DFI Session 3: Media

Todays session started off with Dorothy discussing the 'CREATE' part of the Manaiakalani pedagogy. I enjoyed listening to her korero explaining how the create aspect is predominantly the part that 'HOOKS' our students in and I love how that is represented in the Manaiakalani logo below. This reinforced to me how vital it is to establish a safe learning environment, where students feel comfortable to share their ideas and become creators, rather than just consumers. It was also reminder to myself to not forget one of the main reasons why I chose to pursue teaching as a career.....to be creative!

During lockdown I had experimented with a youtube channel but didn't get very far. Today was a good opportunity to start organising some playlists and ensure I had the correct settings on my account. I created a second youtube channel under our class email so that my collaborative teaching buddy and I can both create playlists and easily access this from our promethean t.v, rather than our individual teacher gmails. 

We are not quite at the student blog stage yet but once we are I will make sure that I set up some of the handy tips that were discussed today. Things like making sure I have filters set up to manage the influx of emails in my inbox and utilising some of the extensions that were discussed last week to manage a large number of blogs.

I signed up for the 'Adding audio to your slides for rewindability' breakout with Kelsey and created the audio book below. I am looking forward to exploring ways to use the online voice recorder with my students. I would like to promote tuakana/teina relationships by challenging some of my students to create an audio book to assist junior students with their reading. 

I am lucky to have my collaborative teaching buddy doing the DFI course at the same time as me so we have discussed using the 'All About Me' google drawing activity with our students. We have just introduced the basics of google drawing to them and this will be a fun way to introduce a few more functions. 

I am loving the 'rewindability' of this course. Even though we weren't able to attend all of the breakouts I have been able to look through some of the slide decks to get little tips and ideas. It is reassuring to know that these resources are sitting there for us to revisit as we need and I will definitely continue to utilise them.

My last random thought about what I learnt today was that I had never looked at blogging as being EOTC! I can't remember which presenter said that but it really made me think differently and realise that it definitely is!

DFI Session 2: Workflow

We have just completed our second D.F.I session and it was another jam packed agenda. It is reassuring to know that all of our learning has rewindable slide decks etc that we can revisit to consolidate our learning or check up on things we may be unsure of.

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

- The main thing that stuck with me from this mornings focus around the 'LEARN' aspect of Manaiakalani was the reminder that we as teachers are constantly modelling to our students that we are still learners too. My collaborative teaching buddy and I have explained to our class that we are going to be away every Wednesday so that we can learn lots of new skills that we will then be able to come back and share with them. Our students were quite fascinated to think of us as 'the learners'. 

I took a screenshot of this part of the slide presentation as no matter how long you have been teaching I think it is vital to still remind ourselves of these actions...

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

- Google calendars is not currently utilised in our school but is something my collaborative teaching buddy and I have talked about introducing at some stage. My buddy and I currently use a shared calendar app but it makes sense to switch to google calendars as everything is linked in our G suite. As a whole staff we still have the big white board calendar of the term in our staffroom which most of the staff are comfortable with. However, I think we could be a lot more efficient by using google calendars. I think if we used 5-10 mins each staff meeting to gradually introduce how it works then we may be able to convert our staff members. Creating a google meet via calendars was new learning for me and I will continue to explore the various other functions. 

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

- I have not used google meets since last lockdown so it was really good to have a refresher and learn about the new functions. With the latest Covid situation, it is a timely reminder to also reintroduce google meets and our expectations/kaupapa around video chatting. 

 

* Todays task was to analyse a students blog post from lockdown and create a video recording via google meets discussing the following questions...

1. What was the teaching design behind this post?

2. What was the learner’s response ie the post content

3. Who responded to the post and how did this support the learning experience or contribute more to the learning of the child?

I have never used the recording function in google meets and I will be honest, I was way out of my comfort zone! Working out how to use the recording function was fine......just the actual recording myself was uncomfortable for me....but I survived! Below is the recording I created and learnt how to embed in my blog....

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

- I learnt lots of handy tips for my organising my gmail and making it work more efficiently for me. I learnt how to set up two different signatures (a professional one and one to use with my students), created a 'unread first' section at the top of my inbox and am still experimenting with the use of email filters and whether or not these would be useful for me. 

- Google Keep is something I already use but only as a 'To Do' list with checkboxes for me and my collaborative teaching buddy. I learnt about lots of other functions, including the voice recording function available on the phone app which converts speech to text as well as saving a copy of the original audio. I also liked the tip about creating a google keep note with feedback comments that is accessible on the side bar when working on google docs. 

- The presentation about 'Taming the tabs" is something I will need to revisit when I have more time. Once we get our students up and running with their own blogs I can see that we will probably want to utilise one or more of the extensions that were discussed. 

DFI Session 1: Core Business

Today was the first session of our Digital Fluency Intensive (DFI). Prior to starting I was a bit nervous but am now feeling really positive as there is plenty of support readily available.

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

Our day started off with a presentation about the Manaiakalani kaupapa. It was interesting to listen to the back story and learn about how it all started. I love the philosophy of 'Learn....Create....Share' and am excited to be starting my own journey. I am glad that my collaborative teaching buddy is also participating in the DFI at the same time as me so that we are on the same page.

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

- Lots of the organisational tips related to our google drives I have already learnt over the years through 'tutuing' but it is always good to have a refresher to see what systems other people are using. 

- It was useful to learn how to set up groups as in the past we have relied on our I.T support person to do this for us. I was just about to rush ahead and set up a group for the students in our class (currently using a group within my email) but then our presenter told us not to bother as it will interfere with our Hapara set up. 

- In the past I have avoided using google docs to create/present work as I have found google slides to be more friendly in terms of letting you place things wherever you want them. However, the tips I picked up today have definitely shown me that there is much more to google docs. It is my classes turn to contribute to our school newsletter this week so I used our google doc 'create' time to make a start on this. 

 - The 'explore' tool is another part of google docs that I havn't really utilised in the past. It will be very handy and help to eliminate some of the many tabs I have open!

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

The voice recording function is a tool I would like to introduce to my class. I can see it being a really engaging part of our literacy programme. My collaborative teaching buddy made the poster below when we were required to create a google doc poster:

I would also like to introduce the 'explore' tool properly to my students. I can see it eliminating some confusion as lots of tasks can now be completed from within the one doc/tab.

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

The 'priority' section in my google drive was completely new learning for me. I will definitely be utilising this for fast retrieval of my frequently used documents.

Looking forward to session 2!