DFI Get Together #2

This was the second get together from DFI intake #1, 2019. Cheryl Torrie (Manaiakalani facilitator), kindly came along again to help us continue to develop our class sites. Once again, it was such a worthwhile couple of hours spent tweaking, learning, creating and sharing. I was able to reorganise a few pages and add a Teachers Notes button so that I can record my anecdotal notes, curriculum links and teacher reflections. We had an interesting conversation around the curriculum links; they are already evident in my Learning Intention so why am I having to also show where it's in the NZC again? This Teachers Notes button is only visible to me.
My class site is still in its baby stages but I feel a lot happier about the direction I'm heading. I also loved the opportunity to listen to what other schools are doing. Thanks to Sherryl Gomm and Cheryl Torrie for your ideas, creativity, knowledge and professionalism.

DFI Get Together

Three of us from DFI intake #1, 2019, decided to get together and share ideas about our class site. Cheryl Torrie (Manaiakalani facilitator), kindly came along too, to help us with the wrinkles we needed ironing out. It was such a worthwhile couple of hours spent tweaking, learning, creating and sharing. I was able to reorganise a few pages, redesign my Reading slides for next week and change my theme. Cheryl also showed me how to use Hapara Dashboard to check student blogs.
Although my class site is still in its baby stages, I feel a lot happier about the direction I'm heading. I also loved the opportunity to listen to what other schools are doing. Thanks to Sherryl Gomm, Robyn Shaw and Cheryl Torrie for your ideas, creativity, knowledge and professionalism.

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DFI Day 9

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?
Learning is ubiquitous - anytime, anywhere, any pace (from anyone - we can bring in experts etc). 

It empowers our learners as their learning is not restricted to being in a classroom. Having had three students take extended overseas holidays during term time, I have seen them access my class site to keep up with their learning.

Summer Learning Journey's have proven that those who did 3 or more blogs a week during the summer holidays improved the most. Tasks did not need Learning Intentions or require surface features yet students improved in this area.

Rewindable learning is something that I am very keen on implementing more and more. It means it's not just the ones who can remember what to do who can then help others. The ones who are using rewindable learning are able to help as well; they have the opportunity to review the lesson as many times as they need, and can then go and help others. That's very empowering for them.

And on that note, here's some ideas to help me:

(+video notes on YouTube)

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
Yesterday I received a tattoo (temporary) during staff prayer time. I applied it to my wrist - unfortunately upside down!! It says "Head up, wings out." Every time I look at it, it makes me smile for the simple fact that it's upside down! The timing was perfect as it resonated with me all day - to me it says, "Keep going, take flight, you can do it!" And I am. My confidence blooms, then takes a hammering. My capability improves then I find I can't do something digitally, but google saves me. My workflow gets better and then I want to do something different so the new learning slows me down. This is all part of me as a learner AND a professional.


What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 
Rewindable learning is an important idea I need to keep at the forefront when planning. Getting experts in (via hangout, YouTube clips etc) will engage student learning further.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
Head up, wings out - I've got this!

DFI Day 8

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

Firstly, let's use the word 'empower' instead of 'agency'. The word 'agency' often has different connotations that we don't want attached to digital technology. After all, what comes to mind when you hear the word 'agency''??
Unfortuntely I missed the first 10 minutes of today's google hangout with Dorothy Burt due to my internet dropping in and out, but she reiterated the fact that the use of digital technology should redefine the way we learn and give experiences to children that they wouldn't otherwise receive. Digital technology has the power to transform children and the communities they live in. 
Dorothy took us on a tour around the community she worked in. It reminded me of my early teaching days in Waipukurau. It was the same situation she showed but for different reasons: transient students, low income families, decile 1 school.  Studies have shown these decile 1 school children hear 32 million words less than decile 10 students by the time they start school. The idea of 5+ a day takes on new meaning; if we can create a learning environment that allows students to engage in conversations that have at least 5 iterations, it will improve oral language, reading and writing skills. How can we do this? Sit in a circle and have a table tennis conversation with a minimum of 5 interactions between students. Blogs also give the students the opportunity to do exactly the same. Blogs are not just about posting and sharing - they're also about the discourse through commenting that connects our students to the art of conversing. This has shown to accelerate learning.

