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.