Week 9: Revision

A good time to blow the euphonium (or trumpet) and sing out about the past 9 week journey. What a privilege to be part of this cohort of learners and travel further on the education journey with Manaiakalani. As I look around the hall at all the hard working teachers with their heads plunged into their laptops, I think to myself "The future of the learners in the Te Ara Tuhura cluster is in good hands."

I have learnt so much over the past 9 weeks, probably more than I have given credit to having just completed the 3 hour Google Educator Level 1 exam. The exam itself was unusually more challenging in the multiple choice section, there were some decidedly blurry answers to chose from to questions given. I certainly found the scenarios easier to navigate and complete.


Positives from the Exam- Feel confident in using the following:

• Google Forms
• Google Slides
• Gmail
• Google Hangout
• Google Sheets
• Google Sites
• Youtube

Follow ups to work on from the Exam- less confident in using the following:

• Google Calendar (spent over 20 minutes on this section)
• Google Groups (haven't used this application & struggled for some time on this)

In reflection, the exam was probably much like bursary- my stronger areas pulled me through the weaker parts. I was left with 3 minutes to do slides and as there was a lot of material covering google forms, which helped.

A great deal of future possibilities. My challenge is to continue to grow and learn as a teacher, being open to new learning and put myself out there for it. As mentioned, it has been a blessing to be part of this Manaiakalani cohort for the DFI.

Manaiakalani Opportunities to further consider...

Week 8: Dealing with Data

Week 8: Dealing with Data

Data, data, data, what teacher does not enjoy analysing data? To streamline sorting, processing and presenting we learnt some extremely useful tools today. I will briefly outline some of the more important points from today's session.

Previously Manaiakalani used the term 'Agency' to describe the capacity and propensity to take purposeful initiative—the opposite of helplessness. Young people with high levels of agency do not respond passively to their circumstances; they tend to seek meaning and act with purpose to achieve the conditions they desire in their own and others' lives

Agency was changed to empowered- to help those in the community relate to what Manaiakalani were doing (agency had a negative connotations for some). Manaiakalani is not just about using digital tool, more importantly it is about transforming people’s lives- if it is not doing this, then it is not working.

Children in schools today can benefit with a 5+ a day- back and forth 5 times in a sentence- or on a blog. Reading and commenting on other's blogs helps develop conversations and improves oral language.

Need to remember that Manaiakalani pedagogy is not- learn-google-share -rather it is -learn-create-share.

Google Forms

We reviewed using Google Forms to gather information- some important points:

• remember to include email addresses- if you want to know who asked questions in the form or if you want to reply and get back to people.
• Useful when creating form is to use 'duplicate' button- rather + symbol if you are using similar questions (faster to create).
• 'Required'- useful if you want people to answer the question without moving on
• Interesting to learn I can add images or videos- could be used to link to a video and then answer questions on video?
• Limit to 1 response- really useful tool to ensure users are not completing multiple forms
• Useful to embed code and put onto class site
• collection of data is a really useful tool I have been using- however using 'Explore' tool to create graphs from the spreadsheet is a new tool I will experiment.

See more in this slideshow

MAPS

Map sharing- here

Some useful tools on maps worth checking out. Really valuable for use in geography or history lessons. Can mark on maps where students have been, add content on the places and draw links to other locations. Also possible to layer maps for more content.

Google Sheets

Some information already covered- probably the most useful features I have learnt today include:

• Creating averages by command and dragging cells
• Number formatting
• Explore tool in sheets to create graphs (as mentioned)

Blogs

I tidied up the class site- added some student blogs that were not there.

Another great session, very useful tools learnt today to improve work and home life.

Week 7: Media Agenda

Week 7: Media Agenda:

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

Connectivity is a way of life for our students.

Take it from them and they will check out

This quote taken from Manaiakalani slides today had me reconsidering the lives in which our learners are living in. Connecting for my Year 7 & 8 class is for a large part on social media platforms (at home), but connectivity has always been a human need.

The world is moving from competing to cooperating- this is the way forward for us all- to solve the issues we as humanity face (such as the implications of global warming).

This slide explained for me why we are using the blogging platform. We have set ourselves a goal as a class this week to complete 4 blog posts. I realise that we also need to up our game in terms of the quality of our posts- moving from writing in slides to adding animations, pathways, or other concepts to improve our sharing stories.

This quote above by Gareth Cook is inspiring, it reminds me to provide time in daily classroom activities for the Tuakana Teina model- for children to teach others- so that they can learn more about what they are teaching, learn to explain themselves clearly and to solidify their own understanding.

