteer
(23:31):
the classroom come along onfield trips and participate in
school activities likeathletics, or sports events. And
this not only helps build asense of community, but it also
shows students that theirfamilies care about the
education. So I think that's areally important point. I know
that I also know as a very busyworking mom that I don't get to
(23:51):
everything I try to I know thatmy son's got athletics next
week, and I'm away, again, forwork. And so about that, I know
that I'll check in with him. Butyou know, being able to get to
just one is really cool. Youknow, just seeing your kid in
action and showing them that youreally care about the fiscal
life. But I also think that someschools don't also offer that
(24:14):
opportunity. So there's in theend, that really, that's when
you start seeing the Facebookposts, you know, so the school
assemblies are really a reallygood one too. I know that
there's a couple of schools outhere that don't invite the
community to the schoolassemblies. bone of contention
on most Facebook groups youknow, there's some schools
that's vital the phone O N andparents is always set to the
(24:36):
back for the parents and there'sthe principal ways makes a
really a really big effort toinvolve them and get them to
come in and then there's someschools that are like no closed
or not having you in theassembly, what's a weaver in
that and that's when theircompetence or that's when it
just starts cracking a littlebit because they don't feel like
they're invited and they're not,you know, not there and watch
(24:57):
the kid get this to forget them.
Yeah, as soon as we startedopening up for parents coming in
for assemblies, it was just agame changer. They just
absolutely loved it. And that'swhen that whole home, do you
know that the school does this,this and this and that, because
they've been there. They've seenthe assembly they've seen, you
know, celebrating their success.
And that's that's it, word ofmouth stuff that goes out into
the community.
Mark Herring (25:18):
Yeah. Do you think those schools that don't allow
or have a have a guideline whereparents aren't invited to some
of them have Facebook streaminglive so that you can jump on our
Instagram Live? Is thatsomething that you've seen them?
Do? The ones
Bex Rose (25:31):
that have said no, not on school site don't tend to be
the ones that stream it either.
I think, for us, we would streamit and have parents so I'd have
parents watching from theiroffices while they were working.
The the assembly as well ashaving kids on site, I guess
it's yeah, it's down to thevalues and in what their vision
is, and the why behind it. Andit is just to celebrate student
(25:53):
success with the kids in it'sone of those. But yeah, I think
involving parents and schoollife is just a really important
thing. It's the same with havingparents in the classroom, you
know, my students up here andhelp us Yeah. And of course, you
do get the one sometimes thatI've also seen this where they
go, do you know, Billy didn'tfinish his work, because I
(26:15):
wasn't there being a parenthelper, blah, blah, blah. But
you soon weed those ones out.
There's generally just reallywant to help and be part of the
kids school life. So of thoseopportunities. Another
opportunity would be partneringwith community organizations. So
partnering with local communityorganizations, such as
libraries, or museums, ornonprofits to create learning
(26:37):
opportunities outside of theclassroom. So one thing that we
did was that we would bring ourchoir oh my gosh, I would always
burst into tears, and take themto rest homes and things.
Mark Herring (26:49):
I've been involved with schools that have done
that, you know, there was oneschool I knew in Palmerston
North that had a rest home rightnext door. And so they would
have a regular schedule withstudents that would go next door
to read and buddy up with withsome of the some of the reasons,
Bex Rose (27:03):
it's an invaluable resource. These people have got
all the time to listen to kids,you know, like really like, oh,
yeah, hurry up, finish talking,because we've got all this stuff
to do. But these, these peopleknow what life is all about.
They've loved it. And now theyjust want to spend that time.
And I remember going bring yourkids to the restaurant, and my
Nana had just passed away. Andso I went and took these kids,
(27:26):
and they would they sangbeautifully. And all the all the
grandees were just absolutelyloving it. I'm sitting in the
back and bawling my eyes out.
But it was, but it was such anice thing to do, and having a
cadence of those kinds ofopportunities to go and visit
communities. The other one eyewe also did was, whenever we had
some sort of property projectsthat were going on, like we
there was money that came fromthe government after COVID. And
(27:48):
we could do it yeah, like alittle. You could do projects
with that money. And we alwaystender it out to local family
businesses, so that we had, youknow, builders, or electricians
and things like that. And wereally supported those
businesses that were local,rather than the big, big
businesses try and support themas much as we possibly could,
just to show that we appreciatethem, and we appreciate our
(28:10):
community. So you're gettingthem on site and doing a lot of
the work for us. Another onewould be celebrating diversity.
