DFI Reflection - Day 5 - Collaborate - Sites

Our second week of lockdown. It has been a very busy week getting my tamariki set up online at home and trying to be an IT help desk. Not my first choice of job, and one I would not like to repeat too often. However, the DFI sessions on a Friday make for a welcome relief, while my reliever takes on my class for the day online.

The focus today was visibility. Of everything, to all stakeholders. Our tamariki, our colleagues, our whānau and to ourselves. Our planning, the process the tamariki will go through to learn, what their outcomes are and their assessments. 

I only came into teaching three and a half years ago. It seemed obvious to me after years in the manufacturing and IT sectors that our teams only got where they needed to be when they knew where they were expected to get to. We had processes and policies to guide the how to get where we were going and everyone was expected to know them. We knew when we had hit or missed our goals. It was surprising to find out that this explicitness was not something used all the time by teachers. One of my cohort with whom I graduated got a job at a school where they were told NEVER to use WALTS, or learning intentions at all. I wonder if that experiment has been successful. My colleague left the school, and nothing is visible now to find out.

I have been guilty of not always being explicit myself and that is something top of my list to ensure I'm not guilty of in the future. If they don't know where they are going, how will they ever know they've made it to the destination?

Part of the way we appear visible, is through the use of Google Sites. Using them to lead the learning and turbocharge their journeys. Everything we need is on the site, it is there in advance and before it is needed. But, they still need to have a HOOK!  We need to get engagement from the tamariki and the novelty of things wears off quickly with them. We need to then cognitively engage them also and use multi-textual design by aggregating various resources at different levels for different audiences.  

Using multi-modal design means presenting differing perspectives that are credible and reliable to make the students think, and using different modes to deliver that learning (written texts, audio files, video files etc). 

My current site is quite perfunctory and I need to ensure I get a bit of WOW onto it. Something I could do over lockdown if I ever get a chance. I'm a multi-modal communicator at the moment with devices pinging and beeping all day between phone calls. The tamariki are engaging this time around (the first lockdown in 2020 was not so successful engagement wise) which is very pleasing. 

We spent time looking at various multi-modal sites and comparing and contrasting them. There were a variety of amazing sites which gave me a lot of ideas about what I liked and didn't like. Unfortunately I was unable to complete the day. With Level 4 meaning my partner was at home not working (he is an owner/driver with Move Logistics) a call came for an urgent job, income we couldn't pass up so I had to dash him into town (2 hour round trip!) as he could be away for days and my car isn't going. It never rains but it pours!  I have spent the late afternoon working through and have started a site based on our Te Whenua inquiry area and pest control.  Click on the image below to check it out. 

Although we have used sites for the past two years, I learned a lot today about how to plan one and some great shortcuts. The planning is key, using T-shaped literacy thinking to underpin the site ensures that it will engage the tamariki and empower them (and myself) in their education. I will need to do a lot of work on my site, and bring the tamariki with me in my learning. Already they know that I am just a learner on sites, and they are thrilled to find out I don't know it all and I'm learning with them too.

I've used Sites for GirlGuiding online as our weekly meetings are off as well. It has meant it is easy to direct the parents and children to the site for a one stop shop for what we are doing each week, what they need to do at home and when our next online meeting is on. It has made things a lot easier for me trying to manage this as well. 

Generally I feel I am becoming a lot more confident with digital technology. In a previous life I worked with programmers all day and office systems, but having to do it myself online has really stretched my knowledge and capabilities. I can't wait to learn more next week!

DFI Reflection - Day 4 - Dealing with Data

This week the benefits of online learning came to the fore. Lockdown. A Level 4 shutdown of the whole country.  I think we all knew it was coming, but no one knew when. Doing DFI online has meant a seamless continuation of our course which is awesome. Pity my home internet didn't value my learning as much as I do!  It just didn't like running Meet with video enabled and anything else online. If I turned my video off it at times made a difference, but it is what it is and I wouldn't move just to get better internet!

We covered the SHARE part of Manaiakalani's pedagogy today. 

Since time immemorial we have shared our lives with others. At school it was through assemblies, school newsletters, school visits by parents and taking work home. Although this doesn't stop in the age of Manaiakalani, it is totally expanded with the advent of the internet and Blogging.

