Digital Fluency Intensive - Week 8 blog post

I am definitely getting there, I will be able to say that I am up to date before the end of today as it seems. I'll do my best to stay on top of posting next time, catching up is not super fun!

This week was our eighth session of the Digital Fluency Intensive course for term 3 - this session's focus was computational thinking.

During this session,  we focused on computational thinking and on the Digital Curriculum.  If I had say that I had looked at the Digital Curriculum before, I cannot however say that I really looked at it in depths as I had placed it quite low on my priority list as a beginning teacher. However, I realised today that I have been teaching it, to some extent. Sadly, the multiple lockdowns that have been taking place in Auckland since March 2020 have not made this an easy task. With having to constantly go back to basics and to behaviour expectations, I have not been able to do as much in this space as I would have wanted to. Still, I got really captivated once I realised that we did not have to teach this as an extra subject, but that we could (and should!) rather integrate it to other learning areas, such as maths for example.

These days, the technological world is constantly evolving (I LOVE staying up to date with all the new tools and gadgets that are popping up - this is certainly one of my happy place whenever I need a break from the hustle and bustle that life can sometimes turn into. Change is definitely not something that I am afraid of: on the contrary, this is something that is sure to make me excited!), and it is and I strongly believe that it is essential that we, as teachers, are providing our learners with the appropriate skills to adapt themselves and be fluent in their use of digital technologies. It is crucial that they keep their mind open to new opportunities as one of our jobs, as educators, is to push our kids to become life-long learners.

For today's 'create' activity, I was really looking forward to learning more about scratch junior. However, with Auckland still being at Alert level 4, I did not get a chance to pop into school to grab an iPad. As a result, I ended up not being able to attend the scratch junior session, and decided to join Cheryl's session on how to use scratch to draw geometric shapes. Even though I knew that this might get a little too technical for my students, I thought that this would be a great learning opportunity. Towards the end of our breakout room session, I had learned and understood how to use the platform to create a fun spirograph using pentagons as my starting shape. Look at all these fun colours!

I'd be really keen on having a look at scratch junior once I get access to an iPad, as I really think that this is the kind of app that my students would enjoy falling in love with.

Digital Fluency Intensive - Week 7 blog post

Slowly but surely, I am catching up on getting my professional blog up to date. I know I've said it last week, but being completely alone for 5 weeks makes it hard sometimes to stay on task. My goal for today is to catch up on both week 7 and week 8's blog posts.

This week was our seventh session of the Digital Fluency Intensive course for term 3 - this session's focus was on devices.

During this session, we had a deeper look at what the notion of ubiquitous learning means for our learners.  I really felt like I could relate with the idea of making sure that students would have the ability to connect with their learning outside of their usual school hours as well as within, but also how it was important that they could do so at their own pace. It also helped me realise how important it is that anyone can access what is going on in our classroom. I thought that the image below really was a representation of what using your class site as a way of expanding the walls of the classroom, and thought I should include it to today's post.

I really enjoyed getting the opportunity to learn more about the students' experience in using different devices (iPads and Chromebooks). I thought it was quite fun to have a go at completing the Digital Dig, and can definitely see how this would be both useful and beneficial to students using Chromebooks. I have not used a Chromebook before myself, but I am a confident Chrome user, and I was not too surprised to see that most of the shortcuts are actually the same. 

Still, doing this task on my own made me realise how important it is that we do this every year with our tamariki, in order for them to become confident and experienced Chromebook users.

Today, I got to spend some time exploring Explain Everything, and how to use this app within junior classrooms. I had seen it in place in two schools that I visited last year already, and was really keen on giving it a go with my students this year. However, I found out pretty early on that this is not a suitable app to use within a classroom where students have to share their iPads with each other. This is a real shame, as the app offers so many great opportunities for the teacher to engage with their students' learning and gain an understanding of their learners' strengths and weaknesses, which would allow them to target which further learning would be required. Later on, once our junior school starts having access to 1:1 devices, I would absolutely love to use this tool properly.