So celebrate the diversebackgrounds and cultures of the
students and families in yourschool community through
cultural events, getting guestspeakers in and, and curriculum
that reflects the diversity ofthe community. So really
acknowledging that, that thecommunity that your school
(28:32):
holds, and we loved hosting thecultural festival with food and
dancing, it was always such ahighlight on our calendar, we
taste all the different food andthe families would absolutely
love it, you know, like ourIndian families would love
cooking or the Indian would justlove lapping it up and sushi and
all the things so that wasalways a really well attended
community event. And thenGrandparents Day that was always
(28:55):
a really favorite, we are veryrelative to that, why they would
come in the inch rows they wouldstart with it would start at
like 130 or they'd start packingup at about 1130 And then they'd
make their way over and theycould see the kids in action at
lunchtime and then we'd have ourstudent leaders out there, you
know, ushering them all in, oh,gosh, now that absolutely loved
(29:15):
the afternoon tea that theycould have at the end with the
kids. And it was always such ahighlight. And I'm we always get
such beautiful feedback fromfrom grandparents that would
come from far away. In fact, wealways made sure that date was
out from the beginning of theyear. So that if the parents or
grandparents were, you know,from all over New Zealand, or
even sometimes overseas, to behonest, they would they would
(29:38):
put their dates around that sothey could attend it. And then
we had we actually had a couplethere was an American student
and so her her grandmothercouldn't attend. So I would just
have a little I just gave herthe mum would come and I gave
her a laptop and she could, youknow, film it with it and we'd
stream it and things like that.
So yeah, so having those thosediverse you Celebrating the
(30:00):
diversity of your school,encouraging feedback is always a
scary thing. But always a reallyimportant thing to do. So
encourage feedback from parentsand community members to
continuously improve thecommunication or events or
initiatives that are going on inthe school. And this can be done
through surveys that we've got abunch of surveys that we can
help you with from UTV to surveyyour community through Google
(30:22):
Forms, or Microsoft forms,suggestion boxes or just open
for us or a Hawaii. In fact, myhusband is attending a moldy
family Hawaii this evening to toget his feedback on what's going
on in the school. So I thoughtthat was really cool that he's
been invited to that. So justmaking sure that they feel like
their voice is heard. And, yes,I've also had forms that have
(30:45):
come back and send surveys thatabsolutely broke me into
smithereens because you thinkthat you've got these awesome
things going on. And it justgets slandered. And sometimes
that happens, and to be fair,it's only like 1% of the school
population that just have a havea bugbear with your or bugbear
with whatever's going on. Butthe 99% of it really love it.
But it's also the feedback thatyou get you haven't even thought
(31:07):
of it that way. You know, that'sa really cool way of thinking.
So getting that feedback fromthe community is really
important just because it's thatkey stakeholder buy in as soon
as they feel like they've hadthe voice that they've been
heard. And that even some changemay occur from that. That's a
really nice way to engage yourcommunity.
Mark Herring (31:26):
Like I think what you're saying is true, too,
when, you know, sometimes youcan be a little bit nervous,
especially in the leadershipspace to open up the opportunity
for feedback, because you neverknow what's going to come back.
But I think if you've got amindset, you know, that better
mindset of, you know, how can wemake this better? How can we
improve what we're doing? I'dmuch rather as a leader know
what's out there? And what kindof feelings people have towards
(31:47):
things and what conversationspeople are having them not know,
you know, that there's nothingworse than trucking along
thinking you're doing a greatjob. And then there are those
carpark conversations as
Bex Rose (31:56):
I was just gonna say, ideas. Yeah, absolutely. That
then eliminates, hopefullyeliminates those car park
conversations because they feellike they've got to, they've got
a channel where they can voicethose opinions rather than just
escalating and snowballing andthe car park with all the with
all the parents. So I thinkthat's a really, really
important one. It is scary, Iunderstand that. But it's
(32:17):
absolutely crucial. And thenways to incorporate authentic
learning projects into schoolsreally can bring community
development as well. So you canidentify community needs. So you
can, these are problems thatstudents can address through
their project. So this could bean environmental or
sustainability. This is a reallya cool way that we incorporate
(32:38):
enviroschools into our school.
So it identifies areas wherestudents can make a difference.
And then yeah, and then thisleads on to involving community
members, so involving communitymembers in the design and
implementation of the project.
So this could be invitingcommunity members to serve as
members or advisors or guestspeakers and providing students
(32:59):
for providing opportunities forstudents to present their
projects to the community. Sohere's his problem. And we've
come up with a way to a solutionfor this through our learning
and class, like how cool isthat, you know, just making it
really authentic and relevant towhat's going on in their own
community. And you can alignthese projects with the
curriculum. So align theprojects with the curriculum to
(33:21):
ensure that students aredeveloping the knowledge and
skills they need to besuccessful. And so it could
involve designing projects thatalign with specific standards or
learning objectives, andproviding opportunities for
students to explore topics thatare meaningful and relevant to
them in greater depth. So we hadon the podcast in episode eight,
we had miles weed from odourskull, and it was all about the
(33:42):
trapping the possums arena. Andthat's an absolutely fantastic
way to get that community by inthat community involvement. It
was really relevant to the kidsbecause on their farms, they had
all these possums that were, youknow, wrecking the wrecking
their properties. So that's,that's a really, you know,
authentic, relevant, engagingcurriculum isn't there that's
involving the community. So itdoes all those things for us. So
(34:06):
yeah, so by implementing thesestrategies, schools can build a
stronger sense of communityengagement and create a
supportive and inclusivelearning environment for
students to learn and grow andhave that really beautiful sense
of community engagement. And howWait, no stop fit was going
nowhere.