Part of the Hook of Manaiakalani is the SHARE:

"Work with learners to establish an authentic audience for their learning outcomes".

Sharing their work with a purpose, an authentic audience, getting feedback and having discussions on their work provides a great boost to the tamariki's self esteem and mana. In ordinary circumstances at school, no one really has a choice about hearing or seeing your work. It's either your teacher or the school/class in a compulsory situation. Online it it different. As Dorothy Burt said it is "people who choose to listen to you" online. They can easily click into another website and ignore you so any reads you get, any comments you receive are genuinely interested in your work - how motivating is that?!

We covered off three main areas today with regards to data:

1. Forms
2. MyMaps
3. Sheets

I have used all three extensively before so it was nice to know a wee bit before we went through them as a group.  I use forms a lot in Guiding, and have used them in tests online for my tamariki, had them answer comprehension questions and find out information from our whānau.  Here is one I made on DFI - which was great as I was going to have to create it anyway. I kept it simple for our whānau, my audience. I had difficulty embedding it which I will try again later, but here is the link:  Lockdown questionnaire

Our school started using MyMaps when we had a huge school camp to organise. We were going to Cape Reinga, Waitangi, Auckland and Waitomo. The tamariki had to create their own route, find out about places on the way and record what they were doing at each place. It was a fantastic learning tool. I personally use it when on PLD we go and visit various marae and learn about iwi rohe, whakataukī that go with each hapū involved etc. It is a way of recording my photos, locations and information. I have also uploaded recordings of the visits (voice only). 

I had actually forgotten about MyMaps so this was a great opportunity to revisit them. We are currently undertaking an inquiry on our awa. I could get them to map the awa to its headwaters and put places of interest and photos along its course. They would love it!

Our last session for the morning covered Google Sheets. I have completed a lot of work in Excel in a previous life. Pivot tables, formulas and other goodies, so my main difficulty is finding where I can do some of these things in Sheets. The keyboard shortcuts were great and there's some nice functionality in sheets. I have yet to introduce sheets to my students. I am trying to think how I could use it and in what context in my classroom. If anyone has any ideas for this age group - I'm open to them! We used sheets to gather data and analyse it. We created a chart and then inserted it into a drawing and wrote comments about our analysis.  

The data behind this drawing is here along with a sample of the exercises I did in spreadsheets for practice. 

 

The final session was on quality blog comments. This I think is my greatest fear - that someone will write something inappropriate and I won't pick up on it quickly enough so the poor blogger sees it first! This part of the cybersmart journey with my tamariki will have to be very well considered and rolled out.  We don't have individual student blogs yet and I have just gotten my class blog - the day before lockdown so not a consideration straight away. It will be wonderful to see the class interact with each other and support each other in their learning journeys though.

All in all, a great day of lockdown, it certainly took my mind off the world for a few hours.

DFI Reflection - Day 3 - Create

The focus this session was around CREATE!

Creativity is not to be confused with talent, skill, or intelligence. Creativity is not about doing something better than others, it is about thinking, exploring, discovering and imagining. (Kohl, 2008)

Creativity motivates akonga to engage with the curriculum. Creating something helps to see there is a purpose to their learning. It should involve as much as possible their entire body, their passion, their voices and can connect with tech to empower them, and of course, to share.

I am excited to get my class using Screencastify and WeVideo. We currently use iPads for filming and are lucky enough to have a green screen in each of our small break out rooms which are quiet places where the akonga can film. They are creating their own videos already, so I'm sure this will be a small leap to some more amazing results for them. Some akonga are very reluctant to video themselves. It is a natural thing I believe. No one really likes to see themselves on screen at school at the moment, but that is just a matter of practice, seeing themselves often and boosting their self esteem.  

My tamariki currently use slides, but we've only really branched out into animation. The ideas presented by Phil in our break out session were exciting as to what I can do myself, and the slide deck with ideas of what the tamariki could create have me just as excited for them!  It really brought home the creating IS learning - and not just about the digital tool, but the subject matter at hand. 