Next steps:

• I'd like to get make sure that the learning I have been adding onto my class site fits the definition of ubiquitous learning as defined by the Manaiakalani pedagogy.
• Once we start having access to 1:1 iPads within our junior school, I would like to push the use of Explain Everything.

Digital Fluency Intensive - Week 6 blog post

Being home by yourself is no easy task, and I have to admit that I tend to avoid being faced with my loneliness by finding new projects to work on and creating new activities to keep my students engage. And as a result, it is possible that I might have forgotten to update my professional blog, again. Thank you, Phil, for reminding me!

This week was our sixth session of the Digital Fluency Intensive course for term 3 - this session's focus was enabling access.

During this session, I really enjoyed looking at different class sites across different age groups. It made me realised that was might be working for me this year in a year 2 class might not necessarily be working as well if I were to move to a higher year level at some stage. It also helped me reflect on what was working well with my site, and what needed to be improved.

However, I thought that the criteria we used to assess and give feedback on each other's sites might be a little subjective. As I was thinking before, different year levels will have different needs, and what might work in a class might not work in another class of a similar level. At the end of the day, I strongly believe that whatever it is that works best for your learners is what you should be focusing on as an educator. It does not mean that what one is using is perfect and shouldn't change. On the contrary, I think that if you start asking yourself the right questions, you might be able to improve the experience of the users who will be navigating the site. Instead of focusing on what you would like to see, why don't you ask your learners/ users what they need and want? Personally, I know that I loved getting feedback from my learners at the start of this term, it really helped me improved the way my site looked and it helped me make it easier for junior students to navigate. That being said, certain things will be true regardless of year level or personal preferences. Anyone (especially students!) would get discouraged by spending too much time looking for where their activity is located, whether it be because they had to click on too many links or whether they had to scroll for too long to get to the aforementioned activity. 

Regardless, I loved being able to look more in depths as the sites of my bubble group. We gave and received feedback on what our sites looked like at that point of the session, and then it was time for us to pick goals for us to work on, before our create session began.

This week's create session: enabling access (Google sites)

At first, I had my heart set on reorganising bits and bobs on my class site. But as I thought more about how I could improve it, I realised that it might not be the best choice with us being in lockdown. Our class site is working really well as it is, students are familiar with it and able to navigate it without any support. If I were to change it, I would rather do it in term 4 when we are back in the classroom and I can teach my students how to use the updated version.

As a result, I  decided to create little mini-sites for my t-shaped units (before this session, my t-shaped units were all part of my main class site,  but I realised that this was probably not as ideal as I originally thought it would be).

There will, however, be no "before and after" picture. With my students being familiar with how to use the links that are currently available on our site, I have decided not deleted those, but I thought that there had to be an easier for me to share these sites with the rest of my team. I then decided that this was not enough, so I ended up creating an extra google site to link all the multi-modal sites I have already created this year, including a link to the template I am using to create these sites. Here is the link in case you would be interested in checking them out - just be aware that some are still under construction.

During today's session, I also managed to finish a new multimodal site, this time integrating a report from google studio which will update itself every time students (or special guests!) fill in our google form with their pepeha. I've added another section this time, in order for other people to fill in their pepeha as well (support staff, family members, students from other classrooms or other schools, etc. If you are interested in checking out what the final result is, I invite you to check out our Te Wiki o te Reo Māori site. 

I couldn't help but feel sad for not having had the opportunity to have a good before and after photo montage. I know that this wasn't really the aim of this session, but I couldn't help myself to have just a little bit of a play with Google Data Studio. I thought that using cards would be a good way to display students' writing, but in the end, I wasn't entirely convinced of the way it looked. But then, my world opened up once I realised I could use my basic knowledge of HTML and CSS to improve the way it looked and adjust it to fit my needs. I am feeling pretty happy with the results, but I might try and see if I can improve this further later on. My students have been telling me that these reports are really motivating them to submit their work, so I know I will be putting in an extra effort to create these sorts of reports whenever I can.