"Hand in glove", "salt and pepper", "fish 'n chips" - these just go together:

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

I created a google hangout (no way would I have ever had the confidence to do this two months ago!) with two teachers from Auckland, Chantal from Panmure Bridge School and Susan from Glen Taylor School. It's always so lovely to connect with others and hear their learning journey.
Going through the Digital Technology progress outcomes and leveling them with e-learning/ICT capabilities showed that you can’t equate the progress outcomes with year levels. Like anything, it depends how much the activity is scaffolded as to which progress outcome it falls under.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  
Tasks need to include problem solving, debugging, perseverance and resilience.

Algorithms are a step by step process in which students need to create, test and revise. Peseverance (through debugging) builds resilience in our students.  As Albert Einstein said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Our session on computational thinking at Mindlab was great fun. The programmer, tester, robot activity we did is something I have done with my class but it was hilarious being the student again. I loved the creative and smart thinking I heard ("First, take your blindfold off," was a classic). This activity was scaffolded:

• first, just let them do it!
• next time “How much talking did you do? Remember only the tester can talk!" Try again and swap roles. Tell them to think about the programme - set parameters at the start e.g. all turns will be right hand ¼ turns. For littlies just use arrow cards.
• then 3rd time switch programmes with another group and trial theirs. You can't change the langugae they used e.g. 1/4 right turn to 90 degrees right hand turn.

Students can co-construct the perimeters.

Lightbot - free app (for iPads. I using a chromebook - tweak your flash). Note to self - this was rather addictive!

Co-spaces - coding programme for students. Students can create their own story. Great to set a quick task e.g. create two characters, name them within specified time limit, then move onto someone elses creation. Set next task then move to someone elses masterpiece etc. This means the students aren't getting too attached to their own story and are also getting ideas from others. Try not to show too many of the elements co-spaces can do - let them explore and discover for themseves then teach each other.

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

In all apsects of my life, tasks include problem solving, debugging, perseverance and resilience! Just go with it and enjoy the ride!

DFI Day 7

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

Enabling Access

Through a google hangout with Dorothy Burt, we were reminded of and learnt many new things about the importance of connecting with our students.

• Connecting with Manaiakalani provides a powerful network for teachers and students;
• Connectivity is a way of life for our students. Take it from them and they will check out.

While face to face will always be a major component for students to interact with people in their daily lives, it's a big world out there with fabulous digital learning opportunities for our tamariki to learn and grow from.
One thing that really stood out for me is that making learning visible for our students is crucial. Having had four students this term take extensive overseas holidays, when asked today at DFI, "Can they see it from Starship?" I was mortified that some parts of my class site weren't. An easy fix but something I need to be more aware of.

Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu (write to me, write to others) is a fantastic way for students to connect with others across the world. Using a shared language ensures everyone understands the kaupapa.

The pedagogy programme is designed around the learn, create, share model. In Term 1, the students focus is on learn, Term 2 is create, Term 3 share and in Term 4 they are doing are all 3.

And of course...

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

My class site is about to be turbo-charged with all the fantastic ideas we were shown today. I really enjoyed viewing other class sites to see what worked for me. [Herman Fourie's, Room 6 Wesley Primary School and Miss Ferguson's are very inspiring - one day mine will look like that! (apparently not a SMART goal for me at the moment!) Hehe!]
I like bright colour, simple to use, theme based, and with as few clicks as possible (ideally two but I seem to need 3). But what do my students like? This is something I'm going to follow up and ask them, then act upon.
We were given the opportunity to give our sites another kick start - once you start, it's rather addictive. I didn't use my snipping tool to take a 'before' shot but's here's the current look which will be further amplified over the weekend.

My snipping tool didn't let me show the whole page but you can see where I'm heading. Once all the pages behind the buttons are finished over the weekend, I'll publish it ready for next week.

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

• Making my site more user friendly with as few clicks as possible to get to today's learning;
• Remove the Term 1, 2, 3, 4 buttons (I actually archived this on the toolbar). Replacing them with group buttons means it's one less click;
• Scaffold the ways students can get to where they need. I know some of my class like the toolbar at the top, but others who are more visual learners prefer buttons on the homepage;
• I need to make my tasks more multimodal - this has been an ongoing focus for me throughout the year;
• Check my site through an incognito tab. I have asked our administrator to turn it on for our school domain.