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

I learnt a lot about how to organise my playlists in Youtube today, especially using 'Studio' in Youtube for creating a playlist and embedding onto my site so that children on the playlist through the class site are not accessing Youtube. This is a game changer because now I can use Hapara and watch the sites the learners are on and be sure that if Youtube is showing- they are not on the playlist!

Confused? I was for much of today as well- a lot of information. I need to be sure to take a few key points and implement them rather than try and cover everything at once.



This great little Google Drawing could be used for the children to share who they are, as an introduction to their new blog buddies at Belfast School.

Google Slides

Some great learning happened today around Google Slides...

1. Created Pathway as way to engage readers on the blog- learners can chose the path to follow. This is one I made, relatively simple example, but it could spiderweb with more time and planning.




2. Planning Tool

How to give instructions- use the pallet- insert text box at side of a slide for this- can insert a video file (must already be recorded in google- then embed onto it) quicktime player- command t- This can be used to explain to learners how to create the slideshow- I have previously been writing it all over a slideshow- but writing or videoing instructions can be really helpful for learners (see slide 4 for an example).

2.

3. Animations

Animations can be a really exciting way for learners to engage others- using multiple slides linked together to create a moving picture. It is possible to change the settings- something to work on in the classroom. I didn't have time today to create one of these, but this is definitely another aspect I will bring to my classroom teaching.
Delay normally 1000- remove 0 to 100 milisecond- makes slides move faster- do it by embeded code into blog- loop-true- start- false until clicked-

Thank you for reading.

Enabling Access- Sites: Agenda Day 6

Enabling Access- Sites

1. Visible learning including: Teacher planning, outlines, outcomes, reflections, elements of assessment process.

Key Point: visible is the default and move from there- flip the learning to engage students who need to rewind.

2. Why Google Sites- here

Key Point: All parts- blogs, site, portal- are together not separate from each other

3. Ideas to improve my site included:

*Adding relevant photos (maybe of kids later)

*Put latest material at top

*Include 4 main curriculum areas on the content bar at top of blog

*Reduce the spacing of icons and slides so that things are more ordered

*General tidy up

*With hotspots put into slideshow rather than individual google drawings that take up a lot of space and are disorderly

4. Some ideas from others sites include:

*Put Sunshine classics website link on site for some readers

*Put typing programme onto site

5. Some useful websites discussed today with other Year 7 & 8 teachers include:

*Science- legends of learning- atomic structure & games for teaching (math as well) great for science

*Prodigy- https://maths.prototec.co.nz/ for basic facts 2 tests a week and send results

*NASA- stem challenge

Devices: Week 5

Reflection on the Week that was

*Google Keep continues to be a tool that has saved me carrying around 2 chunky diaries! Really useful aspect of it is that I can cross off completed tasks and continue on with tasks not completed into the following week.

*Introduced 'Google Add Ons' to the staff at meeting

*Have had a continued effort to comment on 2 blogs a day- children are appreciative of this

Kellen (fellow teacher) mentioned that he has been using 'toxicode' in his Algebra classes, had a little look at this and plan on introducing it in the following week to NBC learners.

http://compute-it.toxicode.fr/

Devices- Week 5

Cybersmart- rather than safe- live in the world rather than being scared of the world we live in. We reviewed the Cybersmart Curriculum as follows:

Term 1: Smart learners & Kawa of care- teaching learners to logout-taking good care of their devices

Term 2: 

Term 2: Smart Footprint

Term 3: Smart Relationships

*Need to be teaching Smart Relationships this term- Positive Thoughtful Helpful- have started this but ensure that I make an hour a week for this.

Digital Dig- Looking at Chromebooks

We looked at some of the shortcuts on Chromebooks, great to have the learners look and work through this slideshow (once they have made a copy!) to speed up their work flow throughout the year. We had a look around ipads, however this was my first real look at this (scrape on the surface) and would need to spend more time with them to fully understand them better.

Hapara Teacher dashboard- everything students are doing, teacher’s can see

Important files to use:

All docs- lets you see all files

Sharing- you can see all files they have

Blog comments & posts- can check this before break so that children have done it- can hover over what they have done.

Can create groups -possibly for particular groups in class- unlikely to use in single cell

*If doing focused browsing need to make sure they still access their docs- so filtered session for specific website and also allow access to their docs - google.doc.com

*Up to 10 URLs at a time

Focus session- Only these sites

Filter session- not these sites

Tell students to archive their work- make sure they do this at the end of the year

Here's a slideshow to explain a little more about what you learnt.

Screencastify

How to video here. I have used Screencastify previously but not some of the more fancy tools such as:

1. 'embeded webcam' which is really great for adding interest- people like to see people.

