Manaiakalani Staff Meeting 15/10/18 with Venessa

Today we are reflecting on how we are using the LEARN, CREATE, SHARE pedagogy in our classroom. We each created a slide to share this with each other as part of a staff set of slides.
In my slide I shared Kea's work from Social Justice Week completed at the end of Term 3. The students were really proud of their learning, and what they had created. We laminated our work as posters to take home, and to display in our school office.

Digital Fluency Week 9

How the Digital Fluency Intensive has impacted on me

Involvement in the DFI means I now have a much clearer understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and
pedagogy, as well as how this fits into our school kaupapa and practice. I have learnt new digital skills,
especially with different Google apps, and had opportunity to connect the use of these tools to planned
learning opportunities for the students in my class. Having just inherited chromebooks for students
enabled me to immediately be able to put some of this learning into practice. This has been particularly
successful towards the end of the DFI as both the students and I have become more familiar with the
Chromebooks, and more fluent and confident in the use of some of the apps.

I did find the pace over the first couple of days quite fast. At that stage I felt I was developing
familiarity, rather than fluency. We then had a couple of days that moved at a much slower pace, and
I gained more confidence with apps. This was consolidated via use of some of these in my classroom
with my students.

The Learn, Create, Share pedagogy is now becoming a strong part of our school kaupapa, as we have
four teachers that have had professional learning input via DFI or the Pilot Teacher programme in
classrooms. Having that network of support at school is excellent. I have been able to share learning
and ideas with others back at school.

In addition, the network of teachers I have been working with as part of the DFI has had an impact
on my ongoing learning. The collaborative activities have been great, as has the blog sharing.

Particular impacts on my life, my practice, and my workflow

Google Keep is amazing! A must for every school leader! I use it for all sorts of things - professionally
and personally. I have shared it with a number of other people. I love the reminder/ notification part of
this app.

Setting up folders within Google Drive for my students to use right from the beginning was also helpful.
To start this properly at the beginning of the year, connected to Hapara and the Manaiakalani
Cyber-Smart Curriculum will be even better next year.

I feel like I still have so much to learn, so finding some way to keep the learning and network of
support going will be important. Any possibility of extra courses, or DFI Stage 2, would be great.
There is much benefit of getting together as a cohort to learn together and discuss what is working,
not working, problem solve, share ideas...

Digital Fluency Week 8

I was disappointed to not be able to be a part of the Digital Fluency Week 8 experience at Waitangi. Reading people’s blogposts, and looking at all the online resources posted by Kerry, and others re-iterated the fact that you all had an awesome day, with lots of learning and inspiration. I really enjoyed reading everyone’s posts. Not quite as good as being there… but you have all contributed to my ongoing DFI learning with what you have shared. Many, many thanks for your honest and in-depth reflections. Ongoing dialogue with colleagues, in any form, is a vital part of our professional growth. I loved the creativity you all shared. I must confess, my personal favourite was Robyn "in flight" - every school leader needs super powers! 😉

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

Manaiakalani pedagogy related to empowerment fits well with the vision, principles and values of our New Zealand Curriculum. “The New Zealand Curriculum is a clear statement of what we deem important in education. It takes as its starting point a vision of our young people as lifelong learners who are confident and creative, connected, and actively involved. It includes a clear set of principles on which to base curriculum decision making. It sets out values that are to be encouraged, modelled, and explored. It defines five key competencies that are critical to sustained learning and effective participation in society and that underline the emphasis on lifelong learning” – NZC Foreword, 2010.

Manaiakalani are talking about student agency when they talk about empowerment. Manaiakali chose to use the word empowered instead of agency, or student agency, because it was a word that people outside of education, especially families and whanau, could relate to.

I need to find ways to further empower my students with their learning. Being aware of the disadvantages some students have is important, but it is more important for us to see the potential in all of our students and ensure that diversity within our classroom teaching and learning experiences provides authentic opportunities for students to excel. We do need to value what our students bring – often this is not recognised or understood. Valuing what our students bring, and then enabling them to access and be part of a vibrant and authentic curriculum is all about empowerment while they are at school, and then as they transition into being active participants in their local, and global communities.

How has my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy:

·        Empowered me professionally with my teaching practice?