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

I find I am continuosly adding to my digital kete and gaining more confidence in what I do. Occasionally, I even feel confident to show another adult what to do! Working more within my class site means I don't need to be at school to plan etc. This makes it far more flexible for me in my personal life.

DFI Day 6

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

Making learning visible.

After last nights marae noho with 111 excited 7-10 year olds, I will admit some key points may have slipped past me today! Thank goodness for rewindable learning. That's my weekend task!
Often we hide the learning journey from our children, and for them it's like wandering aimlessly through a maze. When their journey is hidden, the successful students are the ones who have read the teachers mind and understood what the teacher meant.
Learning needs to be accessible, available and advanced for our students (students can advance themselves). There should be no surprises. 
The most effective teachers use the learn-create-share pedagogy, and design challenging, relevant, thought-provoking, and open-ended tasks to promote students choice and collaboration. They use the affordances of the digital environment to prepare a range of learning resources and opportunities to stimulate learning which is connected across the curriculum. Using their class site makes learning and teaching visible and is supported by student agency. It also frees up teacher time to engage with individuals and groups.
For students who make their learning visible (via their blog), the gains from sharing are that it:

• informs others about their learning
• enlists others to their point of view
• gets others to think about things they'd never 'thunk'
• makes a difference

The students are connecting with a real, world wide audience, and positive, thoughtful comments are very empowering for them.

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

Dorothy Burt's hangout about providing multi-modal opportunities for students is very timely. I have been working on this exact concept through A.L.L. (Accelerated Learning in Literacy) and in particular with my group of reluctant readers. 

'Multi-modal' is an inclusive, differentiated approach to teaching in a digital learning environment. Her hangout has inspired me to keep changing my 'shop-window' to keep engaging my reluctant readers. 

We were given the chance to view some incredible Google Sites - I want mine to look like theirs!

I also got the opportunity to work collaboratively on a google site- something I haven't had the chance to do for a while. I love it! Sharing ideas is always fantastic. 

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

Spending time creating quality google sites is time well spent. My class site needs to be turbo-charged. I have seen how engaged students are in my own class when multi-modal opportunities are given. I just haven't put them on my class site as when you see the exemplars, it's a little embarrassing to go back and view your own!

Thanks Sherryl Gommm for collaborating with me in this:

Click here for our site.

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

Today has reinforced my belief in the huge advantages in providing multi-modal opportunities for our learners. I just need the confidence to put everything on my class site. 

DFI, Day 5

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

Building a cybersmart learner is a whole school focus. It is imperative to use the correct terminology. Use cyberSMART rather than cybersafe or cyberbullying - these terms have a negative connotation.
By being cybersmart, we are empowering our learners as connected and confident decision makers. When taught in a positive light, digital citizenship introduces students to the wealth of opportunities afforded to them via technology. It helps them navigate effectively through the digital world resulting in healthy interactions, a positive digital presence and increased learning opportunities. Being cybersmart empowers learners to connect, when their learning is visible and ubiquitous. It empowers our young people to engage in online behaviour and thinking that elevates positive actions.
Learners are made aware that whenever we share online - it’s visible to the world, therefore it’s personal. They need to take care with their digital footprint.

At the very beginning, all classes create a Kawa of Care - an agreement between students, whānau and schools to ensure the best care and responsibility of the device is exercised during each student’s time in the Manaiakalani Programme. This also creates a partnership with whānau (blogs connect their child's learning with family too).
Cybersmart needs to be explicitly taught to learners - embedding it into your teaching practice for ½ hr a week is time well spent.
Everything we do online creates a digital footprint. A great motto to use is 'Make kindess go viral'.
To read the Manaiakalani Cybersmart curriculum click here.

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

Using Hapara Dashboard (effectively!):

• Dashboard - 1 item (on right hand side). This allows you to view as many items as you wish.
• G mail - you can check their emails (this has now be enabled).
• Sharing - shows all the learner's work that is not in a folder. Make sure they tidy it up e.g. don’t go to morning tea till it’s cleared. It's important learners keep everything in order and easy to find right from the get-go.
• Bolded writing is the tab they are on right now.
• Select - Class info, select names, copy emails into your email you want to send.