Mark Herring (34:27):
Yeah, that's right. One of the one of the
thoughts I've had, you know,when you're a leader organizing
these community events,sometimes the community events
can be an ongoing, you know,becomes an annual thing that you
do. And one of the disconnectsthat I've observed in the
schools that I've been involvedin, not only, you know, as a
consultant now, when we'reworking with schools, but also
something I observed when I wasin school and embedded in the
(34:48):
school as a leader, and as ateacher, sometimes, you need to
make sure that the team at yourschool so your teachers, your
support staff, even yourcaretaker understand the why
behind the community eventbecause it's so easy with the
season that we're in whereteachers are overloaded,
sometimes to ask them, Hey,we're going to have a cultural
festival on this date, and we'regoing to, you know, get you to
(35:09):
come along. And they'rethinking, well, that's like a
Friday night, I'm absolutelyexhausted. No, I've got a whole
day of teaching. Now you'reasking me to do something
external. And I've got supporton Friday as well. I think as a
leader, if you can, make surethat you're reinforcing the why
behind why you're doing it, geteverybody bought in, build that
motivation, have people talkingabout it at a staff meeting, and
(35:30):
give them some practical tipsfor how they can not only take
the why into that event, butthings to do to connect with the
community, and the way that youcan give them those practical
sort of social skills really, asa teacher that sometimes we
think we assume that ourteachers know, that can be the
glue for that event that reallymake it successful. So it's not
(35:50):
just about making sure thatyou've got everything
coordinated, and people doingthe right thing. But who are the
key people on your team who arejust extroverts who have got a
lot of energy, really empowerand enable them to go out there
and start talking to familiesthat they don't know. And, you
know, introducing themselves topeople having a conversation,
connecting families together,you know, something as simple as
that. Being one of thoseteachers who can say, hey,
(36:12):
there's a new family over there,there's a new family over there,
I'm gonna say, Brian, come overhere and have a chat for Sam,
because I know that you guys areboth builders. And so you know,
you say to Sam, you know, Brianis a new builder in the area,
they've just moved in, you know,and then you start the
conversation, and then you justsort of do Homer Simpson into
the heads and you back away.
Like, it sounds so silly, likewe go to teachers college to
learn how to teach. But the roleof a teacher now is so complex
(36:34):
and so involved, but it's not somuch that we want to force it on
people, it's that we have anopportunity to do that. So if
you're listening to this, andyou're thinking as a leader,
yeah, we do a lot of theseactivities, how can I get it's
not that I need to do more, butlet's do less, but do it better.
So who are the people on my teamwho can help be the glue for
(36:55):
those for those activities, andnot just run an event, but do it
really well in a way that Bond'sand gels everybody together? And
think think, you know, you maynot be the right person to be
able to, to do that. But it'sjust about teaching and
empowering and upskilling yourteam to be thinking a little bit
beyond the classroom. So notjust knowing the why but having
(37:17):
the skills to be able to do itreally well. Does that make
sense?
Bex Rose (37:21):
Absolutely. Great chat.
Mark Herring (37:25):
Alright, Episode 10 wraps up next.
Bex Rose (37:28):
All right. So community engagement can be
something that may feel hardwork, but it's absolutely worth
the time and effort. So whenpeople feel like they've got a
voice or a place in thecommunity, it'll foster their
sense of belonging andownership. I also think Mike's
comments about really findingthe opportunities to utilize
your staff geniuses or skillsets to enhance the
(37:49):
relationships between family andschool life is a great way to
also involve the staff, whichwill also enhance that sense of
belonging for them too. Andthat's that culture building
stuff. So it's a three prongapproach. They're also
overwhelmed as a widely spokenabout feeling right now. So
please be able to being able tofind strategies and ways to
(38:10):
combat this is imperative. Sotalking about it is the first
step, but finding ways to dealwith it is the next one that we
have to take. So having tools tosupport your well being that can
keep you accountable to yourgoals and actions will
automatically make you feelbetter as you're making tracks
or being better. So I'm totallygonna go and download notes and
straight after we finish uphere.
Mark Herring (38:31):
Cool. And so if you know somebody who's dealing
with that overwhelm, or couldreally get benefit from just
being a little bit moreorganized, absolutely let them
know about this episode, shareit with them, hit the share
button, text it to them, oremail it to them, or if you know
your team, if you think yourstaff and your team would get
value from this, definitelyshare that with them at school.
(38:52):
If you're after some of thelinks to the resources like
notion or anything else thatwe've mentioned today, have a
look on the show notes and makesure that you're subscribed
because these episodes landevery Wednesday, or as much as
we did. Lastly, if you've gotany questions or anything to
share with us, email us at teamat Using Technology Better, we'd
love to hear from you. We'd loveto work with you. Let us know if
there's anything we can do tosupport you for your digital
(39:14):
learning needs in your school.
And we'll see you next week.
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