With the creation and development of my blog, I have an ongoing dialogue that reflects on my growth in my professional development, with a particular emphasis on links to the digital world and the change in my teaching practice within a digital classroom. Having my blog accessible to others provides me with scope for an audience whose comments can contribute to my ongoing learning and development.

The skills I have been learning, or enhancing, over the last 8 weeks have strengthened aspects of my classroom teaching and learning programme. My own familiarity and fluency with different Google apps is growing, and will continue to grow. The level of professional dialogue with colleagues from other schools, has also supported my professional growth.

·        Empowered me with new skills to use with my learners?

I have been trying lots of new things with my students. Inheriting some Chromebooks from other classrooms in our school has enabled increased scope to do this. Most of my students have access to a device which functions well enough to meet our beginning needs. Students have been able to share their learning with whanau, as well as with our school community at assembly. They are very proud of their new skills, and the work they have produced. Their written response work to Malala’s Magic Pencil, which was our shared text during Social Justice Week, was completed in Google Draw. Students used a range of graphic skills, as well as the Explore tool to access images and borders, to enhance their poster presentations. Printed copies will be displayed in our school foyer, and will be shared via our school face book page. I am hoping to have a class blog operational next term to share our work with a wider audience.

·        Empowered me personally?

I have been able to share apps and skills with others in my school. This always has a “feel good” factor. To be an “expert” explaining something to a professional colleague is always empowering – especially when one is not of the “digital native” generation!

I am inspired to learn more, and to continue my learning journey – I just need more days and time to do this!

Digital Fluency Intensive Week 7

Digital Fluency Intensive Week 6

SHARE

27/8/18

SHARE Staff Meeting with Donna Yates, Manaiakalani

Simon Scott, the Deputy Principal at Hornby Primary School, reflects on his blogging journey with Manaiakalani.

What I learnt?

Simon started with a general classroom blog. After the first year, he moved into individual blogs. This was a natural transition for both him and the students, as they had become familiar and confident with the use of blogging.

Key to the transition into individual blogs, was the initial teaching of blog comment protocols with the students. Students follow three steps to write something positive, thoughtful and helpful. This strategy is outlined below.

What is the new strategy?

What are you thinking about trialing in your learning space?

Because my students do not have functioning individual blogs at this time, I will co-ordinate with one of the senior classroom teachers, so that my students can read a relevant student blog, and then use the template to make a blog comment. This could be incorporated into my Literacy programme as a learning station activity.

Relection

As well as the template, it will be important to provide some models of good comments posted on student blogs. In addition, early comments could be completed as shared writing, and then interactive writing with students that need practice before writing independently. This task will provide another authentic opportunity for short, quality pieces of writing, that will be achievable for all students in the class. It will also help to make the students more appreciative of blog comments when they start to use individual blogs for their learning journey.

Digital Fluency Intensive Week 5

During our "sandpit" time, I started to create a Google site about A Healthy Garden.
Check it out at A Healthy Garden

Digital Fluency Intensive Week 4

What I learnt that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy? 
The use of blogging to share creates a wider, more global audience for students to share their learning and thinking. They can also track their blogging, by viewing the responses. Who responds, where they are... The blog also enables capability to share more than writing. They can add other features such as drawing, photographs, slides, movie clips etc.

Digital Fluency Intensive Week 3

DFI DAY THREE TEACHING AS INQUIRY REFLECTION

What I learnt that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy:

"Creativity is as natural and necessary for children as fresh air and sunshine!" - Kohl, 2008.

The learning today related to the use of different media to stimulate creativity - for myself, for my planning and for my students. Planning for opportunities to enable creativity is vital.

The examples that the facilitators shared helped me to see that creativity can take many forms within a digital world. Even for students that are not competent users of the google apps they are currently using, can create models and scenes that could be used to express and communicate ideas, thinking, stories, retells...

Working collaboratively with others would further strengthen this and open up more opportunities for ensuring all students have access to these learning opportunities.

Drawings

What I learnt:

• Using slides to create animations
• Using slides to create little movie clips by publishing to the web
• Creating quest type tasks, or contract tasks, with hyperlinks to follow up tasks on different slides to add choice
• About Audio Player for Slides - something to investigate...

