Today was the day where 8 weeks of hard work paid off. Going into the exam I was quite nervous as I was unsure if I had taken on board all the learning that I had been given the opportunity to take. It had also been an extremely busy 2 weeks with parent interviews in the afternoons fo the past 2 weeks. I was hoping that I had the ability to remember what I needed to do to pass the exam. 

After completing it way within the time given I was re assured that maybe I do have the skills and the knowledge. Having used Google Classroom over lockdown also helped as I was able to answer thise questions with ease. It actually brought back some memories. 

It was interesting to listen to Vicky talk about the different opportunites that are out there for teachers who have completed the DFI course. It is great to hear that it is quite easy to continue your learning through the Manaiakalani system.

On reflection of the past 8 weeks, the way that the Digital Fluency Intensive has impacted on me has been extremely postitive.  Learning about the who and the why of the Manaiakalani program pedegogy was really informative. I know have a deeper understanding the positive outcomes for teachers, whanau and students. Using the skills I have learnt in the DFI within the classroom has been great for me and my students., By being a pilot class aswell and seeing other skills being taught has allowed me to see where I can head in the future and what programs I can put in place.

I am really looking forward to the future and using the skills I have learnt in the classroom.

I intend to continue to use my Blog as a space where I can share my thoughts, successes and failures. Because I am not just a classroom teacher but SENCO and a Team leader having all my professional learning and inquiry information in one space. I am also enjoying my class Blog and have spoken to many parents about connecting to it and seeing what we are doing in the class. I am hoping more parents will be starting to make commensts.

The focus of Week 8 was Computational Thinking which was a little daunting as my previous experiences with coding have been tricky and not a success. 

Comoutational thinking with the school system has been ongoing since 2017, it is only been from 2020 that it has had to be put into place. 

Digital fluency - Impletementing paractice.

Digital Technologies - using the correct technology to allow children to become fluent in using digital devices.

By using digital technologies within the classroom we are shifting from being passive consumers of technolgy to being able to create using digital technology in a compentent manner and being able to make informed decisions on what technology to use according to the activity. 

It becomesa time where teachers and students are working alongside each other. Teachers are standing back and allowing the children take control. 

 
It was interesting to see what the progress outcomes were for the  children that I am teaching. I will be using these outcomes when designing and thinking about activities that I can use in my class. 

Empowerment

Agency      or      Empowerment

In some cases within schools around NZ, when we talk about agency to our whanau they become a litlle scared. An agency is someone who comes in and may make changes to the way you live,  or become involved in things you awould rather keep private.

This was why the Manaiakalani project changed the name to Empowered..

As part of the Manaiakalani pedegogy the thought process around empowerment meant that whanau could become part of the learning process. There are many things in the life that disempower people, money or lack of it, is the biggest cause of disempowerment. 

By having a device they can call their own, people can se what there children have been learning, learn alogside them, use the internet to make their lives easier e.g doctors appts etc. 

Technology in the future

Programs like the Jetsons used to be so far into the furure that we thought as kids it would never happen. Many of the cool technologies that were on this program are now things that we take for granted. except I have not got my robot maid as of yet. 

There have been many breakthrough technologies of 2021, some were developed because of world wide experiences e.g covid. 

As part of todays create I chose to do my mahi as part of a game called game froot. 

I had so much fun creating and will be using this in my program. It was easy to understand and was meaningful. 

I am unable embed a copy of my Mihi as we could not work out how this was done. 

 

 I have really enjoyed Week 7's focus on Ubiquitous learning. 

This learning has actually been at the forefront of my thinking as I have had a child away and it was great to give the whanau her Chromebook and direct her to the learning that I had put on the site in which she could do while at home. 

                                  Anytime

                                  Anywhere

                                  Any pace

                                  Anyone

Technology is not just a tool -  it brings about possibilities to not only the children in your class but their whanau as well. It means that the whanau can learn alongside their children. The learning that the children do within the day does not need to stop because they have left the school gates, they can extend their learning far beyond the 9-3 school hours. 

Rewindable learning came into its own during lockdown and for me that was 6 weeks of hard work and lots and lots of new learning to deliver my classroom program.

Proud of: being able to offer some kind of routine for the children in my class through Meets, offering activites that the children can do with or without parental support, learning how to deliver activities.

Regrets: looking back to the the type of activites I feel that there was a lot of busy type things to do, I felt I was not 'teaching' them anything new. The learning was not ubiquitous as I did not know where to get the resources or know how to make the resources. 