2. 'Show Drawing Tools' aspect which brings up a window on the bottom of the screencast and enables the user to highlight aspects of the screen, use pens/pencils and circles to add interest. 

3. 'Countdown'- I increased this to give me a little more time to 'prepare myself'.


Below is a created screencast on 'Smart Relationships', just a quick look at 'Positive Thoughtful Helpful',  the purpose was really to demonstrate and practice some of the new tools that I have mentioned.

How to embed a screencast onto your blog

Many thanks to Sharon Thompson at Rawhiti School for sharing the learning that enabled me to do this, previously did not know how to embed a video. I think the formatting looks so much better this way, it is a little bit of a process.

Computational Thinking: Agenda Day 4

Computational Thinking: Agenda Day 4

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
















Interesting points today discussed by Dorothy about the use of 'Blogger' as a platform instead of snapchat, Instagram, etc. It was pertinent to listen to her and understand the perspective of Manaiakalani. I wondered whether blogging was engaging the students, but a good point Dorothy brought about was the aspect of legally (for Year 7 & 8), functionally, securely, no extra sign-ins same password, etc. I wasn’t aware of the 3 check system, which provides a lot of protection.

The biggest take-away for me was the point raised about ‘authentic audience’, that sharing in-class if a student does not want to share is not authentic, I had never thought about this! By using blogger children are making a personalised choice to read a blog. Also like the idea that parents at home who get single syllable answers to the question 'What did you do today' can look at their child's blog and find out, then come at the question in a less investigative way and more gentle, such as 'I liked the post you made about cats, what was your favourite part of that?

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

Some great ideas around coding and using binary coding such as this website 'unplugged' where you can practice and learn about coding offline- here.

Also went to Scratch where we had a play about with tools and created a few of our own backgrounds and games. It was good to get a little more familiar with some of the tools and websites that are helpful to the teaching of coding. I think the survey I did below really shows that my next steps are to learn more about coding and therefore todays session was really valuable.

Also visited this website and looked at what TRAILBLAZERS are doing with teaching and introducing students to digital technology: see here for more on what they are doing and who they are.

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

I went to the site

and looked at implementation of the Digital Curriculum in 2020. Many courses and ideas here to consider and look into.
I took the survey to look at where I am and will work my way through the resources to up-skill myself.

Collaborate- Sites: Agenda Day 3

Collaborate- Sites: Agenda Day 3

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

Today we Listened to Dorothy talk about the ‘Create’ part of the Manaiakalani model.

The highlight for me was the Importance in remembering that the ability to create with most learners involves ‘doing’ something rather than ‘thinking’ it.

The take back to the classroom from all of this is to ensure I am giving the young people in our classes the opportunities to create and do, rather than focusing in on what they are learning.
To quote John Dewey…
“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.”
We need to remember that digital part plays an important part of the ‘Create’ in today’s work and that through this many avenues can open to enable others to view material. In addition we need to avoid students becoming merely consumers and rather than creators. Really important that the students are creating content.

*Learners who create need choice

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn."
-Alvin Toffler -

Creativity combines 

Sight, Sound and Motion -SiSoMo

with innovation and imagination

as well as accuracy and attention to the last detail.

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

Multi Modal Learning - we looked at this and I will investigate further how I can embed multiple methods of creation into lessons. This can lead to...
-Learners who are behaviourally engaged.
-Learners who become interested in and excited about their learning.
-Learners who are actively involved in their learning -

This week I have already seen learner’s engaged when given an opportunity to create their own content through a variety of means following learning about one of our virtues.
I’ve also looked at Resources for Year 7 & 8 here and Multimodal sites for use in class
Here
Here

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

Previously Mark created our class Google site which has been really amazing. Today I have learnt how to create one for next year and how to navigate and manipulate the tools to enhance it, it’s a good feeling when you learn something new and have time to create from it. This course is really giving me the confidence to try new approaches and enhance the teaching I am providing the learners at our school. 

Workflow will increase as a result, now that I can more rapidly add to our class site and play about with the tools I have been learning.

Here’s my new site

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

I

think the learners could have a go at creating their own site and add content that they have learnt. Much like a blog, but that can be used again and again. I think they could share their site into their blog e.g. how make a google site?

Also I learnt that they could use our site to access the ‘How to!’ And learn how to embed different forms of media into their blogs

https://sites.google.com/mairehau.school.nz/howto/home

FINALLY TO SIGN OFF JUST LEARNT THAT USING THIS 

BUTTON ON THE TOP TOOLBAR OF BLOGGER ENABLES YOU TO FORMAT DIRECTLY!