Month: August 2022

Week 5 – Collaborate Sites

I really struggled today, maybe it’s mid-term-itis? I enjoyed the day but felt anxious here and there while exploring and creating. But, I got there in the end!

Manaiakalani

I really enjoyed this talk, as a parent and a teacher – Making teaching and learning visible to the learner, the whānau, the teacher, the colleagues. Talking about whether learning has been hidden from students and how this has affected students learning and if it has caused our learners to fail. I know as a parent, it is much easier to help my struggling child when I know what is happening in the classroom, what they’re looking at in maths, writing etc. It means we can give them extra support at home. When you’re in the dark as a parent, we can’t support them at home. We’ve often asked teachers what area they are focussing on in curriculum areas to help support our child at home. Not all parents are comfortable doing this so to have learning available to all parents means they can access it without feeling uncomfortable about asking. Equitable learning at its best.

The intentional use of technology to display the learning is important – the whole learning journey being visible, every part of the learning process – planning, outcomes, the process, WALTs, reflections, and assessment process’. I believe it is very important for there not to be any surprises in learning, that it be accessible, available and there in advance will help many learners.

Sites

This is the first year we have been doing sites. My original slides were very boring but just this last week the slides I have been making have been much more visibly appealing due to the learning I have had on DFI; changing backgrounds to images, using bitmoji etc. I’m much more excited about making slides now. My biggest hinderance is time, as it is for all teachers. I enjoyed creating the site today with Phil and look forward to continuing to up my game with making my site engaging and exciting for my learners. Here is the link to what I created today, keep in mind it is a work in progress!

I loved the multi-text database and I am looking forward to accessing this and adding to it over time. I want to create one for our inquiry (early settlers to NZ) to begin with and then go from there.

 

 

DFI Week 4 – Dealing with Data

Manaiakalani Reflection – Share
Humans have been sharing since the beginning of time. Sharing contributes to creating and sustaining relationships. The mode has changed but the urge is still there to share. We share all; success, failures, heartbreak etc.
Social media has meant we can share with speed and amplification, sharing from a few people to millions of people in one hit. These days, young people have seen the act of sharing since being a young child, with parents sharing family stories on insta and facebook. It is part of many children’s everyday lives. When my own children were babies we would send out a group email with an update on how life was and photos of what we’d been up to. Now there is no need for that due to the number of ways we can share these days. When my children were at pre-school they had portfolios that were shared with whānau. I missed this aspect as my older two started school. When my youngest two were at pre-school the form of sharing became digital with apps such as Story Park. I continued to enjoy seeing pieces of my child’s learning while I couldn’t be with them. I missed this aspect of my older children’s school years. Once apps such as Seesaw and Class Dojo became available we were now able to have a glimpse into what our children were learning in school. It was a really exciting time as a teacher and a parent. Now with class blogs and student blogs we can share so much more. The autonomy that students have over sharing on their own blogs is great. I imagine it lifts their confidence as learners and as a young person.

Schools can still continue to share in traditional ways as well, such as assemblies, concerts, classroom displays, etc. Yesterday I had writers from other classes to share their writing and I had sent students to share their writing to other classes to share. This gives them a boost in confidence to continue their learning in a positive way. Having feedback and feedforward from authentic audiences such as, teachers, peers, parents, or extended family will help boost confidence in learners.

So much learning today! I have (hopefully correctly) linked my headings back to the presentations slides after seeing someone in my bubble do it on their blog.

Google Maps
I did struggle with this as I was a few minutes late so I am still working on this task. We are currently focusing on settlers to NZ in the early 1900s. One of our foci is to find out where we have come from around the world, whether that be our parents, grandparents, great grandparents etc. This will be an amazing tool to use for this piece of learning.

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Session 3 – Media

Learning about SISOMO was great. We know that music and images can ignite emotions as this happens often to us as adults. Using these to help students to extend their learning is awesome. You can see the engagement and the learning when sharing through media. I think it is important for students to be able to present their learning in a range of contexts as not all students are good with pen and paper. They may write a bad essay, but this only tells us they’re not great writers; it doesn’t tell us all the learning that has happened. Using video to present learning means students can use their strengths to show what they have learnt. I am going to purchase a couple of green sheets so we can delve into creating short films using green screens. I think the tamariki will have a fabulous time with this.