What I have taken forward in my teaching: I know am able to use Sites within the classroom program and the work that I am setting is more rewindable. I am sure that if we went in to lockdown again I would feel a little more comfortable with the learning the children were partaking in. 

Being Cybersmart

We want our learners to become confident decision makers making smart deciosion within their digital learning space. 

My class have created their own smart footprint slide that shows how we are Cyber smart. This is an ongoing discussion. 

Todays create caused a little anxiety as we only use Chromebooks and do not have access to IPads in the classroom so I was unable to create a Explain Everything activity or an Activity in Hapara workspace. 

After a few deep breaths and taking the time to go through what others had created I found that I could do it. 

I was able to create an activity in which the children learnt about what sites are appropriate to go on whilst at school. As part of the activity they had to learn how to take a screenshot of the site they were on and describe why it was internet site they could be on it at school. My learning was to add in a screencastify of how the children can take a screen shot as this would be new learning for them 

I am quite proud of what I have made and will be using it in my class. 

 This weeks learning is all about Connecting - The power of digital technology is the ability to be connected to others. 

In this digital world it is now very easy to be connected via technology to friends, whanau, the wider community and the world. 

Being part of  Manaiakalani connects up to a powerful network and this network is growing each year as more and more schools join onto and take on the Manaiakanlani pedegogy of Learn, Create, Share. It was inspiring to hear Dorothy talk about how the original schools to go along the Manaiakanai journey were only a short walk away from each other. They were physically close but still miles away, only coming together for competitions and sporting situations. Now these schools are connecting educationally through digital technology and children are getting an insight into what happens in different communities who are just a stones throw away. 

Now within the Manaiakalani program there are over 100 schools/ kura form all over New Zealand who are on the digital waka together sharing and connecting with each other. 

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Google Sites

Using google Sites within the classroom program has many benefits not only for the learner but for the parents as well. Parents are often not privy to what goes on within the classroom unless they are popping in on a regular basis and with a large number of parents working in this day and age, this does not happen. 

The purpose of a Google Site 

* One stop learning hub - everything is in one plave where the child can find their learning easily and quickly. 

* It is visible. Parents, other staff, the wider community and can see what is happening in your class. What you are teaching and what the children are learning,. 

* Rewindable - the children can keep going back to the learning at anytime.

* Gives information. 

* Allows teaching and learning to continue even if children can not physically be at school. e.g another lockdown.

* Have visual appeal. Children need to be hooked into the site so they want to be accessing the learning. 

It was a good time to go through my class site and ensure I was following those rules. I do still have a lot more work to do on my site which will be  ongoing.  

Class Site 

 It is hard to believe that it is week 5 and I am halfway through my DFI journey. 

Todays lessons allowed me  to embed some knowledge and refine some of the skills I have been using within my classroom program. 

Again It was great to listen to Dorothy explain the pedagogy behind the Manaiakalani especially as it was about a theory that I had begun to do within my own teaching practice. 

Visual Teaching and Learning

You can see it or you cannot - there is no grey area. 

Who do we need make our teaching visible to?

* Learners - not all children can read the teachers mind, having the ability to succeed needs to be made available to everyone. 

* Whanau - there should be a transparent partnership with the whanau of the children in your class this aligns with the Treaty of Waitangi. 

* Colleagues - By sharing ideas we are not re inventing the wheel and other teachers have some amazing ideas, why don't we share and celebrate these talents. 

* Wider Community - having accountability of what you are teaching.

When we make the learning visible it makes it easier for the learner, they know what they are doing, how they are doing it and when they are doing it. It allows those children with additional needs feel supported as there is a visual structure that they can follow. They know what is coming up and there is no surprises. .

I have begun to put my planning onto my class site. as I have a child in my class who has additional needs. This child's whanau is able to see what we are focusing through the week and follow up the learning at home. If there is something that is out of routine she is able to prepare her child, this saves meltdowns and frustrations. 

I also have my planning on the class tv screen while I am giving the children instructions on what they are doing for the day. I have begun to see them look back at the screen to read what there task is, therefore less interruptions while I am working with a guided group. 

Multi Modal

Learning from Sites for children has to be: Engaging - there needs to be excitement from the children , they want to be on the site.

                                                     Empowering - they need to be learning at their ability and a have the opportunity to take their learning to the next level. 

                                                     Be personal to them - all children learn in different ways and have differing abilities. 