A great create this afternoon. My class is getting more into filming, but their planning and execution leaves a lot to be desired. I will now be confident to show them how to storyboard in slides and plan their movies. My sample I created (but didn't finish in the hour allowed!) is shown below. The speaker notes contain the instructions to the actors on how to move, where to stand and what type of shot it is (mid shot, close up or pan camera etc). Due to the devices we have, and the lack of microphones it is important the tamariki record dialogue at, at least, a mid or close up shot so their voices are recorded clearly. 

I feel I will be a lot more confident with my use of Slides and be able to make them more engaging and interesting for the class and to be able to teach them how to create some amazing work which is engaging, fun and educational. 

Regarding my personal life, still thinking about today's session. I don't have the opportunity to do a lot of digital things that I would share at home or in GirlGuiding (no devices in the units nor access to wifi!) so this week I feel will be more of a school journey I think. But I will feel more confident in doing my schoolwork so that is always a great thing. 

I'm beginning to get even more excited. I only wish we had more hours in the day to teach, or more hours of release time to enable things to be implemented easily. I live VERY rurally and my internet is sometimes hit and miss, and don't talk to me about cellphone connectivity! So doing work at home can at times be frustrating. But, the other side of the coin is that we have tranquility and the whenua to help to decompress after long hours and hard work at school. A job I wouldn't change for the world.

DFI Reflection - Day 2 - Workflow

Another great week of learning. This time we looked more closely at the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy as it related to the LEARN/AKO pillar. It is all about student relationships, deliberate and reflective teaching that uses evidence and data to create an effective teaching practice.

Looking at Learn, we went through:

R - recognise - the ability to know what IS effective practice

A - amplify - how we can harness technologies to making teaching and learning opportunities that are empowering, connected, visible and ubiquitous.

T - turbocharge - doing the previously inconceivable by using technology and taking it to the next level, not just substituting or augmenting their learning with devices, but modifying and redefining them. (SAMR model developed by Dr Ruben Puentedura). It is about transforming their learning with new opportunities and experiences to learn.

E - effective practice - this doesn't mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are practices that have been around for many years, this doesn't mean they are not usable. They may be effective (look at the data!) as they are, or may need a tweak to bring it into the digital age.

The Woolf Fisher Research Centre at Auckland University says the key leverage practices we should be using in our schools are:

• Use authentic texts. Not teacher generated ones, but ones from the real world. Articles, School Journals, newspapers for example
• Discussion. This is student discussion, not teacher led discussion. Sharing ideas with each other.
• Think critically. Akonga need to learn how to do this and what strategies to use.
• Collaborating. With other akonga and making choices in their learning, creating and sharing.

At Waitara East Learn currently looks like:

• Play based in our junior rooms
• We use SOLO taxonomy
• PB4L across the school
• We have just started using DMIC maths in our younger syndicates
• Our school values are explicitly taught every day
• Te Atiawatanga - our school is 85% Māori. Most are Te Atiawa iwi members and we use their kaupapa to underpin our learning
• We have just started the Best Start Structured Literacy programme in our NE class and moving it through the juniors.

There are probably more things we do that I can't think of or don't know about. I will post further updates as I take the time to dig into this area further.

I have always been a reasonably "tidy" person using digital tools. I worked in an IT environment for 20 years and had to deal with demanding customers from CEOs to Store people. I was trained to deal with things once and once only, to keep inboxes tidy and to file carefully. If things went wrong, it could end up with our client on the news!  I did enjoy Google Keep which was great and I will use this. I can see that the notes I make won't end up being impossible to find again.

I feel that I will be more confident with Google Meet also. It did feel strange and it is funny how when we were chatting about the task before hand, we all felt comfortable, but as soon as we had to run the meet we felt awkward!  Here's the recording of my meeting. Forgive my voice, just getting over a sore throat.

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This is the beginning of my Manaiakalani journey, I feel that everything I am learning will be used with my learners. The tamariki are getting used to the new chromebooks very quickly and every day we've been teaching them new digital skills. One particular organisation skill I will be implementing on Monday morning is about their tabs. Jeremy's idea about getting them to close all tabs as soon as they start is awesome! I will be reminding them about slowing their devices down with too many tabs open at the same time too. 

Honestly, just a lot of small tidbits that I am going to try to use. I will introduce one at a time and make sure I use it constantly so I don't forget about it!