The creative opportunities through using video, google draw, and slides are amazing. I really enjoyed looking at students creations. Some are so simple, yet so creative. Some had a lot going on and the time and energy put into these shows students are engaged with their learning and enjoying what they are creating.

I did the google draw with Robin and I was all ready to stop using pic collage and start the students on google draw but then was told that it doesn’t work well all on ipads so I was a bit disappointed about this. I will continue creating resources for myself though. Here is the google draw I created today. I inserted images through ‘search the web’ and resized these, inserted call outs and added text.

I have been using Google Slide sall year but they have been very basic and what I have achieved has mostly been self taught. It was great learning how to make them more exciting to the learner. I like that you can download templates to use as slides. They have grids etc for you already there, no more wasting my own time! And I finally have a Bitmoji! I’m very excited about this!

 

I am looking forward to creating my playlists on Youtube. One of the reasons I have so many tabs open is because I don’t like looking for videos when I need them again tomorrow, next week, next term, next year etc. multiple. Knowing I can just go to my playlist each time will be great. This means all my favs will be right there for me. I am not yet at the stage of putting myself on my youtube channel, but hey, never say never.

I have not thought about Podcasts as a sharing tool. I’m going to have a listen to some existing class podcasts, such as Pt England School, and see what they entail and make a plan from there.

Session 2 – Workflow

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

I enjoyed listening to the Manaikalani talk today. It was a good time to reflect on how our school delivers it’s curriculum. We have a very well run localised curriculum, especially in the senior school. We are very whānau and community focused with our school community being consulted with many steps of our decision making. Our School w’akatauki is; Mā te whānau te tamaiti e puawai – Through collaboration our learners will thrive. Learners includes teachers, support staff, community members, whanau, as well as our tamariki. We are all learners and we are all able to learn from one another.

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

A big takeaway for me today was the Google Keep Deep Dive. I am one of those people with notes on pieces of paper, random Mac pages, random google docs etc. So I never know where I have written that key information when I need it. This will definitely help with my organisation! I enjoyed having a play around with it as the presenter was presenting. I liked that I could copy and paste my notes from Notes on my iphone into google keep on my phone and it updated on my laptop straight away.

I like that you can link notes from google docs to keep with the links you need.
I like the search option where it comes up as images, like the knife and fork for food, to find things quickly and easily. It’s an easy set up to follow.
Knowing you can take photos of text and have Google Keep transfer it to text is great as I often take photos of slides at conferences. A great way to have transferred for a document.
While the speaker was speaking I was able to create a list and share it with my husband to be a collaborator, do a drawing, create notes, add a photo. I really like this app and think I will use it often

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

I’d like to get my head around the google keep and google doc combination and use this in the classroom. We are focusing on capital letters and full stops at the moment so this is a great resource where they can read and notice where full stops and capital letters should be and edit it accordingly. They can also use voice on notes which is great for this age.

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

I have now bookmarked my school calendar! I am one of those people that never seem to look at the school calendar. Today I learnt how to only look at what I need to look at by clicking the skinny snowman. I think one of the reasons I don’t look at it is because there is so much information on it that my brain shuts down. Now that I know I can look at only certain parts of the calendar, I think I will use it a lot more as there isn’t so much to look at. I’ve added a personal calendar to it so all my info is in one place so whether someone asks about dates and times I can see all of my activities. Now that I’ve bookmarked it, there are no excuses!

Other Learning I found helpful

There has been so much new learning for me today and I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s great to have done the adding video onto blogs today as I wanted to upload a video yesterday and was unsure how. With the help of colleagues, I got there but it wasn’t the way we were taught today. Now I know what to do I will go back and fix up yesterday’s videos on my class blog.

I also managed to create a signature on my email. I’ve always wondered how to do this! I now have my name and team, as well as our school logo with a link to the school sight, an image of my site banner linked to my class site, and an edublogs image linked to my class blog.

Bookmark folders that tabs can be dropped into – Very helpful!
Pin tabs – this will make me find the tab I use most often much easier to find!
Group tabs – I do like that you can group tabs as I often have multiple tabs in one or two curriculum areas open while planning etc. This will make it a lot easier to find all the math resources, reading resources etc.
One tab – I have this but my brain still has 100 tabs open. I will get better!
Tips
Two finger click on a tab to see what’s on there, pin, add tabs to left and right etc.
Shortcut – Control shift t to reopen closed tabs

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