Manaiakalani Digital Fluency: Day 9

External Recognition

When I first embarked on my Learn, Create, Share journey, I doubted whether I would be able to grasp all the new learning in 9 weeks. I am so grateful that I was given this opportunity to be part of the DFI 2021 cohort 1 team. Although at times I found it challenging, I always stayed positive and enthusiastic to keep learning something new. We were well supported throughout the nine weeks to acquire fluency using the basic tools our young learners use for learning. Every day was another step closer to this goal.  I have gained immense knowledge and confidence to use the different Google apps and have a clear understanding how digital technologies used effectively can have a significant impact on accelerating achievement outcomes. 

Over the 9 weeks, Dorothy Burt gave a clear explanation on how the Manaiakalani 

pedagogy and kaupapa has been co-constructed over more than a decade to maximise the impact of effective teaching and learning in a digital learning environment.

Creating a Classroom Blog and Google Site makes learning ubiquitous and visible,

empowering and enabling learners to access their learning at anytime, anywhere and and from any device. Teaching and learning using digital technologies has now become a reality and we can all stay connected within and beyond our normal school hours. 

I know that if I needed any help or support to implement and sustain all that I had learnt on my learn, create, share journey, I can always go back to the rewindable learning tools available to me at anytime. I now have a lot to share with students and colleagues and want to  pay it forward.

May the Manaiakalani Education Trust grow from strength to strength and enable more and more teachers to become empowered and experience this wonderful journey of Learn, Create, Share. Special thanks to our bubble leader Phil and his awesome team.

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive: Day 8

Computational Thinking

Empowered was the key word for today's Manaiakalani Pedagogy and Kaupapa. The word empowered has been used by Manaikalani in place of the word agency as it is more relatable to people. 

Empowerment comes with challenges. There are barriers to being empowered and having the power of choice, amongst others it could be lack of money or health issues. 

If we can teach 5+A day to our learners where they get an opportunity to have 5 interactions or conversations this will help to build their oral language skills. This could be built into writing blog comments and replying to blog comments. 

Equity is also an important aspect of empowerment where everyone works together and families invest and become partners in education. 

The Deep Dive by Vicki on the Future of Technology was an eye opener to see how rapidly breakthrough technologies are being created. Behind all these technologies lies the ethics and moral issues. Teachers should be having conversations with their learners about these issues. 

The Technology Curriculum enables young people to become digitally fluent and they can decide when and why they need to use  digital technology to solve problems. They also become digitally capable by creating their own digital technology solutions. By exploring through the Technology Curriculum, I have a better understanding of  computational thinking and progress outcomes and will be able to teach students to write and give instructions for others to follow. 

Given the opportunity to explore coding and computational thinking made me aware of the different coding apps I could use with my students. I know that my students will love using kodable where they need to sequence codes to do a beach cleanup. 

My Scratch Junior project with Kelsey.

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive: Day 7

 Devices Agenda

Today's focus was on the devices our learners use and we as teachers had the opportunity of  using these devices to see what it is like for our learners. 

The term Ubiquitous was also used. Although difficult to say, it is simply - Learning at Anytime, Anywhere, Any Place and from Anyone. 

The philosophy of Manaiakalani is to remove barriers so that the child has the potential to learn in the classroom and outside the classroom after 3pm when it is the end of a school day.  Digital Technology is not just a tool but enables the removal of barriers to learning and gives learners opportunities for new learning. Learners are also empowered by having a choice to learn from anyone eg. visiting another class site and being in that teacher's class whilst physically being in their own class with their own teacher. They can also learn at their own pace and go back to rewindable videos. 

Being Cybersmart empowers our learners to be connected and confident. 

Distance learning became a reality in 2020 for teachers and learners. Learners had the potential to be experiencing high quality learning experiences and effective learning programmes designed by effective teachers. 

Looking back at the past Covid 19 lockdowns and reflecting on my readiness for ubiquitous learning...

• I am proud of ... Having Meet sessions to stay connected with other teachers.

• I regret ...Not Having a Google Class Site set up for my Learners to learn from home from their shared devices if they did have any. Having Google Meet sessions with my Learners to stay connected with their learning and their teacher.

• What have I taken forward into the ‘new’ era of schooling? Looking forward to learners having their own devices to work at Anytime, Anywhere, Any Place and from Anyone. 

A screenshot of using Explain Everything

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive: Day 6

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

How Digital Technology keeps us connected beyond the classroom and school. Belonging to the Digital Fluency Group enables us to connect to other schools sharing the same understanding of Learn, Create, Share and because of this connection we are more likely to reach our goals. Also learnt about RSS feed for the first time and having all blogs in one place. 

