Term One Reflection

Manaia Kalani Reflection

 After three years the Te Hiku Cluster has completed it's first round within the Manaiakalani program. I have only been a part of this for 2020 and have found it to be an awesome program that allows for students and teachers to learn within a community which is supportive and pushes the use of digital technologies. 

Check out our kura's reflection on the past year within Manaiakalani. 

Maori Spirituality in the Catholic Classroom

 Manuel Beazley - Vicar for Maori in the Auckland Diocese

 Atua --> Whenua --> Tangata 

God  --> Land --> People 

It was a great opportunity to hear from someone who is an expert in this field. I am looking to develop a school-wide te reo program where we are able to track progress. The kupu that was shared today was awesome and is something I can use in this next project. 

Notes:

TAPU: Holy/ sacred/ set apart --> Protected, preserves the tapu 

Te tapu i te _____. Sacred because of what it is, created in the likeness of God. 

Te tapu o te _____. Sacred because of the relationship it holds. 

When hopes and dreams are shared they are considered tapu ('o')

The quality of a relationship increases mana. 

You possess mana by being tapu,  'i' - potential 'o' action 

PONO: truth, and honest look at reality. 

TIKA: right order, just, correct --> Ability to respond in a way that is correct. 

AROHA: Love- Communion (tapu meeting tapu), Action

Wairua: two waters 
Waituhi: of the physical 
Waiora: of the spiritual 

Where or How is your wairua nourished? 
With family, ocean, home, special places, church, nature. 

Whanaungatanga: relationships and the quality of these are important. 

Kotahitanga: Unity of purpose. 

Pukengatanga: the pursuit of excellence. Mohiotanga, matauranga, maramatanga. What I know, what I have learned, what I understand.

Rangatiratanga: Leadership 

Turangawaewae: Stand tall- a place to stand.  Identity. 

Kaitiakitanga: Stewardship: 

Manaakitanga 

Tangata Whenuatanga: being who you are 

CREATIVITY- Out of the Box

 Amie Williams 

How can we get our learners working harder than us?
M- multi modal 

A- amplification 

P- personalisation

I- interaction 

C- coherence 

Allow students to be Free Range - make choices themselves on creative ways to present their mahi. 

Slide 9 has some great ideas on how you can apply MAPIC to students Digital Learning Objectives 

Using Podcasts: great way to allow students to share their passions or to share something they have learned. Could be an awesome way to connect with our Local Curriculum (interviewing people in our community). Can use as a follow up task - listen and feedback, book review, video review etc. 

Scratch is something that I currently use in my classroom, I really like the idea of once you have shared on your blog and received feedback to then go and create a version 2.0. This get students to take a step back and actually action and reflect on the feedback they have received. 

Creating interactive google drawings: We use google draw quite often to share our new learning in Te Kahu, I really like the idea of using a google draw to then link into other mahi. Can link in many different areas of learning- make it transdisciplinary. 

Sharing expertise by creating a screen castify of the task you are completing. This would be a great way to incorporate Tuakana- Teina.

How can we empower our tamariki to be more creative? 
Giving students 'free range' to create using tools that reflect their passion, also tools that challenge them. Trying new things. 

JAMBOARD of create ideas. 
Slide 8 has a spreadsheet that can be used to scaffold students create tasks. 

This was an awesome session that gave me some ideas on how I can better facilitate create  in my classroom. It is always fun to share ideas and tools with other teachers and to also reflect on my own practice. 

4, 3, 2, 1

A journey through Covid-19, 

Like everyone else our lives were flipped upside down due to Covid-19. Children slowly started working from home; the class got smaller as the days went by. Then level four was announced and schools across Aotearoa closed their doors. 

Being a Manaia Kalani school put us in such a good place to hit the ground running with online learning. Class work was uploaded to our class site as usual, except now with the aim for students to be able to complete it unassisted. We ran sessions twice daily through Google Hangouts where I was able to teach my tamariki and the students were able to catch up with each other. 

It was a fast learning experience figuring out what worked and what didn't for the students in Te Kahu. It took just over the first week until we had the perfect system running. With a class of 27, I had 23 attending both sessions and completing their mahi and others joining where they could (only one not engaged). 

Our two lessons focused on either math or literacy, running a contract system allowed students to tap into other learning areas and expand their thinking. The independence of students grew along with their level of responsibility. Covid-19 was building students who took agency over their learning, who took pride in what they produced and grew my students from children to young adults. They chose when to take breaks and when to knuckle down and get things done. 

As levels progressed downward and normality began trickling back to us I made my way to school alongside other members of staff to make hard copy packs for whanau who had connectivity issues and for those who needed a break from the screen. 

We are now back at school and normality has been restored. Students entered school eager to get back into the swing of things and with a new sense of ownership over their learning. They were so excited to see their friends and solidify those relationships with one another. 