Avoid using the BYOD acronym (Bring Your Own Disaster). Instead, use the term "1 to 1", or "chromebook classes". When students bring any device from home, it does not show on Hapara Dashboard. By everyone having the same chromebook, we create an even platform for learning.

Digital dig should be done at the beginning of every year (by students and teachers!). Great tips and shortcuts.

iPads - Explain Everything is what Manaiakalani use. Research showed iPads were the best because of ease of management. Learners should have the 9.7 inch screen. Anything smaller and the screen size is too small.

To embed MP4s, click on 3 dots, click on ‘open a new window’, click on 3 dots again, click on embed.

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

The digital dig is a great set of slides that teaches learners keyboard shortcuts and handy tips useful when using a chromebook. It's a great idea to do this at the beginning of every year to refresh their memory. 

Screencastify allows learners to record their learning and embed the recording wherever they want it to be. This can be used in so many ways!

Five year olds are able to use iPads in so many ways to engage and reinforce learning. This is just one way of retelling a story:

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

The digital dig is fantastic - it will increase my confidence and workflow in all areas of my life. 
Gaining the knowledge about Manaiakalani Cybersmart Curriculum now empowers me to better inform parents who are concerned about their students learning online. These conversations are often popping up in my personal life outside of school. I now feel more confident in my repsonses to them.
Seeing what five year olds can do on an iPad is incredible. It's exciting to see what the future holds.

DFI DAY 4

DFI Day 4

As-salāmu 'alaykum

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

The SHARE component is an important part of the model. We need to think - how can we link the SHARE part with our learning goals and raise student outcomes?

• Ensure learning is rewindable - anytime, anywhere, anyone.
• Ensure students are writing for an authentic audience/sharing for a purpose - blogs have a wider audience rather than writing in a book.

Sharing isn’t the end - we need to ask for feedback and then improve on what we have done. Kids who don’t finish - share it anyway - then the feedback might encourage them to finish their work!

Another idea - students blog 3 ideas on how to start their story then ask for feedback - they have already engaged your audience.

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

• Embedding onto my blog (again!...rewinadable learning...actually this one needs to be on a loop!)
• Google forms - I have recreated a pdf self-assessment into a google form including a variety of responses (multi-choice, short answer etc). This will make it so much easier to analyse their answers.
• My Maps - I've used this before with my students but they were so much more proficient than me! They had to take us on a tour of the world, visit 3 continents, choose a city in each and take us to a tourist site, historical site and religious site. They also had to include our accomodation etc and present a flight plan. The students presented it using google slides. They were phenominal! My map below pales in comparison, but to be fair, they had a lot more time than me!

Gisborne Cohort 1's dream holiday destinations

• Google sheets - thanks to Mele's tutorial on her blog (Mele - an elite teacher) I was able to create this graph from a google sheet.

I'm in the process of putting my student data onto a google sheet then highlighting the different levels. I will admit, I wasn't  fan of google sheets but am now a convert!

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

With google forms they will be able to create their own questionnaires for statistics, collate the answers in a google sheet and create a graph. This information can then be shared on their blog, with a screencastify of how they did it or maybe an analysis of their results comparing information gathered. Just one example but there are many more!

My Maps could also be used for them to show images/driving time etc between holiday destinations, dream holidays etc. 

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

All of these tips are streamlining my professional workflow and making me feel more organised and confident. When I get my drive under control, I think it will declutter my brain as well. I was given some very bad advice when I first set up my drive when I was told, "You don't need folders - just search what you need and a list will come up." Arrrggghhhhh! I'm actually embarrassed when the Manaiakalani tutors say "Bring up your drive" 🙈
My own children are impressed with my knowledge, thankful I'm not asking them so many "How do I...?" questions and I think a little bit mortified that I have my own YouTube channel!!

DFI Day 3

DFI Day 3 

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

Creative skills help students become better problem solvers, communicators and collaborators. 
Empowering our learners through:
*Choice
*Information / knowledge
*Developing skills
*Building capacity
*Scaffolding
As John Dewey said “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.” 





