Day 9: External Recognition

 

Dorothy discussed the Manaiakalani alumni programme. She talked about visible teaching as Inquiry and continuing to document in our blogs and share what we're learning and doing. My goals relating to the Manaiakalani program are to continue with blogging, embed blog posts in my appraisal and comment on as many blogs as I can (including student blogs). I would like to keep in contact with the group I met online - I hope we didn't drive Kerry too nuts with our questions!

The Exam:
I had some issues with beginning the Google Level 1 exam (ticking the invisible terms and conditions boxes to be able to start) but then completed it within 45 minutes and having 3 questions to go back and review. The dragging and dropping of multi-choice answers was tricky (and slow) but I am glad to say I've survived it and so did the wifi connection.

I have made great progress and gained so much confidence with using all things Google from completing the DFI course. The highlights for me were defnitely creating a class site with google sites, Hāpara Hot tips and Makaore's sense of humour! I am extremely thankful to Kerry who was onsite at school every Monday to help me with troubleshooting and creating DLOs for my classes.

Short term goals: I have signed up to do the Hāpara Champion Educator course on 27 January. This gives me some much needed work to revise over the coming holidays (haha). I would also like to work towards my Google Level 2 certification.

This has been a really enjoyable (and sometimes, tiring!) course!

Day 8: Computational Thinking

1. Connecting with Manaiakalani - by Dorothy
Pedagogy and Kaupapa
EMPOWERED

Dorothy continued the korero about the joists of Empowering Learners and teachers and acknowledging the factors that limit our whānau. We must acknowledge the significance of this word in the Maniakalani programme. Everyone on the learning journey benefits if they are empowered. Empowerment often equals choice and choice is not often present in our communities (especially here in our lower decile communities of Kawakawa/Moerewa).

A lot of our communities are lacking in choice (income, schools, housing, medical care). Dorothy talked about changing from the jargon associated with 'agency' where whānau have been involved prior and often it comes with negative connotations and instead Manaiakalani have moved to the discourse of being 'Empowered'.
She discussed the struggles about what our communities are facing about the traffic light and vaccination and being disempowered.

The lack of money disempowers you and it takes away choice. It only takes one little thing to go wrong to challenge you to make the circumstances harder again. If families are on a low income, choice doesn't exist if the state is your landlord.

The statistics are alarming: The 5 year-old NE students are arriving at school with a mean academic performance and physiological traits of a 3 year-old and 32 million less spoken words than a decile 10 child. "The manaiakalani kaupapa of empowerment is about the advancing of Rangatiratanga; taking back control of their lives" - we are committed to supporting our learning communities to embrace rangatiratanga and access to information: knowledge is power. Digital tech is a powerful tool to empower people. It's not just a tool. Through 5 + a day oral language we can transform this into other areas of their lives.

2. The Future of Tech and what it means for our tamariki - by Vicki

Vicki discussed what future schools and societies could look like. Could this take place in our schools? The clip she showed was of an employer being guided constantly by a 'Siri' type voice navigation offering her choices at home and at work. When we talk about prepraring our young tamariki for the future, it's a challenge when we don't really know what its going to look like. Where is tech going to go to next? What are we developing in them for them to cope with what challenges are next?

10 Breakthrough Technologies in 2021

The one that fascinates me the most is hyper-accurate positioning which is higher-tech GPS and location services. I would like a more high-tech app of Google Maps for my long holiday journeys this summer (and city visits!). In NZ we have our own set of break-through technologies in different sectors (think Number 8 wire technology) from software, construction technologies, Rocketlab, Happy Cow Milk: a company that uses smart tanks and 43% of the purchase price goes back to the farmer. Rex Bionics: supporting people who are wheelchair users that enables people to 'walk'. Vicki talked about preparing students for a constantly changing future and the need to upskill and become lifelong learners. What the next 10 years going to bring? How are we preparing the students for this constantly changing future? What are we going to be doing in the digital technologies space (new curriculum)? 

Moral Machine Activity
To be completely honest, I struggled to do this! Both choices had catastrophic results. I think this would be a good writing prompt for my english classes, haha! I have bookmarked this site. 

3. Digital Technologies Curriculum / Hangarau Matihiko

Kerry discussed how young people really need to feel home in a digital world. It's important they feel apart of their conversation. They can represent their communities and their culture. The IT profession needs more and more employees over years to come. The Digital Tech curriculum came out in 2020 to address skills shortages. To encourage students to be creative directors and so they aren't just passive consumers of technology. The curriculum is with 2 new parts: design/developing digital technologies and Computational Thinking.