We discussed how our learning went and what we wanted to carry from our remote learning experience into our every day classroom life. Students enjoyed the choice they had in their learning, the choice of what tasks to complete, and when to complete them during the week. We have established a daily fitness program which students run and plan. We have also now turned our Friday's into an independent day for students to work on what is needed and fill in their gaps as they see fit. 

I have found the whole experience amazing; yes it was hard, yes it had its challenges. But the outcome of it all has been really positive for my students and their learning journeys. 

From one teacher who is very happy to have her 27 smiling faces back in front of her every day :) 

REVISION- DFI Week 9

THE FINAL DAY! 

Ubiquitous Learning - Dorothy Connecting with Manaiakalani

Any time, anywhere, any pace, from anyone. 

Ubiquitous learning will allow for equity for all students in their education. Creating Rewindable Learning allows students to access their learning at any time. The Summer Learning Journey is a great way to keep students engage in their learning over the summer break and avoid summer slippage. It is important as the teacher to encourage students to do this and let them know it is available. It allows you to celebrate students learning when not in the classroom. "If it is worth teaching, it is worth capturing; if it is worth learning it is worth capturing." 

Today I sat the Google Level 1 Certified Educator Exam, I found the exam to be quite clear and easy, that is all due to the learning I have taken part in during the DFI course. I was very lucky to have had experience in google classroom at my previous school (this was the only part we had not covered in the DFI) so wasn't too stumped by these questions. The exam was easy to follow and really tested my knowledge. 

Throughout the Digital Fluency Intensive Course I have learned so much, not just in using the google tools but more in understanding the WHY of Manaiakalani. I have learned the importance of being visible and the positive impact this can have on students learning and also on whanau and community involvement. 

This course has been so beneficial to the functionality and efficieny of my teaching and learning programme and has had such a positive impact on my students learning. I am now able to confidently create sites and embed activities and multimodal resources to turbo charge their learning experiences. 

As the guinea pigs for the new online way of taking part in this course I believe we have done really well. I am really proud of all the teachers who have taken part in this course, we have been risk takers and have become empowered in our own practice. Well done team! 

A massive thankyou to all of the facilitators and to Dorothy for allowing this course to happen, it has been so enjoyable. 

COMPUTATIONAL THINKING - DFI Week 8

Reflection

Today was our second to last session for the DFI course, over this time I have learned so many new tips and tricks to use while utilising digital technologies. I found today really interesting when looking at the Digital Technologies Curriculum and how we can implement and weave that into our everyday teaching at PCS. The Kia Takatu site was really helpful, it allowed me to reflect on my own practice and how I can better implement the digital curriculum. The review useful, this is something I would like our staff to do so that we are able to monitor how we are tracking with embedding this curriculum into what we currently have. Today's create session was a challenge and also lots of fun, I have loved picking up little gems throughout this course that I can use with my tamariki. 

Another fantastic day, BRING ON THE EXAM!! 

Connecting with Manaiakalani - Dorothy 

Empowered: Empowering learners, empowering teachers, empowering whanau. 

Technology is more than just a tool, it transforms the way that we learn and offers new experiences, it assists when making connections with students. No barriers! Empowering students with language, share and converse with each other. 
Blogging gives students the opportunity to build their language banks, this can have an awesome positive impact on their reading and writing. Students are empowered through visible connection and ubiquitous learning. 

How have I been empowering students during lockdown?

Students have been given a lot of choice over how their work is shared, this allows them to explore multiple digital technologies.
I have also sent students a google form to see how they would best like to learn, this was really positive in terms of designing my teaching and planning to meet their needs and wants.

Deep Dive- The Future of Tech - Gerhard 

 Slide Deck: future of tech
It is so interesting to see how far technology has come and where it is heading. It blows my mind how much has been achieved even in the last 5 years in terms of Artificial Intelligence. The thought of technology taking over is very daunting, I feel as though many jobs will be lost due to technology and already have been. Although there are people behind every technological breakthrough, there are only so many people who can do this job/ have a passion for this job. Imagine a world where robots did all of our jobs? What would we do then? 

I understand that we need to equip our students for the world we are heading toward however, I believe that all students have different passions and strengths, how can we still keep the option of heading toward this later in life as technology progresses. 

Moral machine Activity: This is a really interesting activity to take part in, it makes you think a lot about decision making and what the best moral decision will be. 

Intro into Computational Thinking - Kerry  

A digitally fluent person can decide when and why to use certain digital technologies. It is important to give students the opportunity to be innovative when using digital technologies. It is great to be able to unpack the digital curriculum further and develop my understanding of this a bit more. This is definitely something I would like to go through more thoroughly(Link to the slides). In our current situation with learning it is great timing for the digital curriculum to be put into play. 

