Final day of DFI

 DFI - An overview of my professional learning. 

Taking one day a week out of class is not an easy ask. With a lack of relievers, pressure on your daily programm, or coming back to chaotic students and a messy classroom all impact on learning and teaching. While these things are minior, they all seem to collect and add in top of each other like pieces of lego. At first, I was skeptical to really see if DFI was really worth the time out of class, and if I was going to take anything back to my young learners. (Year 3's and a few yr 4's). But, I was thankfully wrong. Everyday I left with something that I could take back to my learners, or that I could add to my own kiti of knowledge. Weather it be tips on how to manage my tabs, or accessing students work via Hapara, every day I learnt something new. 

Like we do with our learners, we build on their prior knowledge in order to make learning relevant, retrievable, and meaningful. I believe that this DFI course has really given me the foundational tools of digital fluency. It has laid the groundwork for more learning to be built upon. Its like a carpet layer laying the carpet. Now all that needs to be done is the interior decorating. 

Moving forward, my goal is to build no on what I already know for my classroom. I have had glimpses into the practical logistics of learn create share pedagogy through colleagues at my school, and by seeing my classroom data I am more motivated to really push myself, my learning, and my own pedagogy to include more of this into my programme. One big stand out for me was the kids engagement. Every child does their mahi quietly and contently when on their chromebooks. I want to tap into this drive to really turbocharge my kids learning. My first goal being T shaped literacy for my top readers (reading at gold +). I know that they have the potential to really succeed and improve in their comprehension skills. It will take some time for me to learn and get my head around the workload but like many things we do for your students, this is a big and important. I'm going to try embrace the learning attitude I once had as a BT and try to do what best for my students. 

The Exam...

I was one of those students that seemed to do really well in class, I could articulate my thinking, share my ideas and generally really enjoyed the learning process. I was also the learner that when it came to testing I would seriously flop. I would let the nervousness of the mark cloud my instincts and my scores and marks often left my teachers confused and puzzled wondering if I had just 'faked it to make it'. The idea of completing an exam brought back a lot of these feelings for me. During the exam I had serious doubts about myself even though I feel confident with my digital learning and practical skills in the classroom, I could still feel the pressure of the clock ticking away, and the shadow of doubt creeping in...I definitely was questioning weather or not I had passed. But long behold... I passed! That relief of knowing I got 80% correct was such a good feeling. Knowing I don't have to have the awkward conversation with my principal or colleagues saying that I failed is now only a scary thought! 

Big thanks to the DFI & Manaiakalani team! Couldn't have done it without your help! 

 Empowered Learners & Conceptual thinking

If I'm being honest, listening and reading the slides on conceptual thinking at 8.30am in the morning had me a little bit frazzled and muddled, but as with anything new, when I start allowing time to think and unpack this idea I'm sure my understanding of conceptual thinking will improve. My biggest take away was giving our students the opportunities to not be passive consumers of technology. To not always just consume, consume, consume, but to actually be active creators and innovators of digital solutions. Getting our tamariki to thinking deeply about digital solutions to modern problems, or creative alternatives allows our students to not only develop problem solving and critical thinking skills, but it also is setting them up with the foundation knowledge and digital fluency skills that they will take with them throughout their personal and future professional lives. 

As we know, the diversity of our classrooms is ever growing and ever changing. Not only is there diversity of culture and language, but we are facing a huge diversity and difference of students oral language skills, social skills, communication and readiness to learn. Some of our students are sometimes set their fates due to their home life. Some of our tamariki come into school already disadvantaged and are not available to learn, perhaps because they had share a bed with their siblings and did not get a good nights rest, or perhaps haven't had a meal in a while and they are hungry. The sad reality of poverty in New Zealand is truly reflected in our classrooms. And I am sure every teacher can think of a student that suffered at the fate of their life at home which they cannot control. I'm always asking myself what can I do? How can I help? 