Unfortunately, my internet connection was impacted by the DDOS attack: I was left unable to keep on having fun with today's create session. I will have to update our class' padlet in my own time to make our sharing more visible... Stay tuned, or head to our class blog for more updates on this. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed this DFI session, which was more hands-on, as I found the opportunity to work on our class sites really useful (especially with Auckland still being in lockdown for now).

Digital Fluency Intensive - Week 5 blog post

Yesterday was our fifth session of the Digital Fluency Intensive course for term 3 - this session's focus was collaborate & Google Sites.

During this session, we kept on diving deeper into the Manaiakalani's Learn, Create, Share pedagogy, with our main focus being on class sites, multimodal planning and visible learning. When I was busy creating my class site earlier this year, I did want my home page to be quite minimalistic but I also wanted it to give users an easy window to guide them through navigating the site. After yesterday's session, I can say I resonated with the idea that class sites are an extension of our physical classroom. And this is really true! 

I teach a lovely Year 2 class, with a 1:2 iPad ratio. Both at the end of term 2 and at the start of term 3, I started running workshops to teach my students how to use and navigate our class site. It has been really useful for me as well, as I was asking them to tell me what wasn't really working and what they found challenging. I have been able to adapt my site to my students' needs, and most of them find it really easy to navigate. Even though I have not been able to go through every learner before the country moved back to alert level 4., I was confident that most of my students already knew their way around our site.

Once we head back into school (hopefully soon 🤞), my goal is to help my students utilise the digital skills that they have been learning and to integrate these more into my classroom program.

I find working on creating a Google Site quite soothing and relaxing, and I feel like I can really try and get creative with my ideas, and I really enjoyed today's 'create' activity. I loved getting the opportunity to look at the way other junior multimodal sites were organised, it gave me a lot of new ideas. At the moment, I have created all my T-Shaped Literacy units as different subpages. I am trying to decide whether I like the idea of having multiple sites more, or whether I prefer doing it this way. For this year, I will probably be sticking to creating these units within my class site as this is what my students are used to, but let's see how things go.

But today's 'create' activity was about more than creating a new Google Site: it was about working collaboratively with other teachers on finding texts relating to a theme (our group's theme was friendship). We then used these resources to each create our own multimodal site on the topic.

Here is the link to the multimodal site I created today: click here to learn more about kindness.

Back when I used to play with Blogger as a teenager, I remember that it was indeed possible to embed a website into a blogpost. I have tried my best at using the iframe HTML tag, but to no luck. Maybe that is no longer possible? I'll definitely have to do some googling on that one. But don't mind me being me, I digress...

After attending a google meet on T-Shaped Literacy back in term 1, I have started giving multimodal planning a go this year. I have only done a couple of units so far (you can check some of them over here if you are interested), but really I am still just figuring it out as I go along. My students have really been enjoying these units though, and I am currently working on two units for my kids to enjoy this lockdown.

I loved being reminded about the multi-text database. We did get introduced to it back in term 1, but I had completely forgotten it even existed! I spent a bit of time creating my own ones, which I really enjoyed, and I might take some time to add them to the database once I am happy enough with them. Sharing is caring, and I love working collaboratively with others. This is also one of our core values at New Windsor School!

Digital Fluency Intensive : Week 4 Blog Post

 Last Friday was our fourth session of the Digital Fluency Intensive course for term 3 - today's focus was dealing with data.

During this session, we kept on diving deeper into the Manaiakalani's Learn, Create, Share pedagogy. We started the session by exploring the 'Share' kaupapa - I was super excited about this one. 

I really connected with the idea that, instead of sharing to learn, we are sharing to finish learning. It is true that sharing our work enables us to feel satisfied. If this is how we feel, as adults, it makes complete sense that this is how our students would also feel.

We looked at quite a few google tools today, I love getting a bit of diversity throughout the day during our create sessions. 

