DFI Day 3 - Media Agenda

Today I participated in another worthwhile session of Manaiankalani's Digital Fluency Intensive.

Following on from last week's session on learn/Ako, today Dorothy spoke about the create/Hanga pedagogy of Maniakalani. One of the key messages that resonated with me again today was that we want our children to be 'creators of content, not merely consumers'. As Dorothy was speaking I thought back to my own experiences of primary school and the majority of my memories, unsurprisingly, are related to creating something or going somewhere. Two such creations I remember were building a brontosaurus out of chicken wire and paper māchē, and the joy of discovering I could use PVA to stick sand on a model I made of an island. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of the learning that went with these creative tasks other than the craft skills! Dorothy spoke of 'create' being a hook for learning and as teachers, we need to embed these create activities within authentic learning tasks so that the memories our children create are saturated in learning opportunities and/or that cement the learning that has already occurred. How lucky are the children at my old school, Kaniere Primary,  that they are apart of Manaiakalani outreach! It is also a reminder once again that being in the 'create' zone sometimes means 'doing less, better.' The best creations and authentic learning sometimes comes when students are given the time to create and not rushed on to the next piece of learning.

The next session looked at creating a Youtube channel and setting up playlists. The benefit of saving videos to a playlist is that this can be embedded within your class site for children to access without going directly on to Youtube. Several years ago I made a slideshow with videos of well-known pictures books being read aloud. It would be helpful to use a google playlist for this instead. I would also like to create an appropriate music playlist too for children to listen to while working.

Today's deep dive was by guest presenter Kent Somerville, Associate principal of Pt. England Primary School. He discussed different ways of live streaming via Youtube and Google Hangout meets. As a school, we tried our first live streaming of assembly during the lockdown. This got me thinking, would it be worthwhile streaming all of our assemblies or at the least filming them for our whanau to watch at a suitable time. We also have other events such as Manu Kōrero and Pacifica performances that would be wonderful to share to a wider audience. Now all I need to do is convince those that hold the purse strings to let me purchase a decent video camera!

The final session of the day was an opportunity to explore one of seven create tasks. Dorothy's session was focused on designing personal slide templates which brings joy to my creative soul! I was already familiar with the site https://www.slidescarnival.com/ but didn't know you could edit the masters. As I have found out not all the slides will allow changes. Below I have included the master slide and then the one I have edited using our school colours.

DFI Day 2: Workflow

Kia ora everyone

Today is the first day back in Alert Level 2 but I have stayed in my home bubble to complete day 2 of my DFI. This week's session has focused around workflow. I find this area a bit of a challenge as I have four roles within my school, Deputy Principal, Leader of Learning, Team Leader and Year 4/5 teacher. Swapping between these roles is always a challenge and sometimes I feel they all could easily morph into separate full-time roles! In saying that I enjoy all of my roles and the different challenges they each bring.

The first part of our day was focused on the Manaiakalani pedagogy of Learn/Ako. I still remember the moment of realisation that 'learn' in this case was not as we traditionally think and that 'learn' is not the same as 'learning'. In Manaiakalani learn is "Access and engage with existing knowledge" We now recognise that in this digital world true, quality teaching is not 'filling up a vessel' with knowledge. After all with Google our students can find out anything. Teaching needs to be about teaching our learners how to learn and the necessary skills to be a successful member of society that you can't simply find by searching online. I also really like the analogy that despite modern technology we shouldn't 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'. It is about mixing effective acts of teaching with the affordances of digital technology. It is also about acknowledging that digital technology is only a tool for effective practice.
                                        

Google Hangout Meet
Before Covid-19 reached our shores my understanding of Google hangouts was very limited and like many of us, there was a pressing need to become familiar with this tool and fast. One thing I would like to try tomorrow with my class hangout is sharing tabs so that audio can be shared with other participants. Part of our create task was to make a Google Meet with a member of our bubble and record a conversation and screen sharing about a child's blog post. Below is the recording I was involved in.