One way that we can help these tamariki is teaching them and helping them to become digitally fluent. Giving them the tools and the strategies needed to work online gives all of students the skills for the workforce. Its giving the power back to them and allows students to decide their own fate, because now they have the skills that our current and future workforce requires. They not only gain the skills but also the work ethic. They learn how to finish their mahi to a timeline, and they can also learn how to not fall victim to easy distractions and how to critically reflect and consolidate their learning. Not only this, but digitally fluent children can then pass this learning onto whānau. I am often helping my grandparents with their computer and iPad, and I can guarantee students will also be educating and helping their whānau with digital problems too. 

Today we learnt about the basics of coding. Straight away my mind thinks back to my learners and one in particular who has a love of coding and anything computers or digital. He is always checking in to see what I have learned on my DFI days, and tomorrow I cannot wait to show him what I have done, and what I have learned. Using the minecraft code website I am able to get a real basic and easy introduction into the schemes of coding. While having a go and doing this task I was reflecting on the type of thinking and processing that I was doing in order for my code to work. Its problem solving mixed in with a bit of critical thinking. If we can give our tamariki these skills early on in life, it very well may just open up the door for a potential career path for them in the future. Websites like this is a great positive way to engage our kids in not only problem solving, but also reliance and perseverance. I know this because I felt giving up a couple times when my code was not working!

 

Ubiquitous Learning

 Ubiquitous learning 

Anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyplace. 

When we share all that we do in our classroom on our class site, we are opening a big beautiful door that has often been closed in a standard classroom for many years. Through the help of digital devices, we are able to open a window and take a sneak peak into what we do in our classrooms. This lets our learners, whanau, colleagues and anyone who is interested access to see all of the fantastic learning going on in the classroom. Not only does this strengthen the connectiveness of our learning community but it also makes learning accessible for anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyplace. 

I have had a brief stint of experience working in a year 5/6 class at Wainui beach school as a reliever. When I walked into the class for the first day, the children showed me their classroom site, their groups activates, their time table and of course their learning. It truly was amazing to see just how well practised the students were. I simply followed their timetable, took the lessons that were scheduled and followed the learning intentions on the planning slides that their teacher had left them. The students were settled, focused, and motivated. It was like taking a sneak peak at the happy ending of a movie. It was clear that this pedagogy has been ingrained over time for the learners, and that both teachers in the space had a lot of digital fluency. But for me, as the reliever, it was a dream. 

I can really see the impact this would have on children's learning. Whenever I am out of my classroom, I try to often leave my planning and tasks for the reliever. I know how a lack of routine and programme (especially disruptions that are occuring frequently over time) can impact learning. Definitely something to think about for my Year 3 & 4 students. 

Today I took the time to complete a digital dig. It is the same tasks that my learners have done in class as well. It was a great way to cover the basics, and to learn those all important keyboard shortcuts.

We also looked at creating our own cybersmart lesson using slides to help. I found this really easy and fun to create.  Using screencastify was a great tool in order to talk about the purpose of the lesson, and my thinking behind it. I now can also add this onto my class site, perhaps under a button/section called early finishers for those students who have finished everything and need to do something productive. 

  

 Week 6 - My Classroom Site

Connected pedagogy and connected learning. 

Human nature has depended and evolved on the basis of people working together, building relationships, and connecting. I believe this is the same for learning as well. Many moons ago, the most interaction that schools had with each other was the odd sports game or competition. Now, with the revolution of the digital world, we have hugely improved our ability to connect with not only other schools, but our colleagues within our school as well.  Not too long ago I was struggling for ideas around our inquiry topic, it wasn't until I visited a colleagues classroom site that I was able to critically think and plan. It sparked my thinking and really helped me to plan for the following weeks ahead. This connectedness helps us to feel empowered in the work that we do. We see and feel the value of our practise because it is visible and appreciated by others too. Which reminds me that I need to visit other class sites more often. 

My classroom site

My classroom site unfortunately had been untouched since the very start of term 1. On a teacher only day I created the bare bones, or structure of my classroom site. But today I was able to dedicate the time to update it, input value content and also practise the digital fluency skills around sites as well. 

