Day 4: Digital Fluency Intensive

Today we focused on the Share aspect of Manaiakalani which was about sharing content via digital media and in a safe environment.  The importance of not sharing personal details online was mentioned and it was a great reminder to use blogs and sites with the utmost professionalism.

Google Forms was introduced which seems to be super helpful for making questionnaires, surveys, and gathering feedback when needed.  If I was teaching an older year level, this would be a creative way to enlist their feedback on lessons or even gauge their understanding of content by using exit tickets, etc.  It lets you view your responses and even analyses your data for you!  We had a chance to create a Google Form of our own as well.

The Google Sheets session also showed us many things.  I am usually terrified of anything spreadsheet related (with an admin background and having had to use Excel randomly for accountants).  However, I do find that Google Sheets is much easier to navigate.  I am looking forward to being able to do more in spreadsheet shared planning and assessment as I feel more confident about being able to do these tasks:

• How to share spreadsheets outside of email
• How to change rows/columns
• How to sort in descending and ascending order
• Using and setting conditional format rules
• Changing text direction and using borders
• Arranging class lists (oldest to youngest)
• Inserting tick boxes for teachers to use for marking
• Creating graphs and choosing charts

Day 3: Digital Fluency Intensive

What a fun day exploring the Create side of Manaiakalani, as Gherard and Dorothy led us through this session.  Dorothy encouraged us to weave creativity in and throughout our lessons every week.  With an emphasis on using the multiple senses, she explained that Create is all about the "hook" - the hook for our young people to stay captivated and engaged in their learning.  As a result, I have been thinking of ways to give my 5-year olds more opportunities to express themselves creatively with less direction from myself. 

Here are a few quotes that resonated with me today from Dorothy's presentation...

"Creativity focuses on the process of forming original ideas through exploration and discovery. In children, creativity develops from their experiences with the process, rather than concern for the finished product. Creativity is not to be confused with talent, skill, or intelligence. Creativity is not about doing something better than others, it is about thinking, exploring, discovering, and imagining" 

Kohl, 2008 

“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such 

a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.” 

John Dewey

We also got introduced to Live-streaming and YouTube, learning how to create channels and playlists.  We were able to get our feet wet in Google Draw and Slides - learning how to draw self-portraits and match colourings from images, as well as getting familiar with animating slides.  Google Draw was especially helpful as I began to think of ways that I could have my students draw pictures related to what they are learning (e.g. different shapes, etc.)  As my students are getting familiar with the iPads, I will look into doing a session with a few of them and practising drawing in Explain Everything.  Here is my self-portrait (in the making of course) with a missing nose... still figuring out how to do that!

I made a super cool "About Me" gadget for this blog - of which I have been curious about how-to-do since I began blogging.  I plan to create an additional button for a quick link to my class blog.

I also got to create my very own digital Pepeha which I will present next week in the sharing time (coming soon).  Learning to pronounce the words correctly will be this week's challenge!  

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!

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!

Inquiry Action Plan 2019

For my inquiry focus this year, I will be working on play-based learning again as I only worked on it last year for two terms.  These will be my focus questions in two different parts:

Terms 1 & 2:

What are the different ways to incorporate play-based learning in the classroom and how do they work to improve oral language / speech?  What is the visible proof?  With our ESOL student, how might play be working to speed up her understanding of the English language and improve her oral language as she increasingly interacts with her peers. 

Terms 3 & 4:

How might play work to complement and improve reading/writing with my highest level group? 

Manaiakalani Orientation 2019

It has been an informative two days attending the Manaiakalani Orientation for the

2019 school year with speakers Dorothy Burt and Fiona Grant.  With the first day about

getting to know Manaiakalani (the hook from heaven), the emphasis was on the fact

that Manaiakalani is about the people or “he tangata” that are in it.  I also discovered

more about the Learn Create Share model and the idea of “turbocharging” learning is

also a large part of this model, which allows us to do things with technology that we

could never do before!  What I loved about the “Create” element is that Manaiakalani

seeks to involve the whole body in this process. For example, using the hands, the

feet, the heart, etc. with the brain being at the centre of it all.

There are Five Affordances of “Learn Create Share” Model:

- Engagement
- Teacher Conversations
- Cognitive Challenge
- Visibility
- Scaffolding

The idea of “Visibility” or “Visible Teaching Empowering Visible Learning” was

a highlight of the session for me.  A great deal of emphasis was on the importance

of students being able to take charge of their learning and feel empowered.  Using

visible teaching through Google class sites (that are meaningful to them!) promotes

this as students can not only direct their learning online, but can also move forward

and become prepared for what is coming next.  It was expressed that when students

can look forward and be better prepared for classroom learning, this in fact works to

save educators time so that conversations with more purpose and meaning can take

place during classroom sessions.  The importance of whanau being able to view their

child’s learning was a crucial point as well, through use of Google sites to show parents

what is happening on their child’s learning journey.

Having become a part of the Manaiakalani whanau, my next goals are to engage in

more Toolkits and complete the Digital Fluency Intensive to improve my own skills and

become more digitally-aware and able!

Update: Play-Based Learning

We’ve had quite a go with play-based learning in our shared space this term!  We wrote
shopping lists to make our bird suet hangers and then made the suet ourselves and tested
it out.  We’ve seen our kids create patterns out of paper and squares, as well as build
intricate cities with animals and blocks.  We also decided to set up a Creative Space and
put bins of loose parts and brought extra recycled materials from home, which was very
environmentally-friendly as well.  

Here’s few take-aways from setting up our Creative Space (view photos here):

-Children were choosing this activity area during actual playtime because they were so
interested in designing their own pieces.

-Their ideas were being bounced off each other (oral language!) and when one child would
create something, the other students would try to create something similar but with additions.

-When creating a piece together, the students would have to discuss how they were going
to put it together - as well as change or alter it.

-Our design showcase encouraged the students to display the works they had made.

The students designed bracelets, hats, dog leashes, cars, helicopters, blenders - without
any motivation or direction from a teacher.  In my classroom, the students were constantly
asking if they could create at the space and it has been an eye-opening term of what they
are capable of when they are given the space to take charge of their own learning.  For next
year, it would be interesting to experiment with more intentionally structured play-based
learning and really focus on the oral language element to improve student literacy and
speech.