'A digitally fluent person can decide when and why to use specific digital technologies to achieve a specific task or solve problems. A digitally capable person can create their own digital technologies solution'.

It's important we feel confident as educators - not using the computer as just a tool. Enabling the students to feel empowered becuase they will feel the pressure to be cybersmart and collaborate with peers/colleagues online. The Manaiakalani program supports teachers to develop digital fluency and any job interview or application nowadays will ask you how competent you are with digital programmes.

If we get the students to think of themselves as 'programmers' and they can recognise the elements in any programe (input, output, sequence, iteration, selection, variables).

For the explore time in our digital bubbles, I looked at Raranga Matihiko (Weaving Digital Futures) which is designed to empower ākonga and kaiako to think, challenge and create using authentic, integrated experiences. I watched a clip on the basics of 'Scratch'. Now, I've only seen Scratch used with upper primary and secondary students and they were happy to show me what they were doing. 

Coding | Tuhi Waehere

My Flappy Bird I checked out Flappy bird and made my own video. I also had a look at code.org and there are plenty of great resources there and I also bookmarked OMG tech! to have a look at later too.

4. Making meaning of content
Creating with Coding & Computational thinking

In the afternoon session with Vicki, we looked at Tinkercad and made a whare. It was great fun! This program would be great in Science based activities or Physics or Metal Tech. The students would really enjoy this. I am already thinking of how I would include this in English - perhaps the students could recreate a scene/setting from the story. 

Day 5: Collaborative Sites

MULTIMODAL LEARNING IS EMPOWERING

It is an inclusive, differentiated approach to teaching in a digital learning environment. Kerry talked about our sites being like a store front window and learning being fresh and relevant year after year. My class Site is a work in progress. With Kerry's help, I have added more content that is 'Multimodal' to increase student engagment and accelerate achievement. I am particularly happy with the online crossword maker and the 'Get to Know you' activities that my Year 10s can access. Some have even completed a pepeha using pepeha.nz and a Letter to Me (The Teacher).

I have added a introduction/all about me using Screencastify. I am now planning to develop my Food tech and English pages with this in mind:

Learn Create Share + Visible teaching and learning  = Acceleration

Day 7: Devices

 The Power of Being Ubiquitous (Rangiwhāwhā)

Dorothy talked about if we want our young people to succeed as well as their priviledged peers, we need to embrace the hours outside of 9-3pm so that they are more empowered digitally.

Prepping lessons and material - making rewindable resource. I could create a rewindable literary resource for my low-level students using Screencastify.

What are you proud of?

In 2020, my partner teacher and I were able to establish a google classroom for work and create zoom meetings to connect with our class.

What do you regret?

I regret that we didn't use Google meet instead of Zoom in March 2020 - I didn't know about it! 

What have you taken forward into the 'new' era of schooling?

I have discovered Google Meet, Hapara and Jamboard and most of the Google Apps. And I have enjoyed seeing students engage with these apps, especially Google Maps and Jamboard.

Vicki talked about being 'Cybersmart' and empowering our learners as connected and confident decision makers. It helps students as they move through school, especially outside of the classroom as well. She talked about the 'Cybersmart' learning and the creation of the digital curriculum, empowering young people to make smart decisions. 

Cybersmart is about being 'up to date' and this Manaiakalani PLD feels like the right course to do at exactly right time. The apps are changing all the time.  She talked about sharing content that you and your whanau would be proud of, talking about respecting others and engaging online and connecting with each other in a kind and positive way. Is it positive, thoughtful and helpful?

I enjoyed using Explain Everything. This is what I created. I think this would be great for Junior students. I wasn't sure if the sound recording had saved on it (not visible) but when I went back into it, it was there.

In the afternoon lesson, I chose to work on Hāpara workspace. Everytime I log into Hāpara I learn something new and it will be very valuable for assessments. I discovered that the 3rd column is the only one that can create deadlines. I created a Cybersmart Workspace as a practice and embedded it into my class site. I even copied some amazing English resources from another workspace to use next year with the Year 10s.

I managed to create gadgets in my blog (a link to my class site) and a 'Favourite books' gadget too which I will add to.

