This year offered Emma and I the opportunity to review our entry to school literacy programme and the effectiveness of it in preparation for moving into Year 2.
This has been a valuable experience as it supported us in developing our online planning so that we could better meet the needs of our shared learners.
Together we have built our skills and capacity to do this and are now transferring these skills across our HUB.
We are now asking questions about the most effective way to track assessment using Google Tools and this is a next step for 2020. Manaiakalani have provided me with the skills and knowledge to carryout some of the development and the knowledge and ability to discover how to do what I don't know.
It is all about efficiency for time and effectiveness for progress!
Getting UP-TO-DATE with Technology for me ... for my STUDENTS!
I am fortunate enough to be a part of Professional Development supported by TeAuha from Cognition. This is giving me the opportunity to explore the Technology Curriculum and to be be able to make informed decisions for our teachers, students, their Whanau and our school around the delivery of the Technology Curriculum. This is some of the areas covered today ... tomorrow it's team time with the HUBS.
This is where the government would like our students to be heading in education for the learners in our rooms ...
Relationships remain an integral part of our learners lives. It is important for them to think critically, self management, creativity, engagement and communication are all valuable skills for our learners to develop.
This clip supports us to ...CHANGE OUR MINDS ... CHANGE OUR THINKING! Learning to use the tools available to support them in their learning is important. Knowing if the tools are not required put them away. Learning to be creators is what is wanted ... not consumers of technology yet designers, builders and developers.
Ten years ago this was the research that created the why for TODAY!!
An interesting read Up-Date 26 - this share about how knowledge is constructed and what we know about learners.
Promoting the 'Connected World' is a huge part of the WHY! Teaching the skills of collaboration, team work and co-construction MUST be a deliberate aspect to our classrooms to ready our learners for the future.
Teaching the 21st Century Learners are who we are teaching. Transforming our teaching in an important focus in our practice!
The SAMR Model is a framework created by Dr. Ruben Puentedura that categorizes four different degrees of classroom technology integration. The letters "SAMR" stand for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition
As New Zealand teachers we are very strong in planning for individual needs in our rooms ... all children have individual needs of some kind! Creating 'Inclusive Classrooms' is a very important aspect of practice ... knowing our learners, their whanau and their special characters is a powerful aspect to meeting the needs of ALL!!
The 'Nature of Learning' is a great read to support us into developing our Inquiry into integrating technology into our everyday classroom.
of connecting all to enable strength through collaboration is reflected in the power of blogging! A successful example of this is our DFI groups weekly reflections through our blogs ... this enables us to share our weekly creations. thinking ans skills for others to return to to deepen our thinking and skill!
Google Maps ...
is an underutilised tool in our classrooms and one that can bring the world, our place and our country into the classroom. This is the beginning of My Digital Pepeha supported by Google Maps.
Google forms ...
are an easy and effective way to gather information for a class, school or community. Quick to make and information being easily gathered, aggregated and shared makes this a valuable tool for me as a teacher and leader in our school. Here is a quick sample of aGoogle FormI have made to gather student information for my class.
Google Sheets ...
Google Sheets is an area that at this stage I have not used or had the need to use. I have however discovered Steve Dotto from dottotech on youtube. I have the confidence through DFI to know that if I was required to create a google sheet for a task that I would be able to locate the information I require. In fact ... I have such confidence in Steve that with the skills I have learnt through DFI that I have made a youtube playlist of the relevant clips I require to make the learning more accessible! This is all part of the Manaiakalani philosophy that supports learning being accessible to ...
... Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere!
I have been mindful of the rewindable learning for my students and their families through the use of our class Google Site! I ensure that I share the learning for all to revisit so that they can deepen their understanding, share their learning and show their families their thinking!
Getting my head around the new 'Digital Technology Curriculum' for me is a NOW step. Fortunately we have supported PLD through Cognition.
Listening to Dorothy share with us today of the challenges of equity across our communities is such an eye opener every time. The positives today is thanks to being able to connect digitally we are able to keep our communities connected no matter where they be!
Digital devices are so much more than a tool! They are windows to the world!! Keyboards to collaboration and connection!
The Mindlab
What a fabulous space The Mindlab is to work in. Great to revisit and reconnect. This time round I feel much more digitally proficient and the new learning shared made so much more sense!! I was able to listen to and learn new skills and then adapt them to suit my age group so look our Room 7 Makauri School ... we will be learning to code!!
Playing KAHOOT! was a real heart pounder ... not a good thought when the Google Level One exam is 3 hours of STRESS!!!
Practicing Coding with real live ROBOTS. To achieve this successfully with 5yr olds I would tape the grid on the floor, provide left and right arrows to assist with not knowing left and right while they are learning this. We will explore coding using our Duplo blocks too.
'Lightbot' is an app for the ipad to teach children the beginning of programming. Great for covering the Mathematical terms for left, right, 1/4 turn and 1/2 turn.
Such fun collaborating with a friend ... risk taking and applying new skills is so much easier!!
My first steps to begin the learning of coding is introduce the concept through materials in our room. Creating a grid on the carpet and one on the wall are places I am going to start ... watch this space as I will post pictures of our progress!!
Booking times with The Mindlab for our class is the plan for Term 3 !!
A great step to wean me from Manaiakalani and to keep my skills rolling!!
Next Week ... Google Level One Certification time!!
Recognise, Amplify and Turbocharge ... My teaching buddy and I have redesigned our 'Big Book' planning so that we are able to support each other in the planning and teaching. We are finding that through this plan we are able to collaborate through the google doc, make adaptions to suit the needs of the day as they unfold and keep an electronic trail of the developments and achievements of our students through the process. All these links are shared through our drives and so we can access this at anytime. We are also sharing our electronic plans across our HUB so that we can support each other.
Today my skills with google drawings increased as has my understanding of and ability ... you will notice this wee gem I created on google drawings has been added to this blog. Manaiakalani's kaupapa is all about empowering, challenging and added value to our personal and professional lives digitally and now after 3 sessions I am beginning to feel a little more accomplished!
Thanks to the assistance of a passionate blogging colleague I am also acquiring the skills to begin personalising my blog which I am now becoming more connected to.
I am beginning to add to my google slides skills in which I am creating my digital pepeha. I have added this below so you can see I am very basic at this stage. The great thing about everything connecting is that as I work on impact for my Digital Pepeha in drive it will also update here ... now isn't that clever!!
My challenge that I am continuing to solve is how best to communicate with my families and the purpose of BLOGGING!