Not Strictly Professional but For Those Who Asked

Kia Ora Koutou!

Hope all is well in your classrooms and the DFI has made things run more smoothly. I'm finally using my Multi Modal site to do some T-Shaped Literacy in class and it is up and running this week! Check it out and let me know what you think

One last thing, some of you asked for the recipe for the dog biscuits I made. Excuse the handwriting, probably should've been a doctor, but here it is...

The End of an Era

The idea of ubiquitous learning is a real game changer in education. No longer are we confined to the 4 walls of the classroom, we are now able to be almost omnipotent with the advancements in technology. Learning at school, at home, while travelling or while away on a conference in the middle of nowhere (as long as there's wifi) is now a thing.

Being able to connect at any time in any place means that learning can be done whenever it suits both teacher and student within reason. Google classroom means that all students can be sent documents at any time to keep them up to date with all assignments.

Being given the Google Certified Educator Level 1 badge is proof that I have been able to take in a lot of this information and apply it in real life contexts

Empower-ful stuff

My first DFI of term 2 and there was a lot to pick up! The first thing we learned about today was empowerment. Empowering learners to take control of their learning and become creators of content not just consumers. We talked about the ways we can use technology to counter negative impacts in students' lives.

We spent a lot of time talking about computational thinking. We discussed how many of the jobs that exist now have been created in the past 10 years and what the job market will look like in 10 years for our students. The new digital technologies curriculum means we are creating learners that will be savvy with technology by the time they are in the workforce.

There were a couple of activities that we did that I thought were easily transferrable to the classroom. Giving instructions to each other to draw shapes or walk through a grid showed how important and basic computational thinking is. Using Scratch was also something that would translate really well in the classroom. I created a couple of sports based animations using sprites and coding. Here is one og those


The potential to use these animations for presentations for both students and teachers is an exciting prospect that I'll be sure to explore in the coming weeks.

The other Scratch animation i made

DFI 7

Another week I missed on holiday! This week seems to be one of the most useful weeks and I am gutted to have missed it. Using Google Forms is something I have been intending to play around with so I will definitely be looking at the links given to give me a better idea of how to use them. I may even do a Google Hangout to get some people in the DFI to help me figure it out!

Google sheets is something I use everyday to monitor student achievement so using the links in the DFI from this week will be something that will no doubt help me streamline the creation and usage of these documents

DFI 6

I missed this week as I was on holiday but it was very interesting to see the updates and changes people made on their Google sites. Using other teachers' blogs as inspiration was clearly a very useful practice as everyone seems to have created eye-catching and user friendly class sites

Tips and Tricks

We learned a lot about cybersafety and the different aspects that students - and teachers and parents - need to be aware of. Manaiakalani have a plethora of resources available for everyone to look at and learn more about how to be a respobsible digital citizen.

Using the digital dig showed that I was capable using the basics within the Google apps range. This means I will be able to help others with issues I have seen before and can help my students upskill.

Being able to use screencastify means that I can do lessons with my students and upload them to the site so they can revisit them to rewind their learning. I created a screencastify talking about using images legally in Google Slides

Sharing is Caring

It was really interesting thinking about how sharing has been redefined through the ages. What once started as a necessity to survival by sharing food and resources has now been completely revamped with the introduction of technology. The concept of audience is now remarkably different - what was once a teacher with a red pen is now conceivably the world. We are now able to share as both teachers and learners with the click of a button.

With the new skills I have picked up in creating Google Sites it should be a lot easier to organise the information in the class site, as well as create unit plans for upcoming weeks. I am particularly excited about creating a unit plan following Learn - Create - Share to really engage my students.

Being able to create more order with the Class Site means that hopefully we are able to reach a wider audience and be able to engage more parents. I think this is an essential part of education and will reinforce how important it is to embrace the use of technology in class.

Learning to Create

Week 3 done and dusted! another day of exploration and new understandings. A lot of things that I found I really agreed with and related to today. Humans learn by doing! Making sure kids get time and space to play and to figure things out on their own is imperative, and adults need to be given the same leeway. This was evident today when we were given time to play around on Google Drawings and Slides to try and figure out what we knew and what new things we can apply.






















A Google Drawing of a whakatauki I did.

Using Google Slides was something I found almost tedious at times. An extension of powerpoint, just another slideshow presentation... Today I saw that there was a lot more potential in Google Slides. Using slides as a stop-motion animation vehicle showed me there is the opportunity to create something entertaining and not just the classic information with pictures I was used to. Another interesting use was creating a pick a path slideshow by linking buttons to other slides on the slideshow. That's something that I'll be looking forward to using in the classroom in the near future.

A Google Slides animation I did

Trying something new...

During the week I created Google Groups for my reading groups in class. This meant I was able to put in the texts and activities done during guided reading lessons. So far it hasn't proved as useful as expected, largely because the students can find everything on the class site, but I will persevere with it and hopefully the students will have a handle on it before the end of term.

Digital Fluency Day 2

Another big day of learning today. We learnt all about the Manaiakalani pedagogy. Two tracks were laid down, an evidence based programme and increased teacher effectiveness. These factors need to work hand in hand in order to accelerate learning and digital technology is at the forefront of this movement. We talked about how there are levels of device usage in the classroom; substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition. Moving toward the modification and redefinition parts will be challenging but rewarding no doubt.

I learnt a few new tricks to help organise my mail and calendar that should help keep my workload a bit more streamlined which can only be helpful. finding out about using Google Hangout and Google Meet to conference in people for discussions could have some wide reaching positive consequences as we can talk with people from other schools about new ideas, both teachers and students. This fits in nicely with the Share part of the Learn - Create - Share template used in Manaiakalani schools.

Sharing my knowledge of the organisational tools I have picked up today with my students should help keep things much simpler for them to find emails and events. Time management is always an issue with people of all ages so being able to keep the calendar under control should help keep the peace in the classroom.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 1

What a day! Lots of learning and teaching done by all. Great to meet lots of new friends in the profession.

I feel much more confident about using Google apps to help the kids in Te Maunga really engage with their learning.

I was really impressed with the vision of the Manaiakalani Education Trust. The way they started with an idea and still have the same values almost 15 years later shows how forward-thinking the organisation is.

Being able to use Google Docs more efficiently by creating a table of contents and being able to link straight to headings will definitely help me save time for my colleagues when showing them documents we can collaborate on.

My biggest takeaway for the day is how much more engaging workshops can be with the use of Google Docs and the add-ons that you can download. The writing add-ons and word cloud generator make writing easier and makes students more aware of the purpose and topic they are writing about.

This is the word cloud I generated using the notes I made.

I'm all about efficiency and the little tips and tricks learnt on day 1 will definitely help reduce my workload by helping streamline my groups and also helping give more relevant and engaging feedback when marking students' work online.