DFI 9- Revision

Wow, we are done. The nine weeks have flown by. I have learnt a lot and made some very meaningful connections with other teachers from not only the coast but around New Zealand.

I completed the level 1 google exam last week so I could do the level 2 exam today. Sadly my secondary email hasn't come through yet so I will have to do it at a later date when the link does come through.

I have found the DFI experience one where not only have I learnt things but I have also become aware of everything I already knew. It now has me thinking not only about where I can take my teaching to help further improve the students learning but also where I can take my own professional learning.

I hope that in the future I can send more staff members from our school to help further the knowledge and expertise of the staff as a whole. I would like to thank Madeline, Nicola and all the visiting facilitators for their help and expertise over the past 9 weeks and look forward to using this connections in the future.

DFI 8- Devices

Day 8, Devices.

Today we are joined by Fiona Grant, Fiona started the morning discussing the Cybersmart curriculum. She introduced us to some different resources that we can use to help teach our students how to be safe online which also empowering our learners. The thing that I was most interested in was the Be Internet Awesome site that has a whole bunch of games that teach our learners to be internet awesome.

We then spent some time doing the digital dig on student chromebooks. This helped us to explore the chromebooks from a learners point of view. I found this useful as I could see what the students are doing.



We then had a play on Explain Everything on the ipads which was quite interesting to see how junior classes can use their ipads to do certain things.

Create! 

We then spent time creating our own screencastify. I talked about creating a quality blog post and how I need to teach my students how to make appropriate captions for their blog post. 

DFI 7- Media

This morning began like every morning, we started with our whats on top and discussed what has been going on in our classes. My class has been focusing on blogging this week and have been enjoying sharing their learning with their tuhi mai tuhi atu buddies as well as the other senior classes.

Dorothy then joined us for a google hangout on being connected. Dorothy discussed how our clusters are all connected not only with PD but also with a shared language. By having all these connections we are able to share our knowledge and learn from each other even when we are in different places.

An example of our shared language

We then looked at youtube and how to successfully use this in the classroom. Vicky talked about how when students are uploading videos, they need to be on their blogs so we can then monitor the comments. We had a play with our youtube channels just in case we needed to upload anything but didn't want just anyone to find it. We then looked at the playlists and how to create these which is great as I want to create a music playlist for singing at school.

Google Drawing: Vicky talked about some tips and tricks of google drawing. One thing I didn't know was holding down the shift key when drawing shapes to make the perfect shape. This is something that is great as it annoys me when I cannot draw a perfect shape. I then spent a very long time drawing my face on google drawings.

Kent then joined us via google hangout to show us how Point England School use livestreaming to help accelerate learning. I found this interesting as it is something we could use for Rippa and other tournaments to keep parents up to date that cannot attend these games. This is also something I could share our learning on when we are going outside for enviroschools activities. Kent talked about how just because the children are children doesn't mean that their movies need to be poor quality and by having drones as an option the children's movies then look very professional. 

I then had a play in the afternoon creating my own digital pepeha. It was interesting trying to create my own drawings of my mountain, river and marae. This is definitely a skill that my children will enjoy particularly the children that enjoy art more than literacy and maths. 

DFI 6 - Dealing with Data

We began our morning talking to Dorothy about the Kaupapa of being empowered. Dorothy emphasised that Manaiakalani is all about empowering learners AND teachers.

Technology is not just a tool, it is something that should be transforming our learners lives.

Research has shown that young people who get a back and forward conversation on a blog 5 times accelerates the child's learning- I find this amazing as I have many children that leave one sided comments so I clearly need to get them responding to comments, maybe I need to make time in class for this to happen. 

For learning to be empowered it needs to be learner centered, future focused, differentiated and personalised. Empowerment comes from being connected with other people. If they learn to be connected with others then they are empowered to change their future. The learning can't truly be empowered if the learning is not visible, ubiquitous and connected. We need to ensure that the learning we do empowers our children as they will then be able to change their future and strive to be BTB. 

Chalk and Talk

Dave then discussed Google forms with us and then showed us not only how to create forms but also dove into how to manage form responses. We then created our own forms, I made a form for my class to help feed into our wellbeing focus for the year. 

Deep Dive

Google mymaps

This is very exciting for me and my class as it is something we can use to help feed our Enviroschools inquiry. Below is how I have labelled a map for my class after they made their own maps last week. 

We then worked on google sheets and how we could use this for maths to help our children to Overall I found today very helpful. I enjoyed reminding myself about the different ways I can use google sheets and that way that I can then transfer these skills into the classroom. I think it would be interesting for my children to do their blog statistics now and then redo it every term so they can see how they can improve.

Overall I have enjoyed today and feel that I have learnt a few things that will be helpful in class. I always feel with sheets that if I don't use them I forget what to do so I have found it helpful to revise those skills that I used to be quite proficient at.