I found it very interesting doing the Digital Technologies review on the Kia Takatu site. This is a way to measure how well digital technologies are being implemented in our school. I would like to get the whole staff to do this so we can compare and look at where to next. I believe as a staff and through Manaiakalani we are beginning to implement digital technologies well by facilitating turbo charged learning experiences. 

DIGITAL READINESS REPORT

 Exploring Coding - Gerhard 

Coding : My students really enjoy coding however, I myself am not very confident in this area. I have played around with it in the past using scratch but haven't thought much into the thinking behind it. I would like to use coding apps more with my class and get them turbocharging the way they share their learning. 

After exploring different content I have found a few new sites which I will use with my students, I also really liked the way that the class sites had images of a few children with a link to their blog post under Student Generated Content I thought this was a really cool way to empower students in their learning by making it visible. Hello Ruby looks like an awesome site that can be used to unpack what digital technologies are and how they work. Scratch is a app which I will be using for next weeks math lesson as we are looking at cartesian planes and coordinates. I would like to do more focused lessons with using coding apps to ensure that students are getting a better understanding on how to use it so they can then make use of the app when creating DLO's of their learning.

Create 

I decided to look at Mihi Maker using Gamefroot, this was a challenging task but also a really cool way to share your pepeha. Check it out below! 

CONNECTING WITH WHANAU

During this time of uncertainty and being stuck at home connection has become something that we all value more highly than we may have in the past. Being kept away from friends and family has been difficult for myself and for my students. 

“I love those connections that make this big old world feel like a little village.” – Gina Bellman

I thought it would be awesome to connect the whanau in our class by hosting a Whanau Quiz, bringing our little village together after being a part for 5 weeks. Not only did this allow me to connect with whanau and whanau to connect with each other it also got whanau involved in their child's learning. 

It was a fun and exciting way to be involved and have a bit of fun. 
I received lots of great feedback from whanau saying it was fun, great way to connect and that it provided some good whanau time. This is definitely something I would love to do more of, Keeping whanau connected, Reconnecting our Village.  

DEVICES- DFI Week 7

Daily Reflection 

Today was another successful day of DFI, we got to explore the devices that our students use daily. I found today to be a big help and a massive eye opener to how Chromebooks work. I have often found myself unsure on what to do when asked how to complete a certain command using a Chromebook. I am really excited to take what I have learned today and utilise it to help my students to make their learning more efficient. 

Cybersmart- Fiona  

Cybersmart Link

Be internet awesome, be internet brave, be internet kind, be internet smart. Being proactive online, empowering young people and teachers within our community. When learning is accessible being cybersmart empowers our learners to harness technology in a smart and clever way. Being cybersmart allows young people to engage in online behaviour that is positive. Harness the language used in the kawa of care to encourage positive behaviour online. Cybersmart is at its best when it is embedded into existing programs. It is really important to use the correct kupu when discussing how to use and behave online/ digital technologies. This will help children become accountable to maintaining a smart footprint.

Hapara Teacher Dashboard- Dorothy

Link to Slides Going through Hapara Dashboard has been very helpful for me as this is something I have not yet learned. I would like to look more into how to use the Hapara Workspace to benefit my teaching and students learning.

Manaiakalani 1:1 Journey - Dorothy -Partnership | Participation | Protection 

Digital Dig- Using Chromebooks 

I found this session really helpful as I am often asked to help students with their chromebooks. Being someone who has personally never used a chromebook I was able to learn a lot. I cannot wait to be able to used this new learning with my students. Below is a copy of my Digital Dig slides. We also looked at iPads, this is the chosen device for junior students 

and had a play with Explain Everything. I really enjoyed using this app and the features that come with it. It provides such an awesome platform for students to share and talk about their work as they are doing it or once it is complete. 

Create 

For our create task today we had to make a screen castify of one of the Cybersmart lessons from the manaikalani site. I chose to use the Smart Surfers lesson. When then had to record ourselves talking about the lesson and how we could use this in our own classroom. Here is mine: 

Home Learning

As our country is in a state of emergency, currently at level 4 schools have been closed. We have had to step out of our comfort zones and move into the world of full time digital learning. I have found this transition to be smooth for both myself and my students. As a Manaiakalani school our students are very familiar with using digital technologies and managing themselves. We have been holding class meets twice a day, during these meets we cover maths and literacy. Students access other learning areas during their independent time. I have found using google forms to hand in work to be very beneficial in terms of saving time and locating documents.

I decided to gather some student voice and sent out a google form to find out how they are finding learning from home. I have linked to results below.



These results have shown me that my students are doing well with home learning, they are happy with our meeting times and method of delivery. They are enjoying having the time to work at their own pace and also that their learning is allowing them to be creative and hands on. The main challenges students are finding is that they have a few distractions at home such as their families and other devices, they are also finding it a bit hard not being able to have mates around. From this first week of online learning I have seen that my students are beyond capable in managing themselves and motivating their learning, I am a very proud teacher and am excited to continue this online journey.