Posts

DFI Session 9: External Recognition

Image
Well, that's it. I am officially a graduate of the DFI and Google certified! It has been such a good learning journey, which obviously does not stop here. The DFI has been a platform that has built confidence and given me lots of great ideas that I can take with me into the classroom that can both extend my practice and encourage the students to learn, create and share more confidently. I have been positively impacted by this course within the sharing of the Manaiakalani kaupapa. I connected with the Learn, create, share model and have valued being given further insight as to 'why' the Manaiakalani kaupapa of empowering, ubiquitous, visual learning is so impactful for teachers and learners alike. I think that this kaupapa resonates with the culture I try to establish in my classrooms and would like to continue to do more of. I am taking with me more skills and innovative uses of using Google platforms as an educator. But more so, I am taking with me confidence that how I am

DFI Session 8: Computational Thinking

Image
The greatest joy comes from Empowering students to lift their ceilings on what they think they're capable of. Empowerment is significant in someone understanding their value within their society. Giving thought to the fact that poverty directly affects a persons empowerment and access to things that directly impacts on your success in life, is something that I question whether I, as a teacher, have any effect on changing. I love the thought that empowerment promotes ownership and ownership requires choice. This can be a confronting kaupapa to be a part of. In my mind it means that some won't make the choice to engage in learning and opportunities that you, as an educator, provide. But the flip side of that means that some students, could also surpass what you have expected and provided them with an opportunity to learn and do. Today's learning around Raranga Matihiko and the Digital Technology Curriculum is not something new to me. I teach specifically in digital technology

DFI Session 7: Devices

Image
Ubiquitous Learning is something that in the last few weeks of lockdown that I wish I understood more fully. The idea of teaching and learning being rewindable from not just the teaching front, but also from the students learning is something I think is hugely valuable. Lockdown was a good opportunity to create tutorials and record Google Meets for the students to be able to access at any point. I found that the ones who did engage in this learning found it really helpful and engaging. I would have loved to have had some time to take students through some of the skills behind rewindable learning beforehand, but hind site is also a gift, and I am now going to look for opportunities to integrate this more in my teaching.  I love the idea about Participation, Partnership and Protection in relation to digital technology. This is something that was also highlighted through lockdown that we could work on as a school. That learning is not just about from teacher to learner, or learner to lear

DFI Session 6: Enabling Access - Sites

Image
Today has been a good practical experience. I have enjoyed not only getting to see and critique class sites that others have made, but I have also appreciated the feedback on my own site that I began last week. I am very new to sites. Last week was my first experience using and creating. I attempted to add in content from a range of sources with the plan on creating my own resources to include into the site once completed. I ran the idea past my SLT that we could use this concept to have a school wide topic resource (that went down so well it has already been shared with team leaders!). My goal this wee is to begin creating my own topic site. We were recommended to take before and after shots to keep an eye on progress.... So here is the beginning! I created some goals, they were possibly a bit ambitious but by the end of the day, I had planned to achieve... After an afternoons effort, this is what I have come up with. My internet connection has posed some difficulties, but I am going

DFI Session 5: Collaborative Sites

Image
Making learning visible, now more than ever, is showing it's worth. With moving into online teaching and learning during lockdown. By making learning visible we are able to provide students with engaging tools that they are able to go back to as many times as they need in order to grasp the learning concepts. Visibility also allows whanau to engage in their child's learning by making it accessible and mobile. Multimodal Teaching sounds exciting to me. I love the idea of having rewindable learning available for students to revisit as they need to.  With the universal design for learning that looks to provide a hook to engage the learners, personalised learning, accelerated achievement and to empower students to be life long learners through giving them the tools they need to learn with greater independence, reminds me of why I became a teacher. And by creating multimodal and multi-textural environments for the learners, I can see this generating increased engagement not only for

DFI Session 4: Dealing with Data

Sharing is a part of who we are as human beings. We want to be noticed, to feel seen and heard, and to be remembered. Manaiakalai's kaupapa around share is vital in growing healthy and confident communicators within an ever evolving digital and global audience. There has been so much to learn today from creating pathways in google forms, Loading… To creating maps from embedded information in Google Sheets, To using Google Sheets for all of our Data processing and analysing needs, I am definitely going to be exploring how I can, more efficiently, use Google sheets to analyse my assessment data. A lot of this is going to enhance my personal use of these programs as I already use them in my planning and assessment. I hope that I will get to use some more of the Google Sheets with my classroom to extend their analysis and goal setting based on data.

DFI Session 3 - Media

 Creativity is something I deeply value. I have grown up in an extremely creative whanau and am a creative myself. Having the chance to connect with and practice the CREATE  part of the Manaiakalani kaupapa was so much fun! I loved using Google slides for something other than presentations! I have learnt to create an app using slides that can allow my students to navigate one of their lessons. I can see how this could become an exciting way for students to present their learning, and as a beginners step to app creation. I would love to see how this also could become a way of akonga reporting back to parents about what they are doing and what their next steps are. Take a look...