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

Having a Google Class site with a Meet link, Timetable and upcoming notices empowers learners to access their learning at anytime, anywhere. An effective practice is to have rewindable learning.  Evaluating other sites and receiving feedback for my own site was a good practice to ensure that teaching and learning is visible to everyone. 

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

Using the Drawing tool to create buttons for my Homepage and to make it visually appealing. 

Setting mini goals for my Google Site and having a time limit to accomplish the goals. To be open to learning,  receive feedback, reflect and make changes.

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

When you network with others on a professional or personal level, it helps to know that you always have someone to give you the support when you need it.  

The blogger tip on identifying and knowing how to delete spam on my blog was helpful. 

Here is a link to my updated Google Site

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive: Day 5

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive:  Day 5  

Collaborate Sites

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

To make Teaching and Learning visible to students and their parents. For the teacher, the day to day functioning of teaching should become visible to all. Using Google Sites is a tool for making teaching and learning visible at anytime, anywhere and to anyone. There should also be no barriers and passwords when making learning visible for students.

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

-Multimodal learning is empowering for learners and is an effective way for me as a teacher to cater for a more inclusive learning experience and unlock all my students’ potential. 

-Using an onboard tool like Jamboard to plan and gather resources for a topic is awesome. It's also a great  tool when planning collaboratively with other colleagues and for them to contribute their ideas. 

-Having a Google Site makes learning visible and easily accessible for learners. The video of Mary Queen of Shops has inspired me to make my Google Class Site Homepage eye catching and to hook learners into learning as in the same way an eclectic shopfront window is set up to attract customers into its store. 

-Creating a Google Sheet with multiple texts - main text, complimentary texts, scaffolding texts, challenging texts.  

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

Students could use sticky notes on Jamboard for brainstorming or jotting down ideas and thoughts about a specific topic. Students referring to multi texts - main texts, scaffolding texts, complimentary texts and challenging texts when working on a project.

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

Having a change of mindset and a shift in my teaching approaches to make learning enjoyable and keeping learners engaged, interested, and actively involved by planning Multimodal Learning  and creating a Google Site for students to find their work, especially in a Lockdown. 

Below is a screenshot of my Google Site, Science in The Garden created with Vicki Archer during the Levelling up session. 

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive: DAY 4

  Dealing with Data

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

Sharing is a powerful experience and it is included in the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy. You share to learn, not to finish a piece of work. Sharing publicly not only gives opportunities for sharing but also to receive feedback or comments from a world audience. Sharing also helps to connect learners with others.  I liked this quote by Dorothy Burt "Every person has the potential to live life as the star of their own movie".

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

Learning should be shared with a purpose and an audience. Currently student writing work is recorded in a Writing book and kept in class. This has a limited audience of the class teacher and other students in the class. If students are given the opportunity to share their learning via a digital platform like Blogger, then their audience would come from beyond the classroom and will include their families, community and world. Analytic tools can also be used to analyse your audience.
Using Forms as a means of collecting information, exporting this to a Google Sheet, analysing data by calculating the sum/average, filtering and applying conditional formatting is definitely going to improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional.

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

• Blogposts can be used by learners and teachers. It is a good way of recording refections of your learning. Blogposts can serve as a portfolio for students and can be be used throughout their schooling years. 
• Writing quality blog comments that are positive, thoughtful and to ask a question.
• Creating formative or summative assessments through Google Forms Quizzes.
• I am looking forward to using Google Forms, Google Sheets and Google MyMaps with my students. Students could fill information about where they live or places they have visited on a Google Form. The responses collected will be exported to a Google Sheet. They could then use Google MyMaps and import the data from the  Google Sheet, thereafter adding place markers, photos or videos on their maps. Pins could be used to show landmarks, schools or restaurants in their town.
• Students could also conduct a statistical investigation using Google Forms to collect information. Creating a visual display of the data by creating charts from their Google sheets and analysing data.
• Using the chart below to write statements about the Spelling Test data. 

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

• Using Google Form as an online survey tool to collect data.
• Using Google MyMap to plan a trip. 
• After my learning from the Chalk and Talk session by Makore and Levelling up with Google Sheets by Vicki, I decided to look at students spelling results over a few months, analysing data, applying formulas to multiple cells, calculating the average and being creative by adding  sparklines.

   

 A screenshot of my version of Meet the DFI Group's best (or best dreamed of) international holiday destination.  This was done on Firefox as I was not able to do it from my Drive using Chrome. I will have another go when our school administrator gives us access to Google Mymaps.

DAY 3: Using Google Slides to create The Water Cycle