DFI Day 9 External Recognition

                                                    Wohooo it's a PASS for me! 

So thrilled to pass my Google Certified Trainer Level 1 exam today 👏

What an awesome journey it was! I  learnt so much about  Digital Fluency and Manaiakalani Kaupapa and Pedagogy of Learn, Create and Share.

 

Before the exam, I was a bit nervous but going through the exam clearly showed me how much I have learnt in these 9 weeks from these awesome DFI sessions.

I have been so inspired and motivated through doing the DFI course, I feel like I have a renewed passion for teaching & learning.  I could do DFI every term, loved it. I thrive in an environment where I am learning by going through the process of creating and designing tasks and getting feedback,  so this has been my best term.

I am proud to say that from everything I have learnt from the DFI course I have already started to  implement it into my leadership  practice. The response from the team members has been incredible and it has opened my eyes to the different routes I can do for enhancing the professional learning of my teacher-learners

I look forward to using the skills for  my own professional growth and also to motivate others in my professional learning circles. 

Collaborating with other educators -As always we are better together and I have really loved being with an amazing bubble team. 

I really appreciate the support and encouragement from our awesome digital bubble.

A huge thank you to Vicki and the awesome DFI  Team!

Nga mihi nui!

DFI Day 8-Computational Thinking

What an awesome day of learning about the future digital world! Today the DFI-Manaiakalani kaupapa was focussed around Empowerment. We explored more of the Digital Technology/ Hangarau Matihiko Curriculum. . Vicki explained that digital technology is not just about being a tool! But it is about the transforming of people's lives - children, whanau and teachers.

She also emphasised the important role that educators play in promoting conversation be that face to face or through blogs. Digital technology offers new learning opportunities and experiences.

The greatest joy comes from empowering the students to discover the treasure that lies within them.

The four aspects of kaupapa (connected, ubiquitous, visible and empowered) are like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle as they are interconnected to each other. 

Digital technology assists the making of connections by enabling students to enter and explore new learning environments, overcoming barriers of distance and time.

A point that stuck with me today was to focus on the learners being creators and designers and not just users and consumers. When we looked at computational thinking I was able to see how technology along with our own knowledge as humans can work together. I look at technology in a learning environment as a tool and it is there to guide and help me as well as my learners.

The biggest learning for today was the importance of giving the power to the students so that they become the designers of their own future. As shifting to Digital Curriculum, when introducing Computational Thinking we can use a variety of plugged and unplugged activities.

I am really enjoying the create and share aspects of the Manaiakalani kaupapa and can see how activities would capture the attention of many learners

When I was able to give the resources a go myself I had to use a higher-order thinking process to build what I wanted to achieve. The progress and end results were rewarding, I especially enjoyed the Scratch activity with another amazing group.As I was giving it a go I could see the challenges and the enjoyment during the process. I look forward to implementing these into our learning.

Pictured below was a scratch I had a play around with, I need to give this more of a practice as I found it challenging but a great learning experience.

Thank you DFI team !

DFI Day 7 - Devices!

 Today was another productive day with lots of new learning tasks to enhance our ongoing learning about digital tools/devices. The opportunity to practice our learning in our digital bubbles is really effective and helps to consolidate the new learning with awesome support from the team.

We focussed on the term ‘Ubiquitous’ which means anytime, anywhere, any pace and anyone. According to the Manaiakalani Pedagogy and Kaupapa, if there is access to a device and wifi, the learners have the potential to be connected to high quality learning experiences at any time, anywhere and at any pace.

Ubiquitous carries the idea that learning takes places outside of the traditional school/classroom in the digital era and there are no barriers where the child can do the learning anywhere, any time and any place. 

Offering Ubiquitous learning opportunities gives kids more hours to continue learning. Digital technologies have the ability to positively change circumstances and should not be dismissed as ‘just’ a tool. 

The Manaiakalani programme has embraced rewindable learning. Rewindable learning makes learning accessible to more learners and enables young people to visit it over and over again.

Ubiquitous

Summer learning journey – planning something like that for the learners would be so beneficial to their learning.

Rewindable learning was the highlight of the session today

Thinking about REWINDABLE LEARNING - As a team we have already started doing this for the students especially during the lockdown phase and I can see the purpose and importance of rewindable learning for students’ engagement and support for the families.

Using Explain Everything (EE) has really improved my confidence as my junior students  use this device and I could see how unfamiliar I was with the this amazing resource

I would love to try Explain Everything with my students as one of the creative activities and let them explore the whiteboard and the tools associated with it. 

SCREENCASTIFY

Screencastify has been something that was on my list of things to try, so I was excited today to have time to practice using it. I will keep practicing to develop my skills and confidence in recording myself using screencastify.

It's work in progress.

While there has been a lot that I have been able to implement easily, there are still some ideas that I want to explore further

 Following on from our amazing learning with the Digital Dig today I repurposed the Digital Dig 

I can definitely see learning about the following will enable me to create Rewindable learning for my teacher-learners

• screencastify

• explaineverything

• hapara workspace

Thank you DFI team for another great day of learning!

 

 

 

DFI Day 6 Enabling Access- Sites

DFI day six already!

Another great day focusing on the kaupapa of being connected and on Class Sites...

I really enjoyed learning about connectivity, as it is one of the Kaupapa Goals.

Manaiakalani provides us with a network using digital power and supports schools & teachers to connect with the learners and with each other.

