Day Four: DFI

Connecting with Dorothy-Share

I really enjoyed listening to Dorothy today and learning all about Share. I agreed with the sharing explosion during lockdown. Our technology skills increased and everyone was sharing what they were doing online. We got the children in our hub to share their learning via the Kākano Hub Blog site. It was fantastic to see what they had been learning about and creating at home from our Learn, Create, Shares and Googlemeets.

I enjoyed commenting on the children’s blogs using the positive, thoughtful, helpful structure. We also included a question so the children would write another post back to us to answer it. Some children/adults commented on other children’s blog posts. 

I liked the quotes “connected learners share” and “sharing has been part of human nature since time began.” These quotes got me thinking of all the ways we share and how sharing online has evolved and exploded recently during Lockdown e.g via facebook, apps like tick tock etc. It made me also think about how we share in the classroom especially through our Learn, Create, Shares. Are we making the most of the sharing time and sharing activities in the classroom. Are they hooking the learner in?

I thought about how important purposeful and authentic audiences are. At the end of the term we are going to have a showcase about our Matariki learning for Project Based Learning. Our purpose and authentic audience relates back to our driving question: “How can we uplift and empower our Whānau to celebrate Matariki as part of our identity in the future?” Sharing in real time is very important, which will be happening for our PBL straight after all the learning done in the term. 

Dorothy also talked about the importance of feedback and feedforward. This made me think of my student who has received constant feedback/feedforward from me in her placement this term. I have also received feedback/feedforward from an observation in Structured Language last week. We also as a staff have been discussing this in regards to our Professional Teaching observations that are coming up. I’m happy to receive feedback, I reflect on my practice often and want to action any advice to develop as a teacher.

I really like the idea of changing from “I’m finished” which I hear often in the classroom to “I’m ready to share.” A different mindset to put emphasis on how important it is to share, learn from others, receive feedback/feedforward to reflect on and take action to be the best you can be. 

Google Forms

I really enjoyed making a Google Form, I have made one before. I learnt how to incorporate an image or video, change the theme and change the settings of the general form. I’m looking forward to making some in real life contexts at school.

Google My Maps

I haven’t been on Google My Maps before. I enjoyed experimenting and am starting to think of ways I could incorporate this into the classroom. I like the idea of seeing where the children have all been on holiday during term breaks for a start. 

Google Sheets 101

I have experience with Google Sheets for work, we use them for our Literacy and Maths groups and the childrens progressions for Maths and Literacy. I learnt some great tips like how to freeze and unfreeze a column, how to make basic calculations for sums and averages, how to automatically fill rows with things like days, months, translate into different languages, sort data from A to Z and make graphs from the data. I enjoyed entering data from our Kākano Hub blog posts to create different types of graphs. 

Added extras this week:

I learnt that Google Drawing is not always compatible with Blogger but I finally got my Matariki Google Drawing up on our Hub site/PBL: Matariki.

I put up my Creative Slide background with links to Storyline Online on our Hub site, Independent Reading.

I learnt to view the Hub site via the phone, tablet/ipad, chrome icon to see what the audience sees.

I finally found where to add a new playlist on my Youtube Channel through the studio which I couldn’t find. 

DFI Day Three

Online Learning

I enjoyed working online from home for our third session of DFI. I found it easy to join the Googlemeets and swap between them for whole class and bubble group meetings. When I had an issue that I needed help with I let Sharon know and presented my screen on the Googlemeet so she could see what I was doing. Sharon then talked me through the steps to fix my problem as she watched me manoeuvre my way around my site. I found this very helpful. Me and a couple of others troubleshooted our problems together on the Googlemeet as well which was great to be able to help others and get advice. I liked seeing everyones ideas when we took turns presenting our screens. It was a very positive experience. 

I experienced online learning for the first time during Lockdown and it was very different from being in the classroom. I thought I would be too isolated from everyone at work and find it hard to get help when I needed with the new technology skills we were learning. I also thought it was lots of new learning for technology and was pondering whether or not I would be able to put it all into practise over the next few days before seeing the children online. All my worries were put to rest as I made Googlemeets with technology experts from school who talked me through any problems online. We had Googlemeets with the staff, then syndicate ones and one to one meetings which I organised with teachers to discuss our planning online. Our community were also learning and upskilling with technology as we found out from our online connections. So it felt great to all be learning together! The more I did Googlemeets with my peers and the children the more I enjoyed it and embraced the new way to connect. Practice makes perfect!

