DFI Week 9- He Mātai Whakamuri

 Today we had our final session for DFI. This involved completing our Level 1 Google Educator exam. I was extremely nervous to do this but I ended up passing. 

He Mātai Whakamuri- Look back at the last nine weeks.

The biggest learning for me has been reflecting on my own teaching practice. During practicums and whilst being a beginning teacher we reflect a lot in order to develop as teachers. I noticed during these 9 weeks how I have not been reflecting as much since I became fully registered. It has been great to be able to restart this. Most of my reflections over this course were based around the morning korero as I started to think about how I can use digital technology more in my hub. 

Along the way, I have learnt many helpful tips and tricks which have supported me greatly- especially in Google Sheets and Google Forms. These little tricks really help with the functionality of the apps but are also great time savers.

Using Google sites is definitely the highlight for me as I had been previously using it for my hub website but not to its full extent. I like that you can set up google sites for different subjects or activities then just link them that way. 

Today I also completed the Master Screencastify course. This was a good way to find out how else I can use screencastify in my classroom. 

I am looking forward to continuing my digital journey as it is something that will never end!

DFI Week 8- He Mātai Whakamuri

This morning we talked about students being Empowered in their learning. During this korero, I realised how lucky my students and I are to have one-to-one devices. Half of my hub have their own devices and the other half use classroom chromebooks. It makes it so much easier for them to use a digital device if they are not having to share like students had to in my first year of teaching. A big part of my classroom culture is empowering my students. Many of them come into intermediate believing they have no strengths. Using digital devices enables the students to recognise their strengths. Especially if they are considered an 'expert' in a particular field. Working online also means my students can easily work at their own levels across the curriculum. In most scenarios, the students are not aware of what level everyone is working at so there is little to no discrimination there. 

I am currently wondering about what I can do in my classroom programme to help my students with their digital technology journey. It's difficult to do this myself as I am not very comfortable with digital aspects. I can use basic google apps for example but not so much with the coding and creative aspect of things. I also want to work on incorporating the technology project-based process into our learning as well. Using scratch will be a great start and I can definitely learn alongside my students. Today was a great opportunity to test out my own skills on scratch and other coding websites. 

At the moment we are preparing our students for the ever-changing digital world. There will be many different digital careers in the future and hopefully, our students will be prepared for that. My students are currently learning about creating online content and having a safe online presence. It will interesting to see how we can incorporate more coding and other creative aspects into our programme. We have done a little bit of mahi in our hub around Gamefroot. Some students loved using this platform but others were understandably confused and got frustrated. I am going to trial using Scratch in our hub to see if this will help their understanding of coding. This is turn should help with using Gamefroot. Below is a task that we did with Kerry in which we had to rearrange her code. I can see how I could use this to set my students up for scratch. They can learn how to create code with pieces that are already there. This will also be setting my students up for success as they won't have to try and reinvent the wheel. 

The greatest joy comes from empowering students to believe in their own abilities.

DFI Week 7- He Mātai Whakamuri

This morning we learned about ubiquitous learning. I liked the idea that learning can continue especially if I had a reliever in my hub they could follow on with the same learning programme. It definitely makes it easier when we go into lockdown. Students are able to use our class site outside of the normal classroom. I am currently working on this site so that we can use it more. At the moment I try to use Screencastify to record tutorials for my students. This works really well as it has many great features. My students have also learned to use this tool through Manaiakalani and also recording assembly videos after lockdown last year. I have also noticed that many of the students I get in my hub each year have lower reading and writing levels than the previous year. It would be great to see how the summer blogging programme makes a difference to this summer slump. 

Today I have been reflecting on how many opportunities I have for my students to rewind their learning. At the moment they don't have a lot of ways to do this. I use screencastify to explain how to use certain tools but that is the extent of it. It will be interesting to see what else I can create using this extension to benefit my student's independent learning. I should also be able to achieve this through multi-modal learning on google sites. This is due to the fact that they will have access to resources such as videos and images at the touch of a button. A site I am creating at moment is the next terms inquiry on financial literacy. We will be looking at Banqer as well as other online resources. I found a Manaiakalani resource on buying online which will be great for my students as they will start to shop online soon. Below is a screencastify of what I could use on my site.

It was great for me to use and work on a chromebook. This means that I can better support my learners on their chromebook. Doing the DFI dig on a hub chromebook was a good way to see how to use a chromebook as I have never really used one myself. I also want to get my students to have a go next week as I imagine there will be a few things they may not know how to do yet. 

During this lockdown, I felt better prepared to work with my students. I had a task check-in sheet so both my students and I knew what learning had been completed. I was able to use google forms to successfully collect information from whānau about internet and device access etc. I want to use my class site more in our classroom learning so that my students are better equipped if we do have to lockdown again. This is one area I would say some of my students struggled with. Using it during class time means they will already know how to use it to its full extent. 

Screencastufy of Smart Money- Buying Online below:

DFI Week 6- He Mātai Whakamuri

 During our korero this morning we learned about the connected kaupapa of Manaiakalani. It was interesting to see how many schools are a part of Manaiakalani and how they are all connected through this. One way I see this already is when a student from another school comments on one of my student's blog posts. I enjoy seeing them react to someone commenting on their mahi. My students were involved in creating graphs for a local primary school which showed who had the most views on their blogs. It was interesting for my students to see how their blogs can be viewed around the world. We also heard about Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu during this session so I have registered my interest. If we participate in this, it would be great for my students t connect with classes around New Zealand, not just Tairawhiti. 

