Our cluster hosted the Regional Dev Day yesterday. This is where the Facilitators and Directors of other ICT Contracts in the Central North Island area come together for a spot of PD themselves. Yesterday's focus was on "Sustainability". Paengaroa hosted the day brilliantly and I am grateful for all they did and the support received from Michele and Bruce, Mel and Vince, and everyone who attended.

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Yesterday, we all shared some of our Successful Strategies, and looked at
"What is a Learning Community"
"How do we develop it?"
"What are the barriers?" and
"What do we want to sustain?"
This culminated in the development of Action Plans - "Towards Sustainability"

My ponderings since have been on "Passionate Practitioners". This is something we all want to develop and want to continue beyond the contract. To do this we will need to analyse what it is that switches people on. Susan talked about 'initial reluctants' becoming desperate to learn as much as they can. What a wonderful thing to celebrate. We talked about how this occurred in one case. Wouldn't it be great if the formula could be bottled!

What ingredients make a person become a passionate practitioner through contract initiatives?

What makes a person turn from a reluctant or passive participant to a passionate seeker of understanding, developing their practice to impact on the learning needs of our digital generation?

What makes the paradigm shift from a supplier of information to a facilitator of student inquiry and understanding?