Googlemeet with Dorothy

I enjoyed connecting with Dorothy for the Googlemeet on Create. There were so many quotes that I liked. Here are a few:

-we want a world full of playful creative people”

-“Creativity focuses on the process of forming original ideas through exploration and discovery”

-“Creativity empowers learners”

-“Get hooked into learning through creativity”

-“When it comes to learning if the hands are involved the head really gets going”  

-“We want to be creators of content, not merely consumers”  “

-“Creating is a real purpose for learning”

It really made me think about how important creativity is and what opportunities we are providing for the children. I thought it all related very well to our Learning Through Play philosophy and the environment that we want to create in our classrooms. 

“In the 6 C’s of Education Creativity is acknowledged as an important part of the curriculum.” We have been moving more and more towards this as we move away from templates and let the children have more voice and choice in their learning. PBL is a good example about how we are doing tasters to inform the children of the topics available and they choose which one they want to be involved with. The children also think about how they want to present their final product to show the learning they have achieved. Creativity comes into play here as well. 

Sisomo = sight, sound, motion. This is a name I haven’t heard before. 

“Creating emotional connections in the market” We looked at how clever some advertisements are on t.v that use sight, sound and motion to create emotional connections. These make us more likely to purchase the product as it builds a connection with the audience. 

Sisomo made me think of our five senses. We have been introducing these in the classroom to explain our experiences lately. E.g swimming lessons. This has allowed us to tap into some rich language (Jane Considine) and make a deeper connection with our audience through our writing. 

Youtube

I had a Youtube channel already set up but I hadn’t made any playlists. I enjoyed searching and creating a playlist for fun songs with lyrics from disney for the children.  I learnt how to save the videos if they were greyed out under the clips. I think this will be very useful in the future as I am always collecting links on topics and this will be a better way to store my information. 

Media Deep Dive

When we had the Media Deep Dive I was exposed to lots of different apps for people to be creative and make films. There were only a couple I have heard of. Looking forward to being able to pick a few and explore in the future. 

Google Drawing

I was impressed by all the things you could do on Google Draw. I enjoyed making a Matariki page that I hope to share with the children during Project Based Learning. I learnt how to link sites to the pictures. See below, click on the stars to find out information about Matariki!

I also made an All About Me Profile that sits to the side of my Professional Blog posts. Can you see it? 

Google Slides

I enjoyed creating interesting backgrounds that I could put information on for the children. They click on the pictures to access their learning. These were fun ways to present work to the children that would engage them in their learning. I found my bimoji that we created at the start of the year and could place the image into the backgrounds. I have recently added mote and I am looking forward to trying it out with my slides. 

Day Two DFI

Day Two: DFI

Topics: Googlemeet, Effective Teaching: Learn/Amplify/Turbocharge, Google Keep, Gmail, Google Calendar, Taming tabs, Embedding videos into your blog post 

Googlemeet: 

We started using Googlemeet when we began Distance Learning teaching online during the Lockdown. In a very short amount of time we had to learn quickly how to use it. I enjoyed meeting the children online and started explaining the Learn, Create Shares for our planning with them. These included mainly Literacy and Maths. We made our Google Site visible to the public and I got used to changing my share settings to anyone on the internet with this link can view. It was scary at first doing Googlemeets from your home and inviting everyone in but we soon got used to it. Today was a revision session for me. I was happy that I could join the googlemeet and share my interesting place and favourite song from youtube by presenting my screen. I have joined Googlemeets for staff meetings during Lockdown, one on one technology advice with teachers, teaching Learn, Create, Shares with the children and Toolkits online. It was new to me to record the Googlemeet so I enjoyed practising. Below is a recording I did with Michelle talking about a child’s blog post from another school. I learnt that you can only record if you are the creator of the Googlemeet.

Googlemeet about a Children's Blog Post

Effective Teaching: Learn/Amplify/Turbocharge:

It was good revision for me to look at Learn, Amplify and Turbocharge lessons for Effective Practice. We have staff meetings that have covered these ideas. I started thinking about the Effective Practice we do in our school e.g Learning Through Play based on Longworth Education, Gold Standard Project Based Learning, Manaiakalani:Learn, Create, Share planning- all backed by research (evidence based). We are currently looking at Muhammad Ali as one of the World’s Greatest Athletes for us to be ‘The World’s Greatest Teachers.’ We are looking at effective practice from the Teachers Professional Standards. Each week we have a standard that we focus on and put into practice in the classroom. Our Performance Growth Cycle is based on these standards too. Our inquiry is looking at High Level Practices and how we can implement effective teaching of these in Critical Thinking. So we as a school team and individually are constantly working on and reflecting on our practice. Some quotes that stuck with me: 

“Effective teacher implementing effective practice.” -Dorothy Burt

“Worth teaching/learning = worth capturing = rewindable learning!”

