Digital Fluency Intensive, Week 1, 25th July 2018

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

Today I learnt about the Manaiakalani philosophy in practice for the first time. There new learning that google apps provide and taking the time to learn about the all will be fantastic for me both professionally and personally! I have realised that in order to integrate technology effectively into my classroom, I need to teach my students the basics and how to be organised as good foundations are laid by teaching those important basics at the starting line.  It was good to learn about Manaikalani as I'd only heard snippets of information previously.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
Google Keep! I'm very interested in this, from websites for class, and organising work and personal life.  I'm a bit more confident in using google docs but I realise there is so much more to learn with this app. I Creating infographics for others to interpret information will be handy for presenting information for my students and too many words can put one off when it comes to learning. 

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 
Voice typing that could be used with my reluctant writers. I have tried this in the past but it will be great to use in a fully digital classroom.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
My household needs to upgrade our phones so we can all be on the same wave length when it comes to shopping and messages. The thought of being organised excites me!!

Digital Fluency Intensive, Week 4, 15th August 2018

Unfortunately, I missed this session due to the NZEI Teacher Strike Day. However, over the course of the week, I went back through what we had covered in our learning so far, I mainly looked at my blog site and what I need to do there to get it up and running properly.

To be honest I'm really nervous about sharing my work with an authentic global audience.

Digital Fluency Intensive, Week 8, 12th September 2018

I was unable to attend this learning session of our Digital Learning Intensive as I was on a Mussel Spat Hikoi throughout the week with different Iwi from Te Taitokerau, I was one of many marae reps that attended.  We travelled by bus from Kaitaia stopping at several places, Coromandel  and Opotiki being a couple.  We looked at the mussel industry down there and are seeing what that would look like in the North, initially looking at mussel spat operations on the West Coast.  A very important hikoi that could mean a lot of employment for our people in the future.

When I got back to reality and looked through the learning I missed, I saw there was some discussion on 'computational' thinking. I don't know much about this topic so I'm looking forward to learning more about it and how it applies to my practice classroom.

Digital Fluency Intensive, Week 9, 19th September 2018

Ubiquitous - carries the idea that learning takes places outside of the traditional school/classroom in the digital era.

The evidence for the power of Ubiquitous learning is clearly displayed in the Summer Learning Journey reports from Manaiakalani. It showed young people learning over the holidays with no teacher present. Their term 1 progress/achievement was carefully matched with non-bloggers and showed a very clear difference between the two groups.

It was hugely interesting to see how students who posted activities on their blog more than twice a week, on average had significantly larger gains in reading and writing than student who posted less frequently. I get excited thinking about the potential successes and gains that can be made in literacy for our Ahipara school students who are starting out on their Manaiakalani journey. How keeping up their blogging practices over the summer holidays could mean success for them on return to school.

Google+

I learnt about ‘Google+’ today and how Google+ communities can raise you professional profile and extend your personal learning networks. Google+ is an Internet-based social network that is owned and operated by Google.

Google+ can help you to connect to others that share the same passion with ‘Communities’, and also help you keep those interests separate with Circles. You can have separate circles for work and personal.  You can also control the amount of content you want to see from each community in ‘my feed’ in each community's settings. If I want to see lots of horses and not a lot of gardening pictures, then that's what I will see.

Blogging/Keeping Connected
Even though today is our last Digital Fluency Intensive, it would be great to keep blogging and stay connected with the group and share our teaching and ideas. This will be the perfect opportunity to stay connected with such knowledgeable teachers who all share the same passion in education and are always looking for new and exciting ways to teach our future generations.

Digital Fluency Intensive, Week 2, 1st August 2018

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

LEARN

Effective Practice Challenge

Recognise

Amplify

Turbocharge

in a digital learning environment

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

Gmail - Organising gmails with labels. I removed more than 2,000 emails, only 9,000 to go!!

Calendar - Can book appointments, and there are different ones for work and personal.

Hangouts - Is all about collaborative learning and PD in a group situation.

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

Google Hangouts - This could be great to teach students about different places, people and professions.

QuickTime - recording through google hangouts, this is good for group activities

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

I learnt how to orgainise my emails today and how to delete on mass, I really think google hangouts is a great learning opportunity for students and staff, would come in quite handy in the near future.

Digital Fluency Intensive, Week 7, 5th September 2018

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

Connected 
Being connected through Manaiakalani clusters means working together for the same purpose, understanding issues and working together on these, sharing resources, information, ideas and a shared language, making it possible because it’s visible, connecting through blogs. Students really need to understand what learn, share, create is from year to year each term focussing on a certain area, maintaining an even balance throughout as it’s impossible to have one without the other.

This is an awesome resource to give you ideas and inspiration in your teaching.

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

Google sites 
Google sites is used because it’s visible and accessible to all at any times.  It allows the learning to be available outside of traditional school hours, extending learning through collaboration, making rewindable content through multimedia and fostering higher motivation and engagement.

When designing our site we really need to think about our audience. Who will be using it? How are they accessing the site? Why are they using the site? What is you theme you will be using throughout your site? Remember the audience and create to suit them, not parents or colleagues.

Make sure nothing is more than ‘3 clicks’ when creating your class site e.g. homepage, to their group, then straight to the task and nothing more.

Today we were able to go and look on different class sites which was extremely helpful for a new kid on the block like myself. I got to see the difference in set work for the students at different year levels, how appealing different class sites were, what worked and what didn’t…


What did I learn that could be used with my learners?
I learnt that I need to be a good ‘window dresser’ when it comes creating my class site in regards to catching my students attention which would lead them want to dive into their learning.


What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
I need to keep things simple yet appealing, and don’t try to reinvent the wheel :)

Digital Fluency Intensive, Week 6, 29th August 2018

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?
Cybersmart 
This learning gives increased opportunities for learners to engage in 'Cybersmart' conversations and decision making with peers, teachers and parents. It works best when embedded into an existing educational programme so students learn that every time they connect, collaborate and share online it combines to create their digital footprint. It’s about teaching students how to interact in a positive way. I learnt that being Cybersmart empowers learners to connect when their learning is visible and ubiquitous.

‘Internet awesome’ has good info regarding this topic.

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

Paihia School Observation 
A class of 46 students where it ranged from target students whose work was set for them to students who were able to plan their weeks learning from the choices that were given. Teachers were available for teaching at different times throughout each day and students were free to attend a workshop if they needed too. When given the choice with learning, a group of boys with high behaviour issues weren’t coping at all with the learning and having to make their own choices/manage their time wisely. They handed very little mahi in.



When all choices were taken away they coped a lot better, extra funding was gained and they have a male mentor who is there for two breaks and writing block on different days during the week.

The group are building with pallets but must complete necessary learning before the building starts. They’re much more interested in their learning now they know what they need to do, all their learning is based around the topic of pallet furniture. becksn@paihia.school.nz 

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? I learnt that giving more choice to students in regards to their learning can enable them to flourish and challenge themselves as learners. 

I also enjoyed the ‘Digital Dig’ we had to complete. We learnt how to use shortcuts and easily find information on chromebooks. This will make life a lot easier for my students on a daily basis next year. 

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

Thinking smarter in regards to class sites/class planning and learning, keeping things  

simple to begin without trying to ‘reinvent the wheel’, and making use of what teaching  

resources are available can save copious amounts of time enabling one to gain a 

life/work balance, well that’s the plan anyway.