The Big Finale - DFI May 14th 2020

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Today we talked about Ubiquitous Learning:

Anytime

Anywhere

Any place

Students should be able to continue to learn beyond the classroom - this is a huge part of accelerating student learning, particularly when holidays/time away from the physical school environment often contributes to 'dips' in achievement levels. The Summer Learning Journey is a good example of how learning beyond the classroom can be continued, and extremely beneficial to maintaining achievement levels over breaks.

Even in the school environment, we aim for students to have the skills and freedom to work independently, with the teacher acting as a guide, but not the 'one stop shop' where learning must happen.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

There has been something every week that I have been able to take from the course - this week, despite not passing the Google Exam (but coming close), I still feel confident enough to have another go, and most certainly I am now able to use all the tools that we were tested on effectively in the educational setting (in my own time).

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

The exam today has reminded me about the learners who might struggle with time limits and tests - I will try to make their world of assessment as accessible to them as possible. Aside from this, the DFI entire course has left me with a multitude of skills that I have been able to use, and will continue to share with my learners.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Today I had to take a moment and remember to reflect in a positive way about when things don't quite work out the way I wanted them to. By staying positive with a 'Can Do' attitude, I will continue to get better at everything I do (even if in small increments)!

Computational Thinking - DFI May 7th 2020

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

          Today we explored the concept of 'Empowered'. When it comes to connecting 

our learners with the digital world, their interactions need to 'offer transformative

impact on their lives' - it should go beyond being 'just a tool'.

We aim for our learners to become 'creative directors' in their digital world - rather than

consumers.

The Manaiakalani approach and pathway allows learners and their whānau to be

empowered by being connected, and by being connected you are visible.

It was interesting to listen to the stories of the people who have been disempowered

by poverty, and this is certainly going to be something we see more of in coming

times.

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

Today we learnt about the Digital Technologies Curriculum, (Computational Thinking).

For me, this was a bit of a refresher as I completed professional development in this

area over 2019. However it was still very beneficial for me to revisit this today.

A key point I gathered from Kerry was that within the the area of computational

thinking, we are teaching students to think like computer scientists, with prime focus

on the process, not the product. With our online programme it has been increasingly

important to do this, and I can see that coding might be a good vehicle to breakdown

tasks and share learning. I will definitely be doing some further exploring in code.org

and CS First this week! I also gathered some new tips for using sheets that will

make my life easier when recording data in text.

• What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

I especially enjoyed building the Flappy-bird game and Minecraft: voyage aquatic

during our coding time. Even though coding (especially Scratch) isn't really my

personal favourite thing, I know my students will love to have a go at some of the

coding tasks we looked at today. As they become more proficient at building and

understanding code, I would like them to apply this to their learning and sharing

opportunities in their Blog (I saw some amazing examples of this from Marshlands

School today - aimed at priority learners)

Manaiakalani Cybersmart and Rewindable Learning with Screencastify -DFI April 29th 2020

     

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

Today we used screencastify to create some Cybersmart learning for our class.

As I am new to Manaiakalani, and our focus has been on Quality Blog Posts, and consistency with posting in the last few weeks, I chose the slide above to talk to.

We also did some work on Explain Everything (ipads) but the online version was really

fun to work with so I will aim to incorporate this into my learning over the term.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

When children are blogging they are learning to engage in Positive Online Behaviour.

And they are connecting in authentic ways.

Manaiakalani offers: Partnership (ToW)

Participation (Everyone has the SAME device)

Protection (Hapara is effective, safe and managed)

Sharing is personal ...what will you want people to see/hear/read about you now,
and in the future?

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I can use Hapara to check blogsite entries - this saves me a lot of time going in and out
of individual blogs.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence capability or workflow in my personal life?

Both for work, and for personal use...the keyboard shortcuts are a handy bit of information to

have on standby and remember. I like the idea of knowing several ways to enlarge the screen

- especially for when I haven't for my glasses!

Superb Sites 2 DFI April 23rd 2020

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Being Connected means you are Visible - the two concepts are inter-related and vital in the Manaiakalani teaching and learning principles and practice. 

 Connected Schools are connected to each other. They are connected to the nation, and they are connected to the world.  Connection allows learning to be shared, for new ideas to be communicated and for learning to be visible, for everyone - including teachers. 

A main drive behind the Manaiakalani approach was to increase communication, collaboration between ALL sectors of education and through this, establish positive working relationships between schools in each cluster. Being connected does not mean that different schools have to lose the unique aspects of their school community because the Learn, Create, Share model still allows for special characteristics, values and principles to be included in learning programmes and celebrated with individual school communities. 

