Day 7: Digital Fluency Intensive

Today's session kicked off with a great reminder about teaching our kids about digital citizenship.  With the Cybersmart curriculum, Gerard emphasised the importance of focusing on positive language.  When negative language is avoided (e.g. cyberbullying, cybersafety) we equip our learners with positive language around the teaching of it:

Smart Learners / Smart Footprints / Smart Relationships

The Hapara session was very useful and I learned several things that I did not realise one could do.  It was interesting to learn that all blog posts and comments can be seen as they are linked to Blogger.  I could see all the blog posts in Team 1 and was able to quickly access and comment on one of our Y1 learners' drawn image of a bee in EE.  I also discovered quick buttons like "Share Links" which give teachers the power to help their learners that might be finding it hard to navigate their chromebooks or stay caught up.

With a focus on Devices today, we explored both chromebooks and iPads.  It was cool to experience what it feels like for the students using chromebooks.  I found it a bit harder to click buttons, etc. (perhaps just because I am so used to using a Mac these days!)  We did a Digital Dig to practice as our learners would and it was challenging to find webcams and get myself organised on it.  On the iPad, we explored the Explain Everything tool for 1:1 Learners.  I am used to using this in my own classroom but it was nice to sit and explore the lassoe tool, etc. in our training.  We were shown examples of how to use EE's for math and literacy.  I look forward to exploring these more so that my students can become more digitally affluent and ready for their learning years ahead.