Reconciliation Week is just around the corner! It is a great time to engage your school in discussions about Aboriginal perspectives and your school’s approach towards them. Because it is Reconciliation Week, people tend to make more time to consider how they can play a part in working towards reconciliation. People are more open to activities that increase engagement and understanding of Aboriginal people, cultures and histories than they are at other times of the year when other priorities are often the focus.
 
This year’s theme is Be Brave. Make Change. It encourages us all to reflect on our practice and look at the changes we can make. Change is one of those funny things that we want because it opens up opportunities and can make us feel energised and motivated but at the same time, change can feel challenging as it forces us out of our comfort zones. I love that this year’s theme acknowledges that change isn’t always easy and that sometimes we need to be brave and step out of our comfort zone so we can experience the benefits of change.
 
This year I encourage you to consider change within your school that can support increased awareness and understanding of Aboriginal people and the issues that our communities are faced with. We all have different appetites for change and when trying to make change within a school, navigating the varying attitudes towards change is part of the challenge. Changing how people think about Aboriginal education is not an easy task but it is an important one. Making change at a pace that everyone is comfortable with is not easy but a gentle approach, in my experience, does work for most environments even if it is a little slower than many of us would like. With this in mind, here are 5 simple actions that you can take to encourage a long-term change in approach towards Aboriginal education at your school.

When I started Wingaru Education I did so with teacher support in mind. The tools we have are designed to make it easier for teachers to include Aboriginal content and reduce workloads by bringing resources and know-how together. Over the years we can see we have helped. So have many edu-techs who are providing quality digital resources that support teachers with content, systems and tools all designed to make life easier and, importantly, save time. However, it is also very clear that busy workloads mean that many teachers do not have the time to utilise these tools because digital resources come with an admin workload. They require initial set up, annual roll over, and ongoing management of teacher and student accounts. Anyone who’s tried logging 25 six-years-olds into devices at the same time knows it’s not for the faint hearted.

​Digital tools are an important part of today’s classrooms. We all have our favourites –  Wingaru Kids, Mathletics, Essential Assessment, Typing Tournament, Reading Eggs, Google Classroom, just to name a few – whatever your chosen resources, digital tools are an everyday part of learning. They support teachers to cater to a diverse range of learning styles; offer an extensive array of content otherwise not accessible; make transitioning between school and home learning easier; share knowledge in a way that makes knowledge more accessible than ever; and support students to develop important ICT skills, just to name a few benefits. But the reality is the workload associated with digital tools means some teachers miss out on the benefits.

Every school is different in its approach to digital tool management – some schools have dedicated teachers coordinating digital resources and others have multiple teachers each taking responsibility for a resource. Regardless of the approach the time dedicated is significant. Across the board, the amount of time spent by schools on administrative tasks is considered to be a burden and these necessary tasks are having a negative impact on education as teachers are stretched between increasing admin and teaching time.

​The increasing workload of teachers and how we can help is a constant conversation at Wingaru. Teachers tell us they don’t have time to set up digital tools; they tell us that they don’t have time to facilitate access to the many quality resources available for their class – the coordination of passwords and logging in just takes too long; and they tell us they'd rather not spend their lunchtime typing in each child's login (and similar workarounds) just to have enough time to teach the computer-based lesson.
 
School administrators tell us they struggle with keeping track of subscriptions; managing set up demands and overseeing accounts; and each year, as staffing changes occur, they spend a considerable amount of time tracking down resources and making sure access is not disrupted.
 
What if I told you we can help with all of those barriers to digital tool use? That we can manage and coordinate all of your resources – from class set up to facilitating whole class logins so they take just a few minutes. That we can completely remove the need for teachers to print, cut and photocopy login credentials for all of their chosen tools. That we can offer the magic of automatic logins via a secure one-stop portal. That we can help teachers and students get more out of the resources they have access to by creating more time to use them?

Most students have access to 3-6 digital learning tools. Each one requiring management by classroom teachers. ClassHive provides the tools to manage all of these from one web-based portal. No more lost student login credentials – ClassHive provides a single access point for as many resources as you choose. Logging in the whole class to any resource takes just minutes. Teachers are also able to keep all of their digital teaching tools together with simple access via their ClassHive dashboard.

​By accessing their resources via ClassHive kids will no longer need to manage multiple login details or websites – all their online resources are accessed via the ClassHive app. The App is available from the Apple Store or Google Play with desktop access facilitated by a plugin.
 
Students log in to ClassHive with a simple QR code and from their dashboard have instant access to all their favourite learning tools with our automatic login feature.
 
ClassHive does not modify the learning experience in any way – it simply provides streamlined access so students can start learning faster. Students will use the same resources that have been carefully selected by their teacher.

By bringing all their digital tools together, schools can reduce the time spent managing accounts. Beyond having everything in one place, the ClassHive optional concierge services mean we do all the work for the annual rollover of your accounts, removing this workload from teachers and other school staff.