1. Our first tool of the day was Google Forms. I am a big fan of google forms, that's one of the Google tools that I use quite a lot. I find that they are a really convenient way of collecting data, whether the information comes from students or from their parents. For example, I created one when we administered our eASTTLE writing prompt back in term 1, as it was a much easier way for me to collect my students' voices for the attitude questions. I also send some to parents via emails sometimes, I usually get more replies this way than when I ask them to email me back. I thought this 'Create' activity was rather fun to make.

My next goal with Google Forms would be to differentiate them depending on the answers that students would give. If they get it right, they can move on to the next section, but if not they could either get asked an easier question or else they could get a thank you message which would direct them towards some other activities for them to get more practice... That's something I am currently looking into, it's pretty fun!

2. Our next 'Create' activity was based on Google My Maps - a wonderful tool, which I had used before but would not have thought about using in my classroom. I took the liberty of adapting this task to something that my class would be more able to relate to. Instead of retracing someone's famous journey, I decided to try and remember all the places that I have travelled to before moving to New Zealand. This is something that my students ask me weekly (if not daily for some!), so I thought it would be a fun one to do. I'm sure I forgot a whole lot of places and events, I'll have to add some more to this as I remember.

         

Although I must admit, I got a little carried away and this map feels quite heavy now. I am yet to decide whether to use it with my class or not... Even if I don't use this one, I'm sure I can find some exciting ways to use this tool within my classroom program.

3. Our last 'Create' activity for the day was based on Google Sheets. Now, this is my absolute favourite Google tool: I am simply obsessed with spreadsheet. I am always trying to find a reason to justify creating a new spreadsheet, that's how obsessed I am. I use them to track students progress, monitor Google Forms answers, budgetting, and the list goes on. I don't think I could ever run out of ideas. 🧠💡 I'm the happiest when I can play with colour coding or formulas, when I can use data from different sources, when I can make pretty graphs... But I must admit, I haven't yet found a way to use them with my students. 

As much as I love a good spreadsheet, my Year 2 students really don't. Although they do get excited when I show them that I can get a random name just by pressing a key, or that different numbers get a nice colour automatically.

Our Google Sheets 'Create' task was to create a chart out of a blog, looking at the number of posts that are being made on a monthly basis. I decided to work with Finau's blog, and wow, I was super impressed with the number of posts she already has on her blog. I am a long way away from catching up with her!

Here is the link to the spreadsheet I created if you are keen to check it out. I could not help myself form having a play with some formulas after having created my graph... I am hopeless, aren't I?

I think it is safe to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this session, I am really looking forward to some more learning next week to learn more about being collaborative. Stay tuned!

Oops, I am a little late to posting again this week... I'll catch up though, I might even post twice in one day!

Digital Fluency Intensive : Week 3 Blog Post

Today was our third session of the Digital Fluency Intensive course for term 3 - today's focus was media, and how to make some small adjustments to our daily practices.

During this session, we kept on diving deeper into the Manaiakalani's Learn, Create, Share pedagogy. Today, we have been focusing on the 'Create' part of the pedagogy. I am a big fan of  'Create', and can totally see how we can link this to our school values (where 'Creatiativity' is, in fact, one of the stepping stones). I liked the idea that the  'Learn' and 'Create' can be untertwined and linked to one another. New Windsor School has started its DMIC journey this year, and this would be a great example as to when the learning and the creating can take place simultaneously. 

I feel like we've had 2 create sessions today. One was based on Google Drawings, and the other on Google Slides.

We started using Google Drawings to create an About Me image which we can use to introduce ourselves on our blogs. Here is mine: 

Then, we moved on to Google Slides. I had heaps of fun creating  a Pick-a-Path slideshow for my class to use. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to finish mine, but I am super excited about doing some extra work on it and using it with my learners. Hopefully it is not too wordy (I am aware that I did get a little overexcited, and the activity will be challenging for some of my students... I might have to work on it some more, and find a way to differentiate it to make it more accessible to my learners... Definitely worth a thought!), and my students can enjoy playing around with it. Have a look yourself and let me know what you think of it:

I was already pretty comfortable using YouTube, Google Drawings as well as Google Slides before today's session, but I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed working on my pick-a-path activity.  I have always love those kind of "pick your own adventure" books, and had been thinking about doing my own one for a little while. I had started working on a similar project using Google Forms at the start of this term, but using Google Slides instead made it way more manageable and easier to create.