What I did: 

I created a short pirate ship story animation, which Michael helped me to save by publishing on the web. I then added the link for this to a slide to use with groups of students to encourage storytelling. They could discuss in groups, add captions, tell their own story, create their own animated short story to share…

Drawings

What I learnt:

How to use different aspects within drawings to insert and colour shapes and callouts;  add gifs and images from the web; how to use my computer camera to take a photo and insert that.

What I did/ aim to do:

During the “sandpit” time I created a drawing of myself as a pirate as a trial that I could share with students to model a drawing activity they could learn with. 

Digital Fluency Intensive Week 2

DFI Day Two Teaching as Inquiry Reflection

Bookmarking and other useful tricks

What I learnt:

How to create folders within my bookmark bar to organise all my bookmarked sites.

How to use the AddOn “One Tab” to collapse all tabs into one. Another add-on called “Toby for Chrome” can be used to open up groups of tabs.

The notion of creating a site as a “landing page” for students in the school/ class to arrive at when they log in. This could then have direct links to relevant apps and sites.

What I will aim to do:

Finish spring cleaning my very cluttered bookmark, by sorting the websites into folders.

Investigate possible landing page for Kea class.

Gmail

What I learnt:

About how to use labels better. How to colour code them, and set up filters on them. I haven’t conquered how to do this competently as yet, so need to spend more time practicing with the function.

What I did/ aim to do:

Continue with labelling e-mails as they arrive.

Develop a system for sub-levels for students emails within class label.

Practice how to set up new filters by pasting e-mail addresses.

Calendar

What I learnt:

How to add events, and then invite others - or share with others.

Made a start on this.

What I aim to do:

Need to practice.

Also need to add in other calendar links. Check with school, RE ones...

Hangouts

What I learnt:

How to create a Hangout with others. Completed a Hangout with Gerlinde and Sally. Gerlinde used Screencastify to record our Hangout.

What I aim to do:

Create a Hangout and invite Kerry, Dorothy and/ or Donna to join.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day One

DFI Day One Teaching as Inquiry Reflection

Google Keep

What I learnt:

Organised electronic sticky notes, with the ultimate reminder system - including sound alerts.

Links to phone app.

Collaborator button allows sharing of keep note with another person.

Can use voice to create document on Google keep - this has a text and audio version.

Super easy to share.

Can use to dictate e-mails - how great is that!

Can use photos in Keep.

Remind Me button will send alerts at specific time, and can add place too.

What I will aim to do:

I can see myself using this tool. I particularly like the list function within the keep note
- it will get rid of the paper sticky notes on my laptop keyboard!

Google Drive

What I learnt:

Menu panel on left - Disclosure button

DB advocated one folder for each year, then organise folders with in this.

Colour coding of folders.

What I did:

I cleaned up my drive - organised files into 2016, 2017 and 2019.
Then I created better folder headings and colour coded these to make them easier to sort and access.

Far more effective!

Google Docs

What I learnt:

How to use headings better. The headings then generate their own URL address which means they can be
inserted as links into other places and documents.

Also if you use headings and sub-headings, you can then insert a Table of Contents at the beginning of
your document.

Adding Shift to paste function (Ctrl + Shift + V) removes the formatting from what you are copying!!

Explore Tool - great way to find links, images etc related to document you are creating
- no necessity for multiple windows...yay!

Symbols - did not know it was there!

Voice typing Tool - change to NZ English so it understands you

What I aim to do:

Any documents (readings, agenda, reports…) with heading function could make it easier to send
relevant parts to selected people.

Use the different tools - especially Explore

Give the Voice typing tool a try.

Creativity Empowers Learning

11/6/18
Staff Meeting with Donna Yates, Manaiakalani

CREATIVITY provides the avenue for expression.  The structure means nothing without function. Therefore, the individual must be capable of CREATING something with the knowledge that they have worked so hard to obtain.  It is in CREATING that the individual gains purpose.

Donna's challenge was to think of a creative way to incorporate technology into what we are doing in our classroom.
In Kea Class, I will have students find images related to student tukutuku panel designs to print and add as part of multi-media collage on the class panels. The images will depict what the patterns represent, as in traditional tukutuku.