Day 6: Enabling Access

 

Day 6: Enabling Access
Google Sites (Paenga Kūkura) and Developing a Learning site for your students

Dorothy talked about how we can lead learning using google sites and how we can use google sites to best help learners connect with all aspects of the DFI pedagogy and make learning accessible. I like the idea of one platform for all learning areas that encompass the DFI Kaupapa of empowering learners, being visible, ubiquitous, and connected.
Vicki talked about how fluid the transition from school learning in 2020 to lockdown learning was within Manaiakalani cluster schools because the students had been practising using online learning prior to lockdown using google sites. This familiarisation enabled students to continue mahi without too many disruptions.

She talked about how it was purposeful to put learning on a site for whānau to see and links for students to the Hāpara workspace and Class blogs. These are things I am still yet to do with my class site. My class site is published and students have been accessing it to complete quizzes and I've found hot tips along the way (thanks Kerry), for example, making sure all the content on the class site is in a shared folder so it can be viewed by anyone on the site. I'm certainly putting it to the test with my social studies class.

I really enjoyed the collaborative task of viewing sites (including my colleagues) and critiqueing the sites. It makes me think of what I will include for ease of accessing relevant work. I then opened my unfinished site and showed my group and this is the response. I can definitely make it more interactive and include multimodal learning activities. Here is my feedback from my class members about my class site.

Google sites enables consistency across all year groups to access their learning. Good google sites ideas: inserting a google form for the students to ask the teacher a question; make sure the site is clear and easy to access and the content is visible. Making sure the images are free to use and share, use 'Unsplash' (free-usable images). I have bookmarked 'Unsplash' for free images. I need to practice making buttons in google draw. I have already been planning the 'visual appeal' of my site and different pages for my Year 9 and 10 English classes. I like the idea of '3 clicks' from the home page to the learning that they will be doing.

This is my class site before the changes:

This is my class site after the changes: 

It is a work in progress. Today I achieved 2/3 of my goals. I uploaded some work for the students to do next week onto the Year 10 English page and I made a ScreenCastify introducing myself and a pepeha in pepeha.nz for the students to do next week too (new classes). I would like to make my site brighter - I just need some time to play around and get familiar with the different functions. I need to develop my confidence using google sites further as I'm feeling slightly anxious about using it next week with my new classes! 

 

Day 4: Dealing with Data

The Manaiakalani Way: Dorothy talked about The Third Plank on the floorboards: ‘Share’ or Tohatoha and it has me thinking how I incorporate this currently and how I can show this in my class.

Dorothy talked about sharing being nothing new but it is an instinct in human nature regardless of faith or beliefs. Almost everyone loves to share but I respect there are students that would rather not and remain anonymous.

I did find the history behind the choice to choose Blogger when exploring online spaces really interesting. I like how it resembled the online spaces that the students were using at the time (some years ago, but still relevant!).

I enjoyed the phrase 'being cybersmart, just like learning to drive, you’ve got to go beyond theory at some stage.' It makes me think about how I can best maximise the use of technology in the new curriculum. Being fairly new to my kura, there has been so much to learn over the past 3 weeks. At our school 'Learn' looks like sharing mahi online and reminding the students to take ownership, managing themselves and get creative! I'm really looking forward to seeing what my Cybersmart class can do for me tomorrow - I have a blogging session and cyber challenge prepared for them.

A little summary about today: Google Forms (Tūhura) 

A Great tool! So helpful for evaluations and questionnaires. I have made one for my social studies class.

Google MyMaps  (Very handy to show the trail of where certain things are made)

Could definitely use this for Social studies in the Globalisation assessment.

Google Spreadsheets

I found this very confusing but very challenging- I even made a couple of charts to show averages and data!

I had to give the Spreadsheet task another go to try to show the average for each year:

Here is my Map that I made using MyMap. It shows the Teachers Dream Destinations in the course, plus my favourite places in the Bay of Islands to visit. 

Media Day 3

My example of creating Animation using Google Slides

In the first session, Deborah talked about creativity having no limits - 'Creative skills help students become better problem solvers, communicators and collaborators'.Teachers are really switched onto the power of creativity - I see this my son's daycare, they take photos and keep learning journals of Charlie making, playing and the links to Te Whariki. Deborah talked about Creativity being integral to learning and being central to the Manaiakalani programme and going back to the roots in education and how it was recognised for creativity. I thought it a timely reminder when she talked about us thinking about how we expect the younger the child are, the more creative they should be.

Now I am in a secondary environment it shouldn't be any different - creativity just looks 'different' than it does in an ECE setting. She talked about digital creativity being one element - not solely the purpose of Manaiakalani. 'Creativity goes hand in hand with the digital technologies content, the students are not merely consumers'. I am looking forward to creating my own sites with links to enhance my programme for the students.