I cannot wait until next week's session - I love Google Forms, but if I am being totally honest with you, Google Sheets is my absolute favourite Google tool to use and have fun with. (Although I must admit that I recently found out about Data Studio, and I can feel myself falling in love already... To be continued...)

Oops, I am a little late to the party this week. It looks like someone might have forgotten to hit the 'publish' button last Friday.  🤦

Digital Fluency Intensive : Week 2 Blog Post

Today was our second session of the Digital Fluency Intensive course for term 3 - today's focus was workflow, and how to make some small adjustments to our daily practices.

During this session, we dived deeper into the Manaiakalani's Learn, Create, Share pedagogy. Since last year, my kuraa has been encouraging us to apply this pedagogy to our learning programs, especially when we were in lockdown and had to give distance learning a go. I am trying to embedded the pedagogy more and more in my planning (although I must admit it is still a work in progress!), and my students are really enjoying it. They particularly enjoy working on their create activities, which they love to share with their peers or with other adults around our kura. 

Today's create activity was through Meet, which I thought was pretty cool. We each hosted a meet,  recorded ourselves talking and answering questions about our task, and then embedded it onto our professional blogs.

We were asked to look at some student blogs from last year - and let me tell you, there was so much awesome creative learning going on! I looked at Celine's blog post, where she was showing her audience how she made an Oreo cheesecake.

Unfortunately, all the rain from today has meant that my internet connexion was lagging at times. When I was watching the recording of me presenting to Tracy and Michelle, I noticed a lot of black patches with no audio so I've super quickly used screencastify to get rid of them. Hopefully, I haven't missed any!

If I am being completely honest, if I don't mind recording myself, I'm definitely not quite at the stage where I feel comfortable listening to the recording itself. 🤪 

I wouldn't have thought of using it for my learners to record themselves and share their learning. However, I do teach 6 and 7 years old and don't think it will be the most accessible activity for them - I will be sure to keep this in my kete for later. 

I am really, really looking forward to some more learning with the team next week.

Digital Fluency Intensive : Week 1 Blog Post

Today was the first session of the Digital Fluency Intensive course for term 3 - all online! we had our first DFI session for Term three. It is a very different experience being totally online for professional development. 

The Manaiakalani's Learn, Create, Share pedagogy is fundamental and puts learners at the very center of their learning. I loved that this was modeled throughout the agenda, this was a very authentic way to reinforce this model.  I am excited about using the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy more in my practice!

Today, I learned some new ways of helping fellow teachers at my Kura to navigate and be more efficient when using Google suite. After this first session, I feel more confident in sharing my knowledge with my team as well as with my students. 

Today's session also reminded me how important it is to make sure I keep my Google Drive nice and tidy. It's time for me to put my Marie Kondo hat back on!

It is quite encouraging that the course is taking some time to build up the confidence of participants who may not be super comfortable using digital tools to enhance their practice. It makes me feel a lot more supported in terms of learning new skills.

Here is what I created in Google Docs today:

When creating infographics, I usually tend to go straight to Google Drawing, Google Slides, or Adobe Spark as I find them a bit more user-friendly. However, I really enjoyed using Google Docs in a different way than what I am used to. I thought I might create a display of the independent activities that my students can do when they are working independently during our DMIC sessions (Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities). 

Seeing what the other participants in my bubble group did with their own Google Docs was really interesting and game me some extra ideas on how I could use it more in the classroom.  

I am really forward to next week, a big thank you to the team for their mahi today.  I am incredibly grateful.