NetNZ Future Directions 2023 -

Below is the conclusion to our futures article from last year’s annual report.

So where does this leave NetNZ and considerations of future development? It means we have to deeply consider what the implications are for the future, and how we want to position NetNZ. What do we represent? What do we want to influence? What do our member schools want? Our teachers? Our learners? There are currently no clear answers, but we can already see where the possibilities are emerging. Adaptation is paramount. Retain our core purpose and values, while ensuring we remain not only relevant, but important to an emerging future.

The challenge is for NetNZ to move and adapt with the needs of our current and future environment. The Virtual Learning Network was founded on principles that remain important today. Reciprocity remains at our core. The concept of giving and receiving. Participating in networked education. Looking beyond schools as silos. However, how relevant does the actual activity remain? How has our environment changed? What does the future hold and What is needed going forward?

Over 2022 we continued to work with Chris Clay and We Create Futures on a potential way forward. Chris has us focused on ensuring we fullly scan our current environment when considering the future. Too often, organisations when they plan, map out a future without real consideration of a changing environment. We wanted to work differently and put something in place that adapts and moves with our environment. So, it wont be a 3-5 year strategic plan. That doesn't mean there isn't strategic planning ocurring. We just don't predetermine now where we will be five years down the track. We will share this work with stakeholders as we complete it so they can provide input.

Vision (draft)

Our working draft vision digs deeper than the usual. The first paragraph captures what we have always been and will feel quite familiar to those who know us. The following paragraphs recognise our changing environment and what NetNZ’s role may be. Complexity is a key aspect here. A concept that needs to be embraced by our education system. Few schools would argue that our role is to prepare young people for their world. Few would argue that world is not complex. NetNZ’s role focuses on communities and forums. Enabling a networked approach across communities and schools.

NetNZ creates a seamless, coherent and accessible educational environment that can support and sustain local communities. With its “communities” approach, NetNZ ensures every learner is a participant and a recipient, where whanaungatanga / belonging is considered a key metric of both community success and individual growth.
NetNZ enables online networks across schools and communities in order to build communities that think more deeply about the many complex challenges our society faces.
NetNZ provides a forum where a diverse range of people come together to explore and embrace complexity and diverse perspectives in order to build a stronger, educated and more informed society.

Strategic Pillars (Draft)

In order to realise this vision we are working through a number of possible key focus areas or “Strategic Pillars”. Be aware that these are only draft and are there to provide a focus to thinking rather than defining the future.

• Grow and develop our core programmes focused on the needs of key stakeholders
• Open up educational opportunities for a diverse range of learners including, secondary and primary age, adults, home schooled.
• Develop as a knowledge building organisation that will influence wider educational change
• Develop a sustainable environment that is flexible, responsive and responsible

Additional considerations:

• Create tools and approaches (forums) that enable and amplify pedagogies that seek to build on collective intelligence.
• Developing approaches, systems, tools that create additional elements of the unique value proposition/brand identity.

Unpacking the Pillars

The first and second pillars could be bundled together. They outline what has been our core business for well over two decades now - provide a layer of online curriculum across schools, but also largely provided by the schools themselves. For many years this remained largely a rural activity and while rural schools are still in the majority, we now have many urban schools participating. We don’t intend dropping the ball on this - it is vital that we continue to meet this need. However, the second pillar does explore further expansion of this. This was actually prominent in our original Statement of Intent, but we never fully achieved it. This is largely down to capacity. If we want to retain this intent going forward then we will need to ensure the organisation develops in a way that will achieve this. We also need to be more fully aware of current constraints and think deeply about how we respond to them.

The third pillar is all about learning and teaching. Not only the development and support of the pedagogical approach and learning experience in the online programmes, but also consideration of how that practice challenges our approach in face to face environments. This opportunity was partially recognised through the rise of hybrid learning over the pandemic, but also in the rise of remote work in recent years. Flexibility has been a key driver here. Flexible Education needs deep consideration as we move into a time of complexity and challenge. NetNZ has a long history of exploring the implications of flexible education well beyond online courses. In 2010 CantaNet and WestNet led a three year project on blended learning, designed to challenge schools to think differently about education. To think more flexibly. Our intent moving forward is to return our attention to this space.

The last pillar explores the sort of long term environment NetNZ wants to enable, but also to influence. While ensuring a lasting organisation is part of this, it is also about our behaviours and how they align with the modern world.

As mentioned, we are approaching this work somewhat differently to ensure planning is authentic and meaningful. If you have any of your own thoughts on this please feel free to use this form to provide feedback.