The highlights of today:

I have never used Google draw - so knowing that I can search using the explore tool and adding a.png (images without backgrounds) was really helpful.

The Youtube revision with Maria was very useful- I have set up a number of playlists on my own channel so I can share in class - waiata māori and subject-specific songs. I didn't realise that students don't have their own channel. 

Animation with Vicki using Google Slides was so much fun. We used slides to insert an image and background and then duplicate each slide so that it changed every time. I can really see some of the Cyber/Digital students in Year 9 really enjoying this if they haven't tried it out already.

Also, I love re-visiting and building on some of the skills we have already learned: using the HTML view to embed a link, inserting videos into Google slides and inserting an image into the sidebar.

Looking forward to the toolkit meet and the next DFI session.

Workflow Day 2

Clip: Meet conversation recording

Workflow: Session 2

Another really enjoyable, extremely useful session using Google Meet/Google Tasks and Keep (both new to me). I particularly found 'create a meet' very helpful because yesterday, I shared my whole screen to play a youtube clip (on Globalisation) during an online lesson from school and found that 'sharing tab' option is a better way to do this. I am confident now in using Google Calendar to add events and invite people and to host/create Meets.

I enjoyed reading Manaiakalani mail outs as designed by students over the 2020 lockdown and commenting on them during a Meet while recording. This was new to me and very useful - learning that, the host is the only one who can record the meeting. A new tip for me was when using bullet points list for when you need to use ticks!

Each week, I have always learned new ways in which to use Blogger too - to embed a video into my blog post. And the step before this, to change the sharing settings for the saved recording to be able to embed within a blog post.

I would like to learn more Hāpara tips (enjoyed the hot tip star one for workspaces at the beginning of the day). I used Jamboard for the first time this week for a social studies class and it was successful!

At our school, LEARN for me is being able to attend brilliant PD courses (such as this) and being able to apply it in practice to maximise effective teaching and learning and to accelerate learning. I am looking forward to putting more into my programme.

LEARN looks like 'Ako', (we are learners and teachers and so are our students) as Dorothy mentioned 'effective practice whether its analog or digital'. During staff meetings we are encouraged to reflect on how we are culturally responsive practitioners and reflect on the ways in which the curriculum encourages all students to reflect on their own learning processes and what steps we are taking to do the same. Looking forward to next Wednesday already!

Core Business Day 1

 

Manaiakalani Blog Post 1

Core Business

Friday 15th October

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

The format of the lessons from the staff were very useful: Learn/Ako, Create and Share. I also found it very helpful that the presenters also incorporated some Te Reo when speaking. I enjoyed learning about where the name 'Manaiakalani' originates from (hook/constellation) and the origins of the PLD in Tamaki, Auckland.

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

I learned about signing into Chrome (never have I once done that before) and organising my favourite bookmarks/websites for ease of use across all devices. After the discussion on suitable profile pics, I even changed my profile pic for a more professional photo. This has made me a lot more confident using the google tools/apps and it's close relationship to chrome. I learned about Google groups (I wasn't familiar with this prior to this session) - would've been useful to communicate with our Year 2/3 whanau during last year's lockdown. The features of google (organising google drive, voice typing, headings with contents) was extremely useful and I think student's that struggle with writing/typing would benefit hugely from the voice typing feature. 

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

I feel more confident talking with other people online. As a reliever for the first 3 terms of this year, I didn't have much interaction with people/students online during the lockdowns here in Northland.

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

So much - everything that we covered in today's session was so useful and a lot of it, quite new to me.

Google docs: I made the following poster using a google doc to share with my English class.

Profile 2021

 

Nō Australia ōku tīpuna
My ancestors are from Australia

I tae mai ōku tīpuna ki Aotearoa i te tau 1984

My ancestors arrived in NZ in the year 1984

Ko Jeanne rāua ko Les ōku kaumatua
Jeanne and Les are my grandparents

I tipu ake au ki Ōpua
I grew up in Ōpua

E noho ana au ki Ōpua
I live in Opua

Ko tēnei taku mihi ki ngā tāngata whenua o te rohe nei
I acknowledge the indigenous people of this area

Ka mihi hoki au ki ngā tohu o te rohe nei
I acknowledge the important landmarks of this area

Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa
Thus, my acknowledgement to you all.

Nau mai, haere mai ki tēnei taonga

Welcome to your very own blog for learning. We look forward to seeing you share your professional development with the Manaiakalani community, your colleagues and the wider community.