Friday, September 24, 2021

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!

Friday, September 17, 2021

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 !






Friday, September 10, 2021

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!



 


 

 



Friday, September 3, 2021

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!