Day 1: Digital Fluency Intensive

Today was the first day of the Digital Fluency Intensive...

Here are the Four Goals of the DFI:

1. Teachers supported to acquire fluency using the basic tools for young people to use for learning
2. Teachers supported to acquire fluency using the basic tools for effective teaching
3. Teachers supported to understand how digital technologies can raise achievement outcomes
4. Teachers supported to understand Manaiakalani

Wow - what a day of just getting right into the nitty gritty of Google Docs with colleagues in first day at the Intensive.  Diving right into Google has been exceptionally eye-opening as I learned to create groups, use voice typing, properly paste into blogs... and a whole bunch of useful steps to navigate easier.  I always considered myself to be "ok" with digital technology, but I feel like I have stepped up my skills in just one 6 hour session at the DFI.  Most importantly, something I have questioned for awhile now:  "Exactly how do people get newsletters, etc. so neatly aligned using both words and images in a Google Doc!?" (as I would struggle trying to make this happen and then eventually switch to Google Slides as a way out of my digital mess).  Today, that was answered for me and I have learned to use the table in Docs to my own benefit... creating this visual image - in a very short time - for my classroom!

Being a New Entrance teacher, I found it so cool to fiddle around with the Voice Typing tool where I immediately thought of ways in which I could use this in my classroom with my little learners.  As a next step, I will use it as a way for my 5 year olds to practise responding to blogs and comments that users might leave on our classroom blog... as they are just getting introduced to taking pictures and blogging!

This day also deepened my understanding of Manaiakalani as Dorothy Burt walked us through the story of its birth in 2006/7.  Here are some of my take-aways from her presentation... and it was so interesting to hear about how Hapara came about with the organising of floating docs! 

• Successful innovation requires champions - principals, teachers taking the first steps in 2006/7
• Paper and pencil technology did not necessarily engage our young people
• Seeking to empower learners and raise achievement outcomes
• Blending schooling improvement and digital learning
• Began with focussing on literacy - using the technology to create and share, as well as sharing the devices in classes
• Lead teachers exploring what would make the difference in their spaces for the  Learn Create Share model
• Researching → what device could we put into the hands of our learners?
• Hapara Teacher Dashboard: created and launched to control the large number of Google Docs that teachers had difficulty keeping track of!
• Visible Teaching and Learning → Google Sites
• "Learn Create Share" emerged and it became very clear that this could be done in any subject

Looking forward to what I will learn next class!