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

Reflective thinking for my way forward:
Effective teachers using Learn-Create-Share pedagogy design challenging, relevant, thought-provoking and open-ended tasks, which allow students’ choice and collaboration
The tasks I give students should be unconstrained, so there is no upper limit of what they might achieve, and allow students to write or compose at length. 

The tasks I design should generate thinking, and allow for student collaboration and choice in learning and in creating. Tasks should deliberately focus on thinking, while I offer support for these tasks through optional and/or compulsory workshops as a response to identified needs. 


This ensures my students will be able to take more responsibility for selecting topics to learn about. Tasks will require extended and incidental reading.


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

-Utilising the tools built into google slides to enable learners to CREATE.
-Making google slides using consistent formatting, linking 'like' colours, embedding links into them.

Here's a simple slide I created for our opening karakia at our school liturgy which my class is running on Monday. 




This is how I embedded it onto my blog:

Step 1:



Step 2
Click embed, then publish. A pop up will appear. Click OK.



Step 3

Copy the code (HTML).

Step 4
Go to your blog. Click on the HTML button, find where you want to paste it in the code and do so.


Other learning consisted of:
-SiSoMo - sight, sound and motion.
-Using a drone to live stream sports events (Kent Sommerville from Pt England School). Engaging the community. This can be added to later with students commentary. Students need to think carefully about what they say!
-I also created my own YouTube channel but in the plethora of new learning forgot to bookmark it/One Tab it/"anything it". Now I don't know where to find it, and if I do, I don't know what to do with it! The result of an influx of new learning creating a brain explosion and subsequent meltdown!

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

Small steps. Things take time. Breathe! It's exhausting learning new things!

DFI Day 2

Time to reflect and share with colleagues

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

I need to ramp up my turbo charging! The link made between SAMR and Blooms really resonated with me.

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

Lots of useful tips - google keep which is like a digital post-it note, boomerang so I can delay emails so they appear in the receivers inbox first thing in the morning (or whenever I want it to), google hangout (I found this rather frustrating), how to tame my tabs - lots of options here - it's just a matter of playing around with it and seeing which one I perfer. 

It's also the incidental learning on the side that happens that is improving my capability. Today I learnt how to screenshot my screen (new laptop this week!), how to mute my laptop when it's projecting on the TV, the phrase 'bunny ear scroll' (will definitley use this term with my students), loom vs castify (still need to find out more about this), how to accept the smart compose option - this had been appearing on my emails but I didn't know how to accept it. And then there's last weeks learning which I forgot! I forgot that the f on my blog could change my font, and I forgot about the view/show document outline option when using titles/headings/subheadings. Interestingly, when I had been teaching my class yesterday how to use the title/heading/subheading, I was wondering in my head how we accessed this down the left hand side of their google doc!

Clip of screencastify

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

As above! I also need to show some of my students how to video themselves reading and send it to Wellington for a pilot programme I'm part of. I have been asking techno-savvy people at school but they have been too busy. Huge thanks to Tanya Mundy for helping me today. I now have the loom vs screencastify debate!

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

Shared calendar - I have been invited and invited people on this. 

Hangout - still frustrating but I can see the benefits. Once again, it's just a matter of using it over and over again.

DFI Day 1, Blogging - getting started.

Blogging - getting started.

Time to reflect and share with colleagues.

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

We need to motivate our learners to engage with the curriculum; provide a model for 21st century teaching and learning; work with learners to establish an authentic audience for their learning; empower our learners with an evidence based belief that their personal voice is valued and powerful; raise student achievement.

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

Time saving techniques and formatting. Control shift v instead of control v, using tables on a google doc to control everything spurting out all over the place. (I wish I'd known this at the beginning of the year. I wasted so much of my CRT on Wednesday trying to redo tables I've had on Word from the beginning of the century!) So much that I'll have to go back over (new word - "rewind") the Core Business.

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

Everything that I learnt I can teach my learners. Making sure they set out their google docs properly and simply putting their initials at the beginning of every doc. Having just one doc for a whole terms Writing makes so much sense and life so much easier. Making sure the learning is authentic is going to be great with simple things like learners voice typing/reading their story as a Reading activity.

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

I have spent so much time down rabbit holes when I've been on google docs etc trying to make things look like they look in my head! The tips we learnt today will be time saving which means I will have more time with my family. AND it will look like I want it to look!