DFI Day 8

Pedagogy of Rangatiratanga

The focus on empowerment for teachers/learners and whanau was very real and a stark reminder of the inequity in some of our communities. Manaiakalani and the kaupapa and our place in it is even more precious. It is the beacon of light and hope for us all. 

The new Digital Technologies Curriculum aligns so well with the Manaiakalani Outreach programme which aims to support "teachers to learn how digital technologies used effectively can have a significant impact on accelerating achievement outcomes."  The evidence can be found in students' writing achievement, the research and data collated on student blogging and the positive impact in reducing the summer slide are some of the areas where we are celebrating significant upward trends.   Creating space for students to gain digital fluency through the Learn/Create/Share pedagogy of Manaiakalani has to be the best possible outcome for everyone.

Deep Dive into the Future of Tech was both exciting and somewhat alarming. The Boston Dynamics' Big Dog conducting rescues in places that would otherwise be hard to get to. 

The moral machine as a platform for making moral decisions was also alarming when placed in the position of needing to make major decisions. I was somewhat relieved to have this part over but it does emphasis the real life issues that face many people.

Exploring Coding: I have extreme doubts about my brain being wired for this. I  navigated my way around Scratch and made a good start until I had to find ways to make the purple character move. Long after the end of the session I was still trying to make it move. I've decided it's another holiday job or I'll never complete this blog or get to work tomorrow.  I have seen the children experimenting with Makery and marvel at what they do. Perhaps I'll join them again on the next round. It is wonderful to be a learner and to have some idea of what it is like to learn another language.

Thank you to Dorothy and  team for another day of excellent facilitation. Arohanui Raina

 

DFI Day 7

Cybersmart: The language pertaining to the Cybersmart curriculum is so positive. It provides an excellent model for all our learners to move forward in the digital world.
Hapara: I learn new things every time there is a focus in our sessions on Hapara. Being able to star projects so they appear on the landing page, never creating new folders as it affects visibility through Hapara. I have looked at student gmail accounts and have been very careful not to interfere or breech confidentiality. I think this kaupapa has been brilliantly thought through.
Manaiakalani 1:1 Journey Part 1 Chromebooks
It's not only the "how to?" but also the approach in terms of equity for all partners including the alignment with the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It all resonates very deeply with me. A very powerful delivery by Dorothy. If we applied this kaupapa to all interactions with our learners and others we would all be in a much better place and space. I have hardly used a chromebook and found navigating my way round challenging
Digital Dig: iPad workflow
Very useful since we are moving to full 1 to 1 iPads in Year 1&2. It is a new area of learning for us and what we have covered today has provided an excellent guide for our new journey. The iPad set up will be very important of course.
Explain Everything is an exciting tool for creating new projects and sharing creations will be exciting for our learners. The share and inspire option means students will be able to share their projects with others. I have taken time out to navigate my way around creating a project for Matariki  via this app and hope to post it up later today. I can see this being a very powerful tool. It is amazing to see what some learners have posted on their blogs. Once students have transferred onto a chromebook they will be well prepared to be creative and more.
Whiteboard: We are in the process of creating new signs for the school and I did a drawing and recorded it. Then I realised that the power of this is working collaboratively so I will give it a go with a group of students and see what happens.
Another great day of learning so much but I realize how focused I have become on using the same two devices all the time which unfortunately does not extend to  an iPad or chromebook. I tried switching between devices but didn't find this easy.  I also realize how advanced our students are.

DFI Day 6

Another amazing learning curve around the following;
Sites: The feedback form for sites provides an excellent template for us all. We will look at using that regularly to evaluate our own sites. There is a place for it when  providing feedback for teacher planning as it all should link anyway. However given that teachers are at different stages of implementing one to one digital learning, i.e a new teacher to the school, a teacher new to one to one digital as opposed to a teacher in the 3rd or 5th year of digital teaching, we will need to use a range of approaches in preparation for the form becoming common practice.
- Teaching and Learning: monitoring class sites for effective teaching and learning and ensuring a "lolly scramble" of good ideas is avoided is a great kaupapa for our own evaluation and regular checking on ourselves.
Own School site and Class sites
I feel I am better informed to achieve a higher level of evaluation having had time to really look at our own school and class sites as well as the range of ones shared in our session today.
Connectivity: is a powerful kaupapa. I agree that it is a way of life. It is universal and at the heart of whether learning is successful or not. As educators it is the challenge we have to ensure the connections we nurture are empowering for the students we teach. We fail them and ourselves if we can't do this. I felt the power of it today in Dorothy's presentation.
Limit the Links: I recall the feeling of relief and power of this document over the Lockdown period of Covid-19. It enabled us all to be very grateful for how well placed we were to seamless "learning at home" for our children. We were in a position where all Year 3 to Year 8 students had a device at home.  The four key areas were;
Google Sites making teaching visible

Hapara Teacher Dashboard making learning visible

Google Hangouts Meet connecting us all in real time

Limit the Links with ONE portal for learning

The blessings of being in a Manaiakalani Outreach Cluster!!

Side Bar for Blogs:

I will make sure to follow the tips for the side bar for my blog and;

Hapara:

I will look at the sharing tab on Hapara to look for evidence of work that students have not filed.

Kia ora koutou ano facilitators and colleagues for another great day of learning. Arohanui Raina

DFI Day 5

Kaupapa of Visible Learning: The value of visible learning is that you shouldn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it all out. Sites should be easy to navigate for everyone. The 3 clicks to get to the heart of it all is a good check and measure. I agree that any more than that and it impacts on the motivation to keep looking/learning. Visible learning makes learning easy, accessible and therefore more likely to be successful.
Multimodal: The range of tools and ideas available to enhance learning. Presenting learners with pathways that will engage and cater for different learning styles is powerfully motivating and exciting.
Blogger Visibility: Brand new learning for me and very useful as I will be able to provide feedback class by class over time if I set myself and support staff achievable goals of commenting on students blogs. I had no idea this was a feature of Hapara. How amazing!!!

T Shaped Literacy: Woolf Fisher slide presentation is a great overview of what this is all about. The biggest challenges I see are finding the range of different text types and ensuring they match  the needs of students. I developed a T Shaped literacy site with Learn/Create/Share in mind which I will develop more over time.
T Shaped Literacy Site

Acknowledgment for Russell Burt