The biggest thing for me was reflecting on my own practice. Getting feedback about my hub google site then making changes on it. Being able to look at other class sites was great as I could see how I could develop my own site. We set some goals about what we wanted to achieve throughout the day. I managed to add a header to my site, as well as startng to add multimodal learning to my hub site. There were a few parts that I found difficult but I managed to sort it out in the end. I look forward to using my site more as we move back into the classroom. 

I am also looking forward to seeing how my students adapt to using our class site more in our normal day to day learning. I don't think they will have any issues with it as long as I keep my site simple and don't overload them with too much information. 

These are some images that show the before and after of my hub site which I was working on today. The third image is the start of a multimodal site. The bottom image is what my site looked like before. 

DFI Week 5- He Mātai Whakamuri

This morning, we learned about learning being visible. The main idea I took from this korero is making sure students know what they are learning about and what the teacher's intentions are. Reflecting on this, I definitely need to make this more obvious in my hub, both online and offline. I am starting to think about how I can use my google site for more visible learning not just a placeholder for different documents.

A challenge I am going to start is thinking about how I can incorporate multimodal sites more in our programme. I believe that my students will be more engaged in sites rather than just looking at a journal. I have started by creating a site based on the novel 'I am David'. This is a novel that we read aloud in class. I started by planning what themes are within the book and then finding resources based on the themes. I also tried to find tasks from different levels. I have started learning about online Escape Rooms so it will be another challenge to see if I can merge multimodal and escape rooms together.

At the moment, most of my student's reading activities are based around hard copy journals, books, and worksheets. We have just moved into student-directed learning this term so students get assigned reading tasks but they choose when they complete them and tick them off when done. It will be interesting to see how engaged they would be if I created multimodal reading on our class site. My students already prefer being able to work at their own pace and choose their tasks so I am looking forward to seeing how they take this on. I have a wide range of levels within my class so my biggest challenge will be figuring out how to best execute this! I have attached the link to my Google Site about 'New Zealand and War'. This will be a valuable tool for my students to utilise next year when we learn about NZ history.

It will be another challenge to see if I can use Google sites personally as well. Maybe something to do with my painting and printmaking but I will have to see what happens.

Online Toolkits

 Over this past week in lockdown, I have been making the most of online toolkits. I attended three sessions including Taming Testing with Jeremy, Te Reo Māori for the classroom with Makaore, and WeVideo with Cheryl. It was a great way to end my working day and I can see all three toolkits helping me a lot, especially with the situation we are currently in.

Taming Testing 

During this session, we learned how to use google forms to create a test. I was following along with Jeremy while he was explaining so that I could physically do it myself. I also made a copy of Jeremy's spelling test that he created then added soundbites to each question so that students could do the test at home. It will be great to see what other forms of assessment I could create with Google Forms.

Te Reo Māori for the Classroom

I found this session helpful as I could personally see how helpful using Mote will be to teaching Te Reo. I am already starting to use Te Reo more in my classroom as I attend after-school sessions, but this Toolkit showed me how Mote is great for helping with pronunciation. Students could be also using it when they are creating tasks or presentations with Te Reo Māori in it. 

WeVideo

Before this session, I knew a little bit about WeVideo but it was great to be able to touch up on a few extra tips and tricks. This will be extremely helpful as we move into Alert Level 2 and my students will be able to use WeVideo to create assembly videos etc. I had also mentioned in a previous post that I would like my students to use this form of media more. So it will be interesting to see where this goes!

Thanks to Jeremy, Makaore, and Cheryl for hosting these Toolkits.

DFI Week 4- He Mātai Whakamuri

 This morning we learned about the Share Kaupapa of Manaiakalani. This korero made me think about how many opportunities my students have to share their learning. At the moment my students mainly share on their blogs during our Manaiakalani lessons. I want to work on creating more authentic sharing opportunities. Whether this is using our blogs more throughout the week or sharing in other ways.

The biggest take away for my professional development are all the extra tips we learned about Google Sheets. Just little tricks that can make a huge difference and save a lot of time. I liked that you could freeze information so that it stayed put as you moved through large sheets. This will be extremely helpful when I am adding assessment data and do not want to lose the name of the student. I had some idea around using formulas as well but was great to learn a little more especially around creating them and dragging a formula across the sheet. I can't wait to use all of these tricks to make admin and paperwork a bit easier.

It will be great to use Google Sheets as a way for my stduents to share their learning. They learnt a bit about creating graphs from sheets during a Manaiakalani lesson but it would be interesting to see what else they could do. Especially looking at how many views they are getting on their blog from other countries. This will also be a great tool for science fair next year. Attached is a graph that I created from a students blog posts. It shows how many posts they made a month over 5 years. 

Using the My Maps app could be very helpful in my personal life. For example, being able to create an itinerary on a place I am travelling to. By doing this I can seperate them into catergories such as food or activities. I like that you can add extra information and images about a certain place. It can also help to know how far you will need to walk etc.