DFI Media

Today we shared the possibilities of media that you can use within your classroom and with your students. There are so many ways to engage students with their learning using Google Apps such as Draw, Slides and of course using the likes of YouTube for creating playlists of rewindable learning for the students.

I presented a breakout on creating pick-a-path stories. I always created my own as they were creating theirs, and I realised that I had left off some important information:

1. Use the titles to name your slides. I did share this with them, but then forgot to show them how if they change the title, it makes it easier to find the right slide you are trying to link to.
2. That all images and text boxes added to the slide will need to have a link back to the current slide so students can accidentally advance to the next slide.
3. I made mention part way through their create that they can use images instead of shapes and text as answers. 

My presentation with instructions.

This is my creation. I'm wanting to do something similar with Ngataki school around blog commenting once we have had a lesson or two around this concept of Smart Relationships.

Manaiakalani Staff Hui

Mapic with Dr Naomi Rosedale

Students have access to range of new tools and skills which they are able to use to transform their knowledge, rather than just acquiring it. Important here is for the students to be able to get their own voice across - What is the students lens when they are creating? This is where they are able to include their own identity, culture, etc to share their learning in their own way!	The most magic happens here when students create their own DLO's, rather than being direct by the teacher - Teacher created DLO's. Here we want to focus on the students transforming their learning to further develop language, literacy and learning.

From Dr Naomi Rosedale research's, she has highlighted that these are the five elements that make the most difference to students acceleration of their learning.

How can we put more ownership on our students to learn more deeply creating through the process of design for learning? Students will need to think about the modes when sharing their learning. What mode will enhance this sharing of learning more? Video, audio, visual, written... Highlight of key vocab has shown to have a greater impact on overall DLO.

This is the MAPIC framework. I would be very interested in unpacking this further, and perhaps have this re-written into child speak. Use the middle section to question my thinking to nudge our students learning further in create.

Using the information shared by Dr Naomi Rosedale, as a teacher/facilitator,

• How could we use MAPIC to ‘nudge’ our create pedagogy?
• How can student design-for-learning offer a springboard to HLPs (including T-Shaped literacy)?
• How can the ‘new’ modes hold transformative ways of create-to-learn (and share) such as student voice over, podcast, screencast, group discussion) in everyday teaching & learning?

DFI Session 4: Dealing with Data / Thursday's Cohort

Today during our DFI session on Google My Maps, I had a little play around and planned a girls weekend.  My sisters and I are getting together next week, and these are the places we want to go to.



Today's session went smoothly. Each group I worked with were keen and eager to learn. It was particularly rewarding during our spreadsheets levelling up activity to see other participants take the lead and share what they have learnt - helping others in the group. Such a positive vibe happening today.

Visible Learning

Today during our DFI online hangout, Dorothy shared her positive experiences with visible teaching and learning.

This is something that I have always felt strongly about, ensuring that students are always able to see what they are learning, how they are going to be learning, etc.

During Term 1, I relieved at Paparore School. I had ensured that I had my relievers plan and all activities on a site, which I share with the students at the start of the day. The students knew already how to access learning via a site, and straight away they were able to engage with their learning. At the end of the day, a student came up to me and said, "I'm going to complete my reading activity when I get home tonight". Now that would not have been possible if I didn't provide them with all the materials/resources they needed.

The country's sudden Lockdown also provided evidence of the importance of using a class site to support students and their whanau. Those teachers who already had all their learning available on their site, just continued life as normal, with a few minor changes. Others who have relied on paper activities found it a little more challenging. They either had to provide parents with a 'kit' that included all their learning or had to start using class sites. 

Moving forward - I think there is still lots of work to be done to ensure online learning is successful, I do think visible learning and teaching should be the first step.  For my future practise, I will ensure that my site is always up to date, students have access to all learning resources needed and that parents are well informed of what is happening within the classroom.

Manaiakalani Film Festival

This year was our very first Manaiakalani Film Festival. It was a huge success. So much organinsing and planning went into this event, from behind the scene planning with the Manaiakalani facilitators, Te Ahu, Harley Alexandra, but also at the school level. Buying equipment, planning the movies, organising groups to film, etc, etc.

I would like to thank all those that made this possible!

The students had a fabulous time and felt like celebs walking along the red carpet, entering to view their film on the big screen.

Please view the film's that my class made to be shown at Te Ahu on our class blog.

Design Thinking

For the first part of our Manaiakalani Hui, we engaged in a team-building exercise.

The first fun activity was to play a variation of rock, paper, scissors called Ninja, Tiger, Granny.  Played like rock, paper, scissors; whoever wins goes ahead to the next person, and the losing person becomes the support person and creates a chain. A great ice-breaker.

The focus of the day was around design thinking. Design thinking has a human-centred core. The important message here was not to get stuck on your own ideas, to be critical and accept feedback. You need to be willing to let go of ideas that perhaps didn't meet the requirements of the customer.

To prepare ourselves for design thinking, we were asked to draw a buddy in a short space of time. This was to promote the idea that you shouldn't apologise for our ideas and designs, instead take on feedback instead.

Learning about the design thinking process, we worked in groups and completed practical, hands-on activities.  The first stage of design thinking is to empathise with the consumer/customer. We were asked to go into a cafe, order a coffee, and empathise with a customer around their cafe experience.  From that, we came back with some issues that may arise for our customer. This is the "define" in the process.

In our group, we made up our own customer, based on our own experiences and anxieties we face when going to a cafe. We came up with Danvery. Brilliant drawing, thanks Anne.

Ideate is the next step in the process, and we thought about so many different ways that we could solve the issues our customer faced/faces. We had so many ideas, some doable, others were very out there. We marked our ideas using the following scale.