Google Keep
A colleague who participated in a DFI last year shared some of the functions of Google Keep so I was already familiar with aspects of this tool. The main way I have used it so far is converting text from a photo into editable text. In Term 1 I created follow up activities for our class novel and used exerts for the children to re-read to complete activities as I only had the one copy of the text. I found the richness of the tasks I could assign was so much greater than those where the children would have to use their memory of the text. What I wasn't familiar with was the ability to share your notes with others and set reminders. Dorathy used the example of sharing a shopping list with other family members and setting a reminder when you moved into the location of a chosen supermarket. I also really like the idea of dictating notes. This could be very useful for my anecdotal notes about my students.

Gmail
This session was around streamlining Gmail and making the most of its features. Three things I would like to explore further are snoozing emails when needing to come back to them, copying emails into a to do list and filtering emails to make my time more productive and keeping on top of workload. It was also suggested to give Unroll.me a go and look at all the emails I am currently subscribed to.

Calendar
I have to admit I still prefer my hardcopy diary and really it is one of those things where you have to go all or nothing. My current fear is that I will add something to my Calendar and forget to check it against my diary! I can see how Calendar is a very useful tool and it is helpful to be able to share your calendar with others.

Taming your tabs
Last week I was introduced to OneTab which I am already finding useful to manage the many tabs I seem to have constantly open. I once was given a certificate for the teacher will the most open tabs on their computer, so if the children noticed you know it was bad! I did install Workona but in my haste to find the tabs I need in the middle of my DFI session I didn't find it very user friendly. Hint for myself wait until a quiet time to explore these types of things. Perhaps a more suitable tab organiser to try for the time being is Toby Mini.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day one

Kia ora and welcome back to my professional learning blog. It has been some time since I last posted, despite my best intentions and having a wealth of topics to post about!

Today I attended day one of the digital Fluency Intensive (DFI) run by Dorothy Burt and other members of the Manaiakalani team. Initially, these sessions were delivered face to face by region but as with many things, Covid-19 has prevented this from going ahead. We now have to opportunity to have larger group sessions via Google Hangout Meet with teachers and facilitators across New Zealand.

Today's session, titled 'Core Business', began with the original story of Manaiakalani. Each time I hear this story I have a new understanding and appreciation for the work that has lead to this point in the Manaiakalani journey.

We then spent time delving into Chrome, Google Groups, Google Drive, and Google Docs. Apart from Google Groups, I would say I was reasonably confident although well aware I wouldn't be using them to their full potential. Below are my takeaways from today...

• I have a range of extensions to explore - themes, one tab, color pix eye drop, great suspender...
• Would using a Google Group be a good option for the PLG I run?
• * can be used to bring important and current folders to the top of your Google Drive making them easier to locate
• Reexamine my beginning of the year set ups practices and what I need to revisit when school returns this term. Regardless of the age of the children, we can't assume they have been taught all the appropriate workflow skills no matter how efficient they may appear.
• Teaching children to avoid using CTRL + V, and instead use CTRL + Shift + V to paste without formatting. 
• Underlining in the 21st Century is for hyperlinks not titles
• Updating headings using the style tab will allow all headings to have the same formate
• Insert - table of contents will hyperlink these formatted headings for quick access. Great for using with large documents or as a whole term writing doc for the children.
• The benefits of using 'Voice Typing' to grow confidence with reluctant typers/writers
• Features of the 'explore' tool beyond simply a way to quickly locate information
• Google Docs can be used to create presentations such as posters. See my example below
• Remove.bg is a site that will format pictures into PNGs by removing the background.
• The importance of allowing time for our learners to share. This is very much a 'do as I say, not as I do' approach for me I am ashamed to admit. I remind my colleagues of this often and go as far as telling them to timetable blogging (as one example) into their weekly programme. I acknowledge I need to do this better!

Created with Google Docs