We learnt today that it is all about developing a learning school community where all members are connected and empowered through a shared pedagogy, a shared understanding of the Manaiakalani Kaupapa which is ‘visible teaching and learning is foundational’.

 

Visual appeal - shop window!
User experience - easy to locate ‘stuff’ (2/3 clicks)

It was a great session to visit sites to check for the above. A really good chance to not only visit sites but more so to reflect on how my own website is set up...is it visually appealing? User experience??

Class Sites:

It was really effective to have other sites to look at to get ideas about different ways to set sites up, buttons and embedded videos. We looked at some sites from other clusters which were extremely valuable. I found some great examples where the teaching and learning is visible.In many cases the learning was also fully rewindable and had links to T-shaped literacy. These will be good exemplars to use with teachers in my team.

I realized that I was able to put what we have been learning into practice by using google slides, drawing, site and docs. I spent time creating multimodal slides and sub-pages on my site to present these. When we were given the chance to reflect on each other's sites I was able to take into consideration what needs to be added to my site and to put myself into the view of what others would see. Having everything in 3 clicks or less, having a simple layout and easy on the eye will make my site accessible to all learners and anyone who uses the site.

I can see that my site was not digging deep enough but now hopefully having a range of tasks and information added will engage my students and they will learn in a more creative way feeling knowledgeable to then go and share with others.

Overall I look forward to continuing to develop my site with the new and improved format. I am also looking forward to making my site more organised and user friendly for my learners.

Something I look forward to exploring more is Hapara. I have appreciated learning about the Hapara hot tips and need to keep exploring it on my own to become more familiar and accustomed to using its service.
A great big thanks to Vicki and the great team of facilitators today!

Another productive day!

Day 5 Collaborate -Sites

 

It was another really busy day with lots to think and learn about.

Today's session emphasised on  one of the six learning goals of Manaiakalani  which is the 'VISIBLE' kaupapa - ‘Making teaching and learning visible’.

We focussed on the importance of making teaching and learning visible, accessible and available to our students, teachers and  whanau. What stood out for me was that having the teaching & learning  visible to our colleagues is a great way to learn from each other and share our ideas. Visible learning will lead to effective teaching and accelerated learning of our students.

Initially I found it tricky today when doing the group activity on a shared topic in which we had to individually create a google site.  It wasn't so much as the creation of a google site, but more in the, what should I have on my site that would hook the learners.

 I will endeavour to keep practicing using google sites as I know that it will benefit my learners and myself.

The Multi Modal Deep Dive session with Kerry was a bonus for me.  I got the opportunity to see

what other teachers had put onto their sites in terms of engagement - the hook'. 

The little you tube video of 'Dressing window challenge  - Mary Queen’ explained  the purpose & the importance of the websites.

We worked  in groups to create a Google Site from scratch. We moved between the Multi-Text Database, Jamboard and Google Sites , I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I feel that I can navigate around Google Sites quite well. 

One of the most important takeaways from today's session was the power of multi-modal sites. Multimodal learning is Empowering !

The Benefits of Multimodal Sites are :

• Promote more interactivity.

• Portray information in multiple ways.

• Adapt projects to benefit different audiences.

• Keep focus better since more senses are being used to process information.

• Allow for more flexibility and creativity to present information.

I need to practice and see if I can improve my knowledge and understanding of some of the topics learnt thus far.

Whakatauki - learning to create and creating to learn

Dealing with Data - Day 4 ! Google Sheets, Maps and Forms

Another Fantastic day! 

Today has been another day full of great learning experiences with an amazing team . I always feel very excited to start my DFI session with an open mind about trying new things and to see how and if the new ideas/ tools will be useful and effective in my own practice and with the way I like to set things up etc. I have been really enjoying working with a great team in our digital bubble! 

It is really cool to connect each week to see what people have tried and also to hear how things are going. It is a really useful forum for discussion and to get additional support for all members of the bubble. 

There are so many cool ideas being shared and discussed and having the time to practice these with the support of others, especially if I get stuck, has been really awesome. 

Analysis of Blog Posts

The blog analysis activity was a good process to work through in terms of making a sheet and transferring data

 

 

 Learning from home but being connected has been a really positive experience for me, especially with the course being on a Friday. Another positive is this has given me more time to explore and consolidate my learning in my own time. 

Google map- Google map version of my favourite holiday places !

 

Google Sheets 

We learnt about google sheets, and I wish I knew what I now know back in the past. It would have made my life so much easier!! Now I have a much better understanding of google sheets and some of the cool tricks that I can do, to make using them more easily  and effectively! Conditional formatting was an excellent learning for me today! 

What a productive day of learning ! 

Stay safe, stay well everyone !

Highlights of my learning today !

Today was another awesome day of learning.

 

We started with what's going well and what we need support with. This is always a

good time to hear how things are going for others and what other teachers have

tried in their classrooms since last week.

 

Manaiakalani's pedagogy was shared today highlighting the importance of ‘The CREATE

part of Learn, Create, Share Pedagogy’. The quote below really resonated with me and I

thought it would be good to share…

 

 

I love Youtube as a go to resource for many things but today I learnt how to make a playlist.

If only I had known how to make a playlist my life would have been so much easier for my students.

 

The day progressed really well with more learning as we looked at various features

of google draw and google slides. Google drawing was a new tool for me and it

was a lot of fun to use. I created an animated story using google slides. The

best part of the day was having the time to play and create with these tools

and the time certainly flew. I have learned so much in such a short time and

look forward to learning more next week.