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.

ENABLING ACCESS-SITES: DFI Week 6

Reflection 

Today was another great day spent learning online. It is always a pleasure to connect with other colleagues and to learn something new. I have come to better understand the concept of the Connect kaupapa and have realised how important this is in operating as a MK school. Without connection the rest of it just simply would not work. I enjoyed getting the time to work on my class site and to also look at others. Being a first year Manaiakalani teacher I found it very beneficial to look at the sites of others who have been teaching in this cohort for a few years and see what they did differently. Every week I am growing more confident and polishing my skills using digital technologies. I love how after every session there is something that I can take away and use with my students. By taking this course I have been able to feel confident with moving into online learning while on lock down. I am looking forward to next week and all the learning that will come with it.

Connecting with Manaiakalani

We are all connected through our common language throughout the Manaiakalani outreach program. Because we are visible we are able to connect. MK is able to support learning by intentionally supplying an audience for our learners to share and connect. 

Deep Dive: Maria- Class Sites 

I enjoyed getting the time to look at other classes sites. It was good to go through these together and critique the positives and negatives. This gave me the opportunity to think of my own site and some changes that I may need to make to ensure my site is easy to navigate. 

Chalk 'n' Talk: Gerhard V
Leading learning using sites. 

Affordances causing accelerated shift

- engagement
- teacher conversations
- cognitive challenge 

- visibility 

- scaffolding  

Purpose of a Learning Site 

A learning site is a one stop shop where learning is accessible anywhere, any time and any place. Learning is rewindable, visible planning and teaching. 

Explore- Class Sites 

We had the opportunity to share our own sites with members of our regional cluster and give feedback. It's really good to see what others are doing and also what others have to say about my own site. This is going to help me in ensuring that my site is easily accessible and user friendly. Feedback that I received was very positive. I have been able to take on suggestions and make a few changes to my site making it more user friendly. 

Term One Vignette

Te Kahu 

Often the success of a school term is based on your students academic abilities and their academic outcome/ test results. However, it is more often than not the things that cannot be recorded on a spreadsheet that really determine the success of your classroom and achievement and progress of your students. As a school we have decided that it is important to celebrate not just what can be seen but what cannot be seen, to celebrate the small things which in turn have had a positive impact on our tamariki.

TEACHER MEET, TUHI MAI TUHI ATU

Slide Deck

Today I joined the teacher meet with other teachers that are taking part in Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu, this is a program  put in place to connect students with other students in different schools that are within Manaia Kalani. In today's session we discussed how to maintain blogging through distance learning. We had two teachers share how they are maintaining this, one was with year 3 and the other new entrants. Both have really thought about their whanau and how they will be able to best communicate with them to ensure that the learners are still able to share regardless of what devices are available.

A few tips I have learned from this meet are 

- Scheduling blog posts to keep on top of them. 
- Students are able to share to blog using email; this needs to be set up. 
- Scheduled posts allow for your blog to be active and will push readers onto learners blogs. 
- Get parents involved in activities. 
-  Provide different ways for parents to communicate with you; text, email etc.

One thing I really enjoyed was the sharing of the two classes blogs. I liked the idea of using google forms to allow students to ask questions. During DFI we had discussed this as a way for students to hand in work, I believe that also using it for student questions will be beneficial and easy to keep track of. By continuing blogging students are able to stay connected with their friends, teacher and wider world. I am excited to get this going leading into term 2 and to have students continuing with sharing their mahi. 

COLLABORATE- SITES : DFI Week 5

REFLECTION 

It was once again so lovely to connect with others around our beautiful country and to be able to use our knowledge. I to believe that visibility is important and being transparent is the best way to go as it allows students, whanau and other colleagues to share and learn from each other. I enjoyed our create session today and was able to create a site about ANZAC day (check it out here)which I will be using with my tamariki during our first week back. I used the multitextual data base as well as resources sourced within our group to create activities for students to complete. I feel like it will be engaging to them as the resources used are multimodal and offer different ways for the students to learn. I am excited to present this lesson to the students and know that it will cater to all of their learning abilities as well as extending those who need it. Working in small groups for the afternoon was nice as it gave us all a chance to share and discuss what was going on, I also found it very beneficial having the slides in the google meet. Taking part in this DFI is helping me to feel confident heading into online teaching. Well done team on another awesome DFI session.  

Visible Kaupapa: Dorothy Burt

It is important to have transparency in your teaching. It should be visible for your students, colleagues and whanau. There shouldn't be any surprises, being visible will also allow for opportunity and allows you to be seen. You are able to provide timely feedback and feed forward which is relevant, students are also able to do this for their peers. 

Multi Modal: Kerry 

Slides
Engaging students cognitively, personalising learning and accelerating and empowering students in their learning journey. Your site should be like a shop window and be inviting and intriguing, it should invite you in. Behavioural engagement: personalising. Creating to learn: allows students to use their own voice.  Using a range of different modes of technology to hook the learner in, having all links in one spot and accessible for all to use. 

Explore time: 

We were given the opportunity to explore different sites, I found this very interesting and was able to find some new ideas on how I can better present and manage our online classroom. I particularly liked the idea of using a google form for students to hand in completed work, this is something that I have been struggling with (collecting in work) and have been trying to find a more effecient way to do this. Very grateful for the visibility of everyones sites. 

Google Sites: Gerhard V 

Creating Google Sites

Going over using sites and how to set up pages. 

T Shaped Learning 

Multitextual Database  ; this is an amazing document that provides a range of texts that have been shared. 
Multimodal can be photos, videos, charts, graphs etc. Multi modal will present important information and will make students want to read what is there. 
Multitextual: reading multiple texts.