Day 2: Digital Fluency Intensive

If it’s worth teaching, it’s worth capturing

If it’s worth learning, it’s worth capturing

Today we explored the "Learn" aspect of Manaiakalani where Dorothy emphasised the importance of effective teaching and digital learning going side by side.  She explained that teachers are still the "vital ingredient" in a digital learning environment where the craft of teaching is still key to student learning.  The value placed on Rewindable Learning really stood out to me as she explained that in order to make a difference in young peoples' lives, learning needs to be captures in a way that they can go back and revisit their learning - at their own pace.  With technology NOT being just a tool, she explained that giving kids the future they deserve to have is critical - and technology plays a key role in helping them become successful in life.

I learned a few valuable things today around the use of Gmail, Calendar and Hangouts.  We spent time organising our inboxes and changing our settings to make it suitable to our own needs.  I also learned how to differentiate between the various calendars and create events - and even scheduled a Hangout for this upcoming week.  I was also grateful for the introduction of Google Keep.  As I tend to be quite old-school with to-do lists in a chart in my Drive that I print out (yes, print out), I could not believe how easy it was to access this tool with a simple download on my phone and as an extension on Chrome.  Can't wait to explore this app more to simplify the planning aspects of my life.

Midway through the day, we each had to look at one Summer Learning Journey Blog from a student and talk about it on a Google Hangout - while recording on Quicktime - with two other colleagues.  What my group didn't do properly was the group roles, which we did not establish very well from the beginning.  This was a learning point for me...

It was very evident in our long 15-min video where we troubleshooted for half the video - trying to figure out if we had even recorded it.  Here is the condensed version...

This week, I am planning to do a Google Hangout with Sonali Carter's class in Room 24 at Pt England where we can connect our learners and a few of them can introduce themselves - which will be super cool.  Hoping to be able to record that one more smoothly this time - but at least we have had today's experience with it.  Here goes.. stay tuned!