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

Today after looking at class sites from around NZ along with some extremely supportive critique about my current site, I have a deeper understanding of what makes an ideal class site, and have gained the skills and confidence to build a site that is both appealing to my learners/families and functional as a learning hub. I am continuing to work on my site and I aim to have it in 'ship-shape' before Tuesday next week. It was also really great to see all the work (when looking at sites) that other teachers in our region are putting out online. This was both reassuring and added to my bank of tools for online learning.

• What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

On Thursday my learners are supposed to be blogging at some point of the school day. When I went to check and make comments the result was very disappointing, so I made a sheet detailing the number of blog posts completed over the year (the same as what we did for DFI) and then used a chart to share the data with them. On Friday the email notifications were piling in and there were also comments happening between students. I'm going to continue to share their progress and I may even add an element of competition!

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

It has been really good for me to be back in the learner role this year as it has been a while since I have been part of ongoing/onsite professional development. While sometimes I feel out of my depth, most of the time I am coping and not getting too stressed if I haven't quite picked up things straight away, as digital learning allows me to go back and have another go (or push the go-back button!). Although this links mainly to professional learning, on a personal level I am feeling really proud of my small achievements/ability to do new things.

Superb Sites - DFI April 16th, 2020

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?Visible Learning allows our learning community to be...
Empowered, Connected Visible, and Ubiquitous.
When we ask ourselves if the learning is visible, key sub questions could be:
Can whānau see it?
Can the learners see it?
Can our colleagues see it?
... Either you can see it or you can’t! It is important to consider also what genuinely needs to be
private and invisible.
Another interesting concept to consider in planning, process, outcomes and assessment is
'NO SURPRISES' - the default is visible. This means that students and the wider learning community can expect to know what to do everyday and why they are doing it.In Manaiakalani we are committed to making Teaching & Learning VISIBLE with the goal of effective practice and accelerating learners' progress. The Google suite provides us with multiple ways to make learning visible for everyone.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
Today I added to my skill bank for making Google sites. Although I have created these before, I can now add pages, customise buttons and embed Youtube clips. I have realised that Sites could be a useful tool also for organising events. I have also been forced to think about what 'my window' looks like to my audience...how can I draw them in?

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?
The session on Multimodal learning and the close link to T-Shaped Literacy was very inspirational for my future online learning programmes. I have used the UDL process (Everyone's in TKI) to plan learning programmes in the past but without much consideration given to how this could be applied to online learning. I will definitely be using this for Topic-based studies over the term. It was also valuable to visit the Multimodal sites - my favourites were the Current events wheel and the Romeo and Juliet sites. 

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?Because of the regular DFI course contact, I am slowly becoming more accustomed to interacting online and making connections outside of the 'person to person' environment. This has boosted my confidence for other meetings when required, and I am actually enjoying posting and sharing my thoughts and ideas through other media. As I become more skilled, I feel I am able to be more creative in what I share. 

My Digital Pēpeha

Super Sheets and Fabulous Forms DFI April 9, 2020

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Today there was a point made about what an authentic audience was, and I found this particularly interesting...Firstly, I had never considered the difference between i.e. the school assembly model, verses the person with the remote control. Secondly, it made me think about the content/context of sharing in the classroom setting - if we all had remotes, what would we 'turn-over'? Perhaps this is a question that I could pose to my students? I also see the relevance the 'micro to macro' break down of the types of audience for/when sharing within the learning environment. The 'positive, thoughtful and helpful' model to construct comments is a great foundation for everyone to use, and can only have productive outcomes.

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

The session on Google Sheets was extremely helpful for me as I now understand (but admittedly need to spend a bit more time practicing) how to use the tool bar (especially to lock columns) and work more efficiently with data in this format. Although I am quite confident with using Google Forms, by working with a group today, I discovered some more tricks to use, such as duplicating questions, which will help me to work smarter.

• What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

I am definitely going to try using My maps with my learners as our topic focus this term is about 'home'. I know the students know how to use sheets to make charts - so now that I know too, we can use the process to analyse data in Maths. I will also be looking at the blog post analysis, as this is an area that I want them to spend more time on.

BLOG POST CHART - created from sheets data

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I can see both that sharing my own work/my class work (on blogs especially), is both an end point for the work, and perhaps a starting point for future learning. I think I need to dedicate more time towards this on a regular basis, as well as commenting on the work/learning of others.