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.