                                                     Accelerated achievement - the children need to be achieving at a faster rate than they would be if they were only using non digital technologies. 

Multi modal uses a range of communication types to get the learning across e.g Videos, articles, differing ability texts, audio, web sites. This allows all learners to access the learning. 

The Hook 

The first page of the site that the children are working from needs to be like the shop window. Would they want to come in? Are the children excited about the learning that is displayed on the front page? 

If you have the right hook and the children know what they are to do, they become empowered and then want to take responsibility for their own learning. 

Having learning on Sites means that is available 24/7. It should be able to stand up on its own, the children know where to go and what to do without assistance from the teacher. 

After this presentation I was able to participate in the collaborative bubble and create a Site that could be used as part of my classroom program. We all had similar ideas and could find texts, activities that can be added to make a multi modal site about Matariki. 

Matariki

I definitely will be using this approach within my classroom program and am looking forward to making some sites to share with my learners in the future. 
 

Todays DFI is very different for me as I had a double up of courses. I was able to attend the talk from Dorothy regarding the Share part of the Manakalani pedagogy but the subsequent learning was done by going back to the slides shared  and speaking to other colleagues in my school who are also attending the DFI.  

Share

Sharing means making connections with others. Humans are born to share and everyone does this differently. Learners learn best when they have an audience, it makes the learning purposeful. By using technology in the digital age we live in,  sharing allows people to connect with others and they can see that people are interested in what they are doing or what they have to say. Therefore achievement increases and improves. 

Blogger- a vehicle for digital citizenship. Blogger teaches our children to become cybersmart, positive, thoughtful and helpful. 

Blogger and sharing work gives children the experience of finishing and what this feels like. They have to finish it before it gets pasted onto the Blog which is a life skill that needs to be learnt by all. It also allows the ability to give and receive authentic feedforward and feedback from other people, not only their teacher and whanau. 

Google Forms

I have used Google forms previously with differing success. I do find Google forms an easy and effective method of gathering information from children in your class/ school, Parents and the wider community. 

Todays DFI has taught me how to change the settings so you have control over the users and how the form is used. One thing I did not know was that you could import data from a Google Form to a spreadsheet. This will be helpful and I can see myself using this skill within my teaching. 

Google Maps

A fun app that can be used to turbocharge children's learning especially older children. Using Google Maps for Year 3/4 would probably be a whole class activity looking at the distances between countries. 

It does seem to be easier than Google Earth. 

Google Spreadsheets

I have always wanted to use Spreadsheets for my data but seemed to get caught up with the complexity of it. After learning  from Sally MacNeilage, I can now fix the bars at the side and the bottom so they do not move, find averages and sums of columns and format my cells. This will be beneficial when displaying data. I intend to give this ago this term as it is a reporting term.  I would really like to break down a knowledge skills test we do for math's into sections so I can discover the knowledge areas my learners need extra support in. This means  I can target certain children. 

 DFI week 3

My brain must be becoming a little more tuned to becoming digitally fluent as this week did not seem as daunting as last week. Yes the learning was there but I was not as brain dead like I was by the end of Thursday week 2. 

Again listening to the Pedagogy behind Manaiakalani from Dorothy drives home the why behind all this new learning. This week focus was create. 

This aspect of the Manaiakalani pedagogy enables teachers to use creativity within the classroom like they used to do in the past. Just from my short time using technology in my class I can see how the children are learning new ways to create. I intend to use a lot more creativity within my class in the future. 

  I really like this visual as it shows the different ways children can create and how these creative skills allow the children to problem solve, communicate with others and develop collaboration skills. 

If the hands are involved then the head gets going. 

The new learning that was presented today allowed me to create something and this lead to lots of thinking to how these creations can be used in my classroom and what am I already doing. 

You Tube

Learning to make playlists and embedding you tube videos into my Sites, slides etc is very beneficial. This will allow me to make playlists of videos around a certain topic. 

Google Draw

I have dipped my toes into the Google draw platform but have not had much success. After todays learning I am ready to use it more effectively and give my class opportunities to explore and design pictures. This is a great way for the children to use and develop their creativity. I am looking forward to showing my class next week.

During the create session using Slides I used this opportunity to create a reading activity. This Slide allows the children to listen to the text (rewindable learning), listen to the instructions and use Drawing to create their own garden taking skills and knowledge that they have discovered from the text. 

 

Using a variety of media within teaching ensures that you are allowing  students of all abilities to access the learning. Those children who find it tricky to read can listen to the text, those who find it hard to write can use pictures to explain,  children who need movement and song to learn can listen to songs about maths. The list is endless. 