“Every child, every day should learn in engaging ways.”

Google Keep:

I have used Google Keep before on my phone for mainly creating lists. Today I made sure I have a school and personal account that I can use. I learnt how to easily swap between accounts. I have always enjoyed using Google Keep but now I am exposed to so much more that the app can do. I can see it will be very useful in the future. 

Gmail:

I learnt how to undo send with emails and reset for 30 seconds which is very helpful. I find that my emails can add up very quickly in my inbox. Sharon has worked with me before and we have set up three choices: Primary, Social and Promotions. I learnt how to teach the computer to put the emails into the right tabs by doing it yourself the first time and then the computer automatically remembers. 

Calendar:

I have the calendar for school on my computer and phone. I use it more on my phone for quick, easy access. It is great to see the month at a glance. I know how to create an event and add a googlemeet but it is always good for revision. We had to learn during lockdown so we could book in times for googlemeets via the calendar. A positive from the whole Lockdown experience was my upskilling with technology, as I keep mentioning in what I have learnt already in my blog posts. It was a good opportunity to explore and practise with technology. 

Taming Tabs: 

I love to pin the documents I am working on during the day for work for quick easy access between them all. I like the shortcut keys you can use to swap between them I will just have to remember them. I like the idea of pinning a set/topic together and will try creating some of these. 

Embedding videos into your blog post: 

I have my hub blog and my professional blog. I am used to embedding pictures and powerpoints of pictures into my blog posts but not videos. Go to the Kākano Hub Blog and check out some posts by Miss Bailey!  At the moment I am working on this,  I created a recording video from a Googlemeet and am trying to put it into this post. I have it in my drive in Meet Recordings. So if you see it above I’ve succeeded otherwise first question on Tuesday! 

4th May 2021 DFI Course

Day One: DFI

Topics: Chrome, Google Drive, Google Docs

It was very interesting finding out more about how The Manaiakalani Programme started and evolved over the years. I never knew the meaning of the word Manaiakalani but I have heard of the story of Māui pulling up the islands from the sea just didn’t make the link. Stars were used for navigation by sailors, so we are navigating our way towards the future with technology. 

“Mānaiakalani is a constellation in Polynesian culture which translates to "The Chief's Fishline". It refers to the fishhook of demi-god Māui. Polynesian mythology tells of Māui pulling large fish from the ocean, representing or discovery of new islands. It is primarily made of Scorpius and the Navigator's Triangle.”

Evidence based is a big part of our school and why we do things, so it linked well with how Manaiakalani has always gathered evidence to base it’s big decisions on. Ubiquitous has been a common word used lately in our staff meetings, visible learning available anytime, anyplace. We have recently put all our planning online for the community to see and therefore have rewindable learning. These have been common words throughout the day today that have stayed with me. 

Today I learnt: 

Official name for URL bar, “The Mighty Omnibox”

How to switch between pinned tabs, using command, then tab number

How to change to a profile picture

How to create a personal profile for my personal tasks e.g facebook, internet banking

Adding a theme background to google page

How to screenshot command shift 4, drag and size

How to see what Google groups I am in (groups.google.com) and make changes

To add a shortcut to access folder from a different place without moving it

How to do a table of contents on a document

How to use the voice typing tool

How to use the camera on the computer to take a photo

How to assign a person to the comment box

How to create a footnote

How to remove a background on a photo: remove.bg

How to use explore

Some shortcuts e.g command control z = undo

I also learnt how to edit my youtube safety links that are not available anymore online to find the youtube clips I have spent time researching. This will greatly benefit my team. I have been able to ask many questions during this session and am grateful for the 1 on 1 time to solidify my knowledge of the new concepts as well as time to explore and practise. I have learnt so many things in one day and feel much more confident already in my technology abilities. 

Old link: Edit by deleting safeutube.link and replace with video.link instead

I have started editing my pinned sites to just have the known icon visible which is helping me create more space on my favourites bar. I created my own personal google account that I have been using to do the things I need to outside of school.

Skill Transferred to the Classroom:

I learnt how to remove a background from a photo from remove.bg. I took this skill into the classroom and created Mother’s Day cards with the children this week. I took photos of the children pretending to hold something and then removed the backgrounds. The children then made flowers and we cut out the pictures of the children and put them beside the flowers so it looks like they are holding them. Other teachers in the hub thought the cards were a great idea and I felt happy that I could achieve something that I had seen others complete and always wondered how they did it. The children were very excited to see the finished product.