The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Mediasite provides a platform for The University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education to meet school e-Learning requirements and extend its reach to teachers in schools throughout the country. The university saves thousands of dollars each year on travel costs for facilitators by delivering online professional development via Mediasite webcasts available to teachers in 250 K-12 schools across the country. Before the university chose Mediasite to communicate to teachers, professional development took too much time and money. Plus, it was difficult to meet the needs of both urban and isolated rural schools. 

Two teams of facilitators and practitioners within The University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education, ‘Digital Pathways Development’ and Te Whanau Maioha, are building a series of Mediasite webcasts for K-12 teaching and learning programs centered on specific sections from the new national curriculum. Not only has Mediasite saved the school time and money due to less travel, it’s also provided a delivery framework that builds on the concepts of presence, engagement and achievement. Positive results are measured by the expansion of its professional learning and development program’s national contracts, and all signs point to success, because the Faculty of Education is now the largest provider of K-12 professional development in New Zealand. 

At-a-Glance

• The University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education provides professional development to 250 K-12 teachers across New Zealand.
• Travel to schools scattered across the vast island proved to be too time consuming and costly.
• The university selected Mediasite for its ease-of-use, cutting-edge technologies and its ability to engage viewers.
• The university’s Faculty of Education saves thousands of dollars annually by using webcasts, and it’s now the largest K-12 professional development provider in New Zealand. 

Challenge

The University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education provides professional development to 250 K-12 teachers across New Zealand via two programs: The Digital Pathways Development and Te Whanau Maioha, both funded by a New Zealand Ministry of Education contract. The Faculty of Education faced a multi-level challenge – how to provide culturally responsive e-Learning professional development with relevant content to schools across New Zealand and how to do so economically. 

Travel to the schools, scattered across the vast island, proved to be too time consuming and costly, and it was difficult to meet the needs of both urban and isolated rural schools. Facilitators would spend the majority of their work weeks traveling to schools and staying in hotels, which added up to thousands of dollars each year. 

The university needed to find a way to communicate to the teachers in a more efficient way while still being accessible to them. To add to the challenge, a new bilingual delivery initiative, Te Whanau Maioha, was created to communicate with the Maori teachers and leaders whose medium of instruction is through Maori, the indigenous language.  

“There was a lot of travel, hotel costs, mileage, wear and tear on our cars and wear and tear on us. Plus, we were giving similar presentations over and over again due to teacher demand,” said Mark Dashper, Faculty of Education, a facilitator for Team Solutions and Te Puna Wananga (School of Maori Education) in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland.

Solution

Mediasite webcasts provided The University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education an easy solution. The Faculty of Education considered several other webcasting systems but Dashper described them as “nowhere near as effective or interactive as Mediasite.” 

“Once you’ve seen Mediasite you don’t want to go back,” he said. 

Since 2009, The Digital Pathways Development project has been delivered to teachers across the country via webcasts and is designed to support the integration of career education across the curriculum. The project is equipping teachers to provide career education for students in Year 7 and above with a particular emphasis on guidance for Maori and Pasifika (Pacific Islander) students and those who have been identified as being at risk of leaving school unprepared for the transition to the workplace or further education. Similarly, Te Whanau Maioha is a brand new bilingual delivery initiative for Maori teachers and leaders, and the content is delivered in both English and te reo Maori, the indigenous language.  

“Since we began using Mediasite, our professional development costs decreased significantly. Before we were traveling every week to schools across the regions, but now we’re able to produce Mediasite presentations from a studio or any location, which saves us thousands of dollars each year. Plus we only have to give presentations once, and that can be shared countless times on-demand to schools across the region, which saves us time,” Dashper said. 

Educators access live and on-demand Mediasite presentations through webcasts presented by Dashper and his associate Nicola Riley, using guest facilitators via webcasting from a studio in Warkworth. The projects provide web resources and professional support for teachers that can be accessed at any time on-demand. 

Teachers can participate in the live sessions by sending in questions from their computers which feed into the Mediasite webcasts and are discussed during the presentations. They can also download resources live and refer to them as they are being discussed during the presentations, or access them on-demand. 

“Our webcasting focus has been on accessing the student voice, identifying teacher needs, incorporating education in te reo Maori, the indigenous language, and meeting the e-learning requirements of schools,” Dashper said. “Mediasite allows us to accomplish these things.” 

Recently, the team began holding trial cluster group meetings with teachers, based on the Sonic Foundry coined delivery method “Choose Your Own Adventure,” or in their case, “Choose Your Own Pathway.” The teachers are presented with chapters, each with their choice of three presentations to watch via Mediasite. The teachers simply vote for the presentation of their choice via the Mediasite polling capability. 

“Effectively what that means is the presenters have to prepare 12 to 15 different chapter presentations per Professional Learning and Development session, each with a PowerPoint and notes. The ‘Choose Your Own Pathway’ model allows the teachers to really participate in the webcast and the engagement makes learning fun,” Dashper said. “We never actually know which sections will be chosen, until the live votes come in.“

Results

The University of Auckland measures results by the expansion of its professional learning and development (PLD) program’s national contracts in most curriculum areas in English and te reo Maori. All signs point to success, because the Faculty of Education is now the largest provider of K-12 professional development in New Zealand. 

The Faculty of Education department has also upgraded to the latest version of Mediasite – Mediasite 6, which allows for streaming to mobile devices. 

“Being able to touch the future is important for us and being able to touch the future with mobile technologies is crucial, particularly in education. Switching to Mediasite 6 means that we have a major investment in the future. We’ve got state-of-the-art technology by Sonic Foundry,” Dashper said.  

“We’re excited about the future possibilities in this medium as part of the overall PLD strategy. Using Mediasite we are able to offer a coordinated delivery to schools. Mediasite gives us an edge by providing a product that we can easily customize to meet our schools’ needs. It gives us the ability to adapt to change and continue to provide cutting edge programming for all schools, which in turn meets the needs of all of our students.”

About The University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education

Founded in 1883, Auckland is New Zealand’s largest university with 38,500 students.  The Faculty of Education is committed to improving the quality and understanding of education and social services provision in New Zealand and internationally through quality teaching and research.