The fun had only just begun! We had to prototype our solution. I think we were a bit ambitious with our solution. We designed edible coffee cups, and you could choose out of five cups - sweet, bitter, salty, sour and umami.

Our idea:  A garden wall, ambience music, hologram at each table which can state where all the ingredient came from, and edible coffee cups. So fun to act out and test our prototype with a customer. 

Manaiakalani Share Staff Meeting

Today's staff meeting was about the Share component of "Learn, Create, Share". We discussed the different ways in which we share on a daily basis, and that this is part of our daily lives. We share without even thinking about it. Share can happen with individuals, small groups, large crowds or to the whole world. Sometimes what we share can be personal or professional, and this would look different depending on where you are, and who you might be sharing with.

We also discussed how sharing can significantly increase the student's writing ability.

Here are we sharing ways we share:

On a side note, I love the idea of the e-mail that can be sent straight to your blog. I have set this up ready for my class. I'm hoping that amazing work can be shared directly onto our class blog by the students. I'm really excited about this.

DFI Reflections

It's so lovely to read everyone's blog post and to see how much they are learning and improving each week.  The participants have all been so positive and motivated about their new learning.

I too have some learning that needs to be done.

Over the past 7 weeks, I have been delivering one aspect of our Manaiakalani programme, and I have come to the realisation, that I struggle to speak in front of crowds.

I have been practising the content well before presenting, feeling confident that I know what I will show, and that I know what I'm doing. Except, each time I stand in the front, my words come flying out at a million miles an hour; I get flustered and then can't find or do what I need to do.  It all seems to work out okay in the end, but am concerned that I'm not sharing my knowledge to the best of my ability.

As soon as I'm sitting down with a small group of people, I'm relaxed and can support them where needed.

So I ask this of you, how do you prepare yourself for speaking in crowds? How can I make sure that I slow down when delivering my content?

These are goals I need to work on, as they are not just going to help me with my delivery of DFI content, but in life also!

Preparing for 2019

After a lovely summer break, I'm ready to embark on yet another teaching adventure.  This year I have the senior students at Paparore School, and look forward to challenging them and learning alongside them.

This year I have also been asked to work for Manaiakalani one day a week, support teachers on their path of becoming 'digitally fluent.'

I look forward to strengthening my understand of the Manaiakalani Kaupapa and using their framework of "Learn, Create, Share" to support the learning of my students. My class site is ready for the start of the year and will continue to develop this with my students in mind.

My professional goals for the year include:

• Building positive relationships with students that foster the love of learning;
• Raising the achievement of my target students (more than one year's progress), using the Learn, Create, Share framework in numeracy and literacy;
• Further develop my te reo and including this in my everyday routine;
• Providing my students with an up to date site, which ensure all learning is rewindable at all times. 

These goals may change or evolve as the year progresses.

Google Docs Ninja Challenge

Today we completed the Google Docs Ninja Challenge. I have earned my black belt.  I found it tricky working out how to add a table of contents, but worked it out with the help of a colleague. I also learnt how to embed a google doc so that it is large enough to read without loads of scrolling. 

Manaiakalani Facilitation

Day three of Manaiakalani facilitation, done and dusted.

It impresses me how much students already know regarding technology, and how quickly they pick up the new skills taught.

What went well?

All the students in each of the classes that I have been in to this week have been focused and engaged. I have expected that students that don't have posts of their blogs, post one before my session was finished - most of them achieved this.

In classes where students were well on their way with blogging, we focused on creating positive, helpful, thoughtful comments to leave other students on their blogs.  This was a very positive session with the two classes at Pompallier Catholic School.  The students enjoyed looking at other school blogs, and finding people they may already know outside of school.  The comments they were leaving other students showed depth and thought, and fit within the Manaiakalani kaupapa. 

What needs modification?

As this is my first week, some things have been less organised than what I would have liked it to be. For example, not having access to class sites to be able to upload work I would like the students to have access too.  This is now sorted at Pompallier School and some of the teachers at Ahipara School. Allowing me this access will make life easier when sharing documents to students. 

I'm also very used to have my own projector and being able to display the activity I would like the students to complete. This allows me to show them exactly what I would like them to do.  This has been a little bit more challenging as the different schools have different systems in their class for projecting student work. 

Next goals/steps:

I would like to get all the students in the Far North cluster collaborating via their blogs.  This has started successfully already with some students from Pompallier commenting on Paparore School Blogs and on Ahipara School blogs. I would like to match all the 'like-aged' classes together to increase their audience they already have on their blogs.

I would also like to comment on every student's blog that is in the Far North cluster Pilot classes. So far, Ahipara school blogs have been commented on - as long as the students had a post.

I look forward to extending my knowledge of Manaiakalani and building relationships with all the students I have met and will be meeting.  This is a great opportunity, one that I will embrace while I can.

Manaiakalani PLD - Connected Learners Share

Explore one blog post - What was the purpose of the post?

This student had been learning about perimeters and how to find the perimeters of 2d shapes. The slides the student created were informative and helpful for other students who may not know what a perimeter is, or how to find it.  She/he made it interactive by adding a quiz at the end.

Take a screenshot and create a reflection of your own. Insert the screenshot into the post as a image with a link back to the blog. Comment on the blog post using the Positive Thoughtful Helpful sentence starters.

You have clearly identified the learning involved, sharing what you learnt and what you found challenging. You made you DLO interactive by creating a quiz for your audience to complete to see what they understood/learnt from your slide. What is the difference between circumference and perimeter?

Can you find a threaded conversation on a blog post? Why do we try and encourage these? Reflect on this as part of your blog post.

This encourages students to think deeper about their blogs posts and comments.

After looking at the Planning, Feedback and Examples from Slide 13 what strategy or new approach you could take in your classroom/hub/studio.

I like the idea of having all the week's planning on a google slide hyperlinked to all the resources the students need.