DFI Week 2

Coming into the Google meet this week was less nerve wracking than week I knew what to do and  what to expect. 

Listening to Dorothy's talk about the Manakalani Pedagogy each week is allowing me to really have a deeper understanding of the why behind the Manakaklani project. 

Having those 3 simple words allows diversity and the ability to access a range of students, schools and teachers. 

Today Dorothy focused on the LEARN part of the Pedagogy of Learn, Create, Share.

Learn - Ako

I feel this is the most important part of the Manaiakalani pedagogy as It underpins the reason why we are in classroom. The NZ curriculum has stood the test of time and all the parts of the curriculum relates back to children's learning whether in the analogue or digital world. 

It made me think about what my school believes learning looks like.

What do we do to Recognise  effective practice? This will be something that I will be following up for own knowledge.   

Amplify  What technologies do I use to make effective teaching and learning opportunities for my learners? How can I amplify their learning? After listening to the talk regarding Amplify I realize that I do use a lot of websites, pages to find resources ideas, activities that will help with the children's learning. There are so many talented people who are willing to share their ideas which has made my teaching streamlined, fun and effective. 

TurboCharge -  This allows the learner to see things that may never see in real life. A good example for this is when I was with a group and they were reading a text about different countries and having to find details about different features. After they had finished they were given time to find one of those countries via a google search. I had the children coming up to me with great delight talking about what the country/ area looked like in real life. The amazement and excitement on their faces was priceless. I will be continuing to do this in the future.

Technology enables us to remove barriers to learning and allow learning to happen in new and novel ways.  

Throughout todays session we were able deep dive into some Google tools that I use regularly. I have used google meets before and have set up meeting inviations using the calender. I use this when setting up IEPs with other staff, agencies and whanau. It is good to know that I can also attach documents to this invitation so people have a copy of the previous IEP before we start the meeting. 

 It was great to have the time tidy up my Gmail and get rid of a whole lot of promotional emails that I do not need. Having a calendar at my fingertips is very handy and I had been using my Google calendar, but have to admit that I have resorted back to my paper one as sometimes people come and see me when my computer is not with me and it is faster to open my diary. It is my goal to use my Google calendar regularly from now on!!

One thing I found very tricky was recording a meet, this was due to my computer having wifi issues and me missing most of the directions and information. This did cause a little bit of angst and anxiety I did eventually get it completed but I certainly need lots more practice .  

DFI Day 1

 Today was the first day of my Digital Fluency  journey. The nerves were there but I was ready to jump in and begin to learn to use technology more effectively not only for my learning but to support and guide the children in my class. 

The day began with the Manaiakalani story presented by Dorothy. This cemented the reason why I had signed up to this new learning philosophy of learn, create share. It also outlined how it is designed to improve the progress of all the students.  Hearing about the progress that has happened over a short space of time in other schools is heartening and to seeing communities, whanau and teachers working alongside each other for the benefit of all children. 

 Drive. I have used drive for a number of years and due to my nature it is quite organised, with each year being its own folder. This session was a great chance to become Marie Kondo and clear out the trash and the un needed files. A great feeling! The most effective tip I got out of this presentation was the permission settings. I have had issues in the past when I have shared a document with a class and I get 24 emails back saying they need access. I am hoping this learnt skill will allow children to quickly access their work and reduce the stress levels. 

This button has now become a life saver!

Planning should be transparent, we shouldn't be hiding our planning or anything we do in the classroom.   

Google Tools The tool I found most beneficial and will implement within my teaching is voice typing. I have taught many children who find the physical aspect of writing tricky and have wonderful ideas to share. Using this tool will allow them to get their ideas down without the frustration therefore lead to success in writing 

Another tool I have learnt today is to remove background. This skill will allow me to add in pictures to posters/ worksheets. Children often need picture cues to help when decoding tricky words By adding in pictures that have no backgrounds will make this easier for the children. 

After my learning for the day I was able to create a poster that can be displayed in the class or on the TV screen to remind children when the appropriate times they are allowed to interrupt during lessons. I am hoping this will decrease the amount of children coming to see me with trivial problems and stopping the flow of the lesson for others. Hers's hoping anyway!

 

After a day of learning I am looking forward to Week 2. 

Nau mai, haere mai

Welcome to my professional learning blog.

This is a place where I can reflect on my Teaching as Inquiry goals

and how they link to the Education Council's

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