I can really see the power in these sites and I understand the importance of them and the power that they have (see last blog post for more details). But my biggest challenge and hurdle around class sites is time. Time is the most valuable classroom currency in my opinion. Many many teachers are often struggling to find the time to do all the tasks that are needed. Were planning, assessing, teaching, collaborating, and learning PLD too. For me, I really struggle to find the time. Today was a lovely but also rare opportunity because we were given time. We had some of this precious time to find the content and then upload it to our site. I personally believe that I managed to get quite a lot done on my inquiry section of my site in that time. I worked really efficiently and tried to get as much done as I could. With all of that in mind, I still haven't put anything on for reading, writing, maths, celebrations, or classroom organisations. If anyone has some tips, or ways that they manage their time for their classroom site please do share them with me! If there is a work smarter not harder method out there for this I am all for it! 

 

Above is a picture of my inquiry page on my site. The above being the before, and the bottom is the after. I promise you there is lot more content than just a changed picture! Most of the content is further down the page. Click on the link here to check it out! I focused today on my inquiry so please don't be shy to check it out! 

(The learn page is where all the good stuff is). 

Week 5 - DFI

 Visible learning with google sites

As we know, we spend every week day with our students, we spend a huge amount of time with our learners and for our parents, this is a huge chunk of time that they are away from their kids. So naturally, parents are going to not only be interested in what their child does in a day, but they are also emotionally invested in their kids learning, and weather or not their child is happy at school. We all know that a strong parent and school relationship correlates hugley to students achievement and enjoyment at school, so understanding that VISIBLE learning is not just a couple pieces of art on the wall. It understanding how powerful it can really be. We can now easily make our learning visible through the mode of google sites. This allows easy access for parents to check in on what's going on at school in easy breezy beautiful kind of way.  

Google slides and multimodal learning

Google sites is such an underrated and underused tool, that I don't think a lot of people realise just how easy, and accessible it is to create a website for free. It can be used to not only share learning with whanau, but it can be used as a teaching tool, or a resource bank as well. Today as part of my learn, create, share, I was able to create a site filled with resources around the theme of Matariki. I worked collaboratively with some other teachers to create this resource that I am really proud of. We wanted to create a multimodal site, meaning we had videos for students to watch. We had books for students to listen too. Poems, songs, and even quizzes. We put together a bank of learning rich tasks that lets students choose their own path of learning. We wanted our children to, like I just have, to also learn, create, and then share. 

Google sites is such a fantastic place for all of this to be, as I can share this with colleagues, use it for years to come and also create other unit plans to eventually have a bank of teaching resources that is always and easily accessible.

Click here  to check it out ! 

(its not perfect  - still little touch ups here and there to do).

Sharing

 Sharing

As far as we know it, mankind has always had the desire to share, weather it be sharing food, resources, skills, or knowledge, it is become hard wired in our DNA to share. Not only has sharing helped us to survive but it has become a fundamental tool in consolidating and passing on learnings. My students LOVE to share. Its safe to assume almost every teacher has heard stories from their students lives in the weekend. Whether it be that they went duck shooting, to a friends birthday party, or that they had a playdate. The sharing pedagogy is one of the final steps that engages students in this hook of sharing what they have learnt online. This online audience is not only a powerful tool that gives students a voice, but it requires the students to properly reflect, and think about what exactly they have learned, before sharing it to their online platform.

 Much like I am doing right now! 🤔

Powerful stuff! 

Google Forms  & Google My Map

Google forms was something that I had seen on occasion here and there but I never really knew the first step in understanding how they work and operate. Having this time in the day during my DFI i've really been able to explore and follow that curious part of myself that wonders what this button does, or what happens if I click this. Admitientely, I would often categorise google forms into the "I don't have time" section of my brain, as I would not really have the time to have a play around to understand it better. But, as most of the things I have learned during DFI, it's a lot easier than I think. And if I set aside this time to have a proper look and play around, its going to save me a lot more time in the future.

Below is a My Map of a road trip I did in Australia in 2019 in a campervan, just before the cursed COVID19. We travelled all along the east coast of Australia. Making our way to every major city aside from Perth. Amongst our travels we drove through the vast outback, and then along busy motorways, we managed to get caught it a flash flood, and accidentally parked up at a nudist beach in south Melbourne! 😳

It was a great chance to have a play with My Map, and to also reminisce about a time where international travel was easily possible. I'm going to use this tool to plan my next trip in the South island!