DFI 5- Computational Thinking

Connecting with Manaiakalani

This morning Dorothy is talking about Visible learning. Dorothy talked about how visible learning is something easy that a lot of people over think. Visibility in Manaiakalani is all about the learning being visible for everyone learners, teachers and whanau.

The children who succeed are the ones who can read the teachers mind. This is very important as when our learning is visible all children should be able to read the teachers mind.

Dorothy then talked about Hapara and how it was created for Manaiakalani. Hapara was explicitly created for visible learning about allows us to see what the children are doing but also helps us to show them what we are doing through the share links option. Dorothy also talked about how Fiona Grant coined the phrase "Ready to share" rather than "Finished Miss!"

One thing we need to make sure we do is ensure that digital learning doesn't disempower people and instead we make the learning visible. This is so important when we think about what needs to be private.

Deep Dive/Chalk and Talk

OMG Tech- Zoe and Viv from OMG Tech are here to talk about not only why digital tech is essential for schools but also why our children need them. 

Zoe discussed that globalisation is important for some things but we also need to ensure that we cater what we do for our place. We need to ensure that we have a group of children that are confident enough to speak up. Just because the technology is being created doesn't mean we have to use it in our country.

We then went into the library and did a sorting network. We were able to discuss debugging and how coding works. 

 Zoe then discussed the new digital technologies curriculum and how it works. They supplied us with a one page summary to help us understand the digital tech curriculum. We discussed that when we are talking about computational thinking we are talking about how a computer works.

After that we wrote a set of instructions for a paper plane, we then tests our instructions on someone else and then we had to breakdown our problems (decomposition). We then talked about logical thinking. Using our instructions would a computer be able to make our paper planes? We then did some debugging on the instructions to fix the problem that we have detected.

Levelling Up

We then played with scratch through a student log in so we could explore how we can use this with the children. 

Making meaning of content- Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko

A way for you to self assess where you're at in the digital curriculum. 

Is it important to know how computers work? For this block we are talking about how computers work and binary code. We talked about what the internet and computers are and how they work. Hello Ruby is an amazing site that we can use to start thinking about the concepts of computers in a different way. 

Overall I have learnt a lot today and have been given some great resources to get our digital curriculum journey going at our school. This has also given me an insight into how our children are going to be learning over the next wee while. 

Reflection Week 4- Enabling Access

The day began with a google hangout with Dorothy about the definition of authentic audiences and why Manaiakalani chose to use blogger.

Dorothy discussed that sharing is all part of the human experience and we always want to share. By making sharing an explicit part of our teaching we are giving our students an authentic audience.

Definition of Authentic Audience: People who choose to listen to you.

This was quite interesting for me as I think about developing an authentic audience for my class. I find by being a part of Tuhi Mai, Tuhi Atu my students have more of an authentic audience but now I need to consider how to engage parents to also leave comments on the students blogs.

Danni then talked to us about why Manaiakalani picked Google Sites. Danni teaches at Point England school and is down for the day to show us how to make our sites more meaningful for our learners.  Danni talked about how helpful she has found using her site for children that have had to go away for tangi or if they're sick for an extended period of time. Danni also talked about using different teachers planning to help support your own planning especially when she is planning something she hasn't taught before. This is definitely something I would be interested in as I love seeing the creative ways someone may teach something that is different to what I do.

We then rediscussed the SAMR model and how all parts of the SAMR model has a place in the classroom and how redefinition isn't always going to work for every piece of learning.

Google Sites
We explored each others google sites and then gave each other feedback. It was great to see what other people do and I have definitely got some ideas to make my own teaching and assessment easier. The next hour was spent tweaking and changing things on my class site. I focused on adding extra links for my children to use around different websites and games they use on a regular basis. This means that if they want to find the game/activity and it isn't on their maths/literacy grid for the week they're still able to easily access it rather than having to click through the terms work.

DFI Day Three- Collaborate

We began the day discussing whats on top, I talked about how helpful I have found Google Keep and Toby Mini. We then had a hangout with Dorothy all about create and the importance of creativity. 

The HeART of the matter is a documentary about creativity and how to use that to not only help with children's learning but also how to hook them in.

Multi modal- Today is all about multi-modal learning. Clarelle is an expert in multi modal learning and brings a lot of ideas to the table that I wouldn't have thought of alone. 

Multi modal is the design for learning that hooks students in. It is the thing that makes the children want to go deeper into their learning. We want them to be thinking deeper and pushing them to be thinking outside the box. First we start with behavioural engagement and then it shifts to cognitive engagement. 

For the afternoon session we then created our own multi modal sites. Over the course of the last week I have been thinking about homework for next term. I had been wanting to do an optional project style homework which was choice based. By using the multi model site that I have created today I have been able to successfully create a site that should not only engage my students but also help them to build on exisiting knowledge and to start to think out of the box. 

Overall I have found today extremely useful as it has not only helped me to improve on my current classroom practice but it has also helped me to implement something that I have been thinking about for a while.