Hapara Toolkit with Kerry Boyde-Preece June 18th

My focus with Hapara earlier in the year had been on basic use of both the Dashboard and Highlights functions within Hapara. Since then I have used it to monitor student files and drives. I was able to track and monitor student learning and activity - which was especially helpful for conversations with target students about their learning and the amount of independent tasks they were managing to complete.
In this toolkit my plan was to extend that knowledge more. My focus during the session was on learning how to use different functions for grouping students, and assigning work. I learnt how to use  the "Guide browsing" function within Highlights to set up focus learning sessions for groups of students. I was able to plan a session for the class focused on Matariki. Kerry's tips for populating the tabs suggested that sites selected included the class site, Docs and Drive, so that students could then access learning tasks and create their own files to complete these. That leaves seven free tabs to populate with other relevant sites for students to browse.

The focus session can be set to a specific time of the day for a specific length. This is great as it means you can set the time for a specific learning block - in my case Literacy learning time. For that session the students can then only access the selected tabs. As some of my students discovered they cannot delete those tabs, and they can't access other sites either.
My planned focus session was so popular and successful with my class, that I immediately planned a follow up session for next week. Student voice comments about the focus session made during our end of day Captain's Log reflection were positive. Students liked that the sites guided their learning. One of my target students commented that it meant he could not get sidetracked. Other students agreed, and said that having all the sites chosen for them made it much easier to get on with the task. They felt that having seven sites to look at was a good number. One student said that she and her buddy found that two of the sites were most helpful, so they spent most of the time on them. Another target student liked the site that included some video clips, as he learnt lots of facts from them, without having to read much. Again, working with their learning buddy helped the students. I did have to swap two students, as one of my target student decided that he didn't want to work with a girl that day! He worked well with his buddy for the day, and they produced a great set of slides.

Target Student's Matariki Slides

Online Toolkit Presentation for Manaiakalani - Using Google Drawing in the Classroom

As preparation for the Sydney Summit I volunteered to facilitate an online toolkit on Using Google Drawing in the Classroom. Dave Winter provided support via a Google Hangout for preparation for this. Setting up included developing a slide deck; setting up a calendar event with an invite for participants sending the link within the invitation. Via the calendar event I sent an e-mail invitation to all the participants - easy when you know how! The toolkit ran on Wednesday 5th June for 45 minutes.
I decided to include some slides on basic Google Drawing skills at the beginning of the deck, then have the bulk of the deck filled with illustrations of student work highlighting how the tool can be used to learn, create and share in a variety of different ways across a range of curriculum areas. I linked my thinking around these slides to key skills and competencies in learning, that related to areas within the Australian Curriculum, ready for submission for the Sydney Summit. These included - Knowledge and Skills; Problem Solving: Critical Thinking; and Creative Thinking.
At the end of my slide deck I included a couple of slides, with extra tips on using Google Drawing - including a trick for inserting video; changing canvas size; inserting diagrams; changing backgrounds; and using Word Art.
Despite having 26 people register for the online toolkit, only 14 participated on the day. I had set a colleague up as wing person - which was great. She was able to monitor comments and questions as we went. It was really difficult to monitor the session as it proceeded - very different to a face-to-face workshop, where you can see participants and make changes accordingly. The participants were very quiet, but most seemed positive with thank you comments at the end. I had great face to face positive feedback from one participant a couple of days later, when I bumped into her at the supermarket. Another participant sent me a piece of work that one of her students produced when she planned a task using Google Drawing the day after the toolkit. That was encouraging!

Like other MIT colleagues, I found it useful to do the toolkit. It was a good opportunity to trial the material for our Summit workshop, with plenty of time after to review the slides and think about changes needed. I have decided I need more examples with a bigger range of  learning at different levels. I also need to plan for "play time" during the session, so think about when to schedule that into the workshop presentation.