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Google Spreadsheets 

Our create task for today was around the use of google spreadsheet. With only a limited amount of experience with spreadsheets it was a great opportunity for me to learn not just the basics, but how to create graphs and concisely look at data results. I found this create exercise really powerful because I was able to use this alongside another google tool. Using both google spreadsheet and google draw really has taken my digital fluency knowledge to that next level. I am beginning to find myself becoming more fluent with the tools that I am using, and therefore my confidence is also improving as well. The more fluent and confident I am in my understandings, the more fluent my learners will be also.

I loved been able to be creative with my graph, choosing a colour scheme, deciding what the text bubbles will look, even changing fonts was a really nice little chance for me to add a hint of creativity into my learning. Below is a graph of data I collected from a student blog, reflecting on how many blog posts they have made per month in 2020. 

Using spreadsheets will definitely be my next point of reference for my students to create their graphs. I think this is more efficient than making them do it by hand. Plus, with google spreadsheet they can be creative, and then of course share their learning, rather it sit in their maths book untouched for months or even years after its complete.  

Creativity & Google

Unlocking creative minds in the classroom

Through early learning children are engaged in so many creative exercises to motivate and stimulate young minds. They are painting, moulding, shaping, discovering, re designing, and so much more. But somehow, as we grow into our personalities as adults a lot of us have lost touch with our creative side. Like any other muscles in our body, in order for us to improve our creativity we need to use the creative side of our brain more often. I've found that the 9am - 5pm work lifestyle that many families and adults live by, simply does not allow for time to exercise this muscle. Unless our work calls for it, we may not engage our brains in creative thinking for many days.  In some cases you could argue that this can also be said for the classroom. It is SO important for our students to express their creative side on many, many, many occasions. We need to explicitly implement moments in our teaching that allow students to be creative as not only a way to express themselves, but to also help students become better problem solvers, communicators, and collaborators. In my classroom I try my best to implement lessons or occasions where students can be creative. It is through the lens of manaiakalani that I can try implement my students to be creators of content not merely consumers across any new or old area of learning. And that is something I believe to be really powerful. 

This brings me to google drawing.

Google Drawing

Some days I can't help but shake my head and giggle to myself about the number of times that I have sat in frustration trying to get my google docs or slides image to align and look how I want it to. On more occasions than I would like to admit, I would be so determined to get the background how I wanted it to look, I would google a picture, copy and paste the image, and then send this to the back. 😑

But.... google draw?! 

Mind blown. 

In a matter of 10mins I was able to create and insert an image, easily change the background, and even crop images to a shape. Its times like this that make me feel like a BT again. Why have I not used this sooner!?

An added bonus is the use of remove.bg to remove background images... game changer!

Im imaging my students creating a piece of digital art, using the functions of google draw at their advantage. Perhaps a picture of a beach? Or maybe a self portrait? Definitely something for me to have a think about. 

Google Slides

One of the creative tasks that I chose to look into was adding audio into google slides (originally I would have loved to look at animation, but that workshop was booked up lucky there is some slides I can look at instead)!

For my task, I decided to input some audio on a collection of slides I created a few weeks back for a friends quiz night. I thought it would be an easy and effective task that would take my quiz to that next level...

Using websites such as online-voice-recorder made this process so quick and easy. I was able to record my audio, save it to my drive, and then insert it into my slides very quickly and easily. 

While I was working through adding in my audio, in the back of my mind was my learners. I couldn't help but think how cool it would be for them to research about a natural disaster (our inquiry topic this term) and then get them to create their own quiz filled with their own questions. It will take a fair amount of time for students to research about their chosen disaster, and to then learn how to create it digitally... but I'm willing to give it a try. This could hopefully engage that creative side of their brain as well as those all important literacy and digital skills as well. 

Below is the slide deck of questions that I have made for my personal quiz night, with the now added in audio. Feel free to quiz yourself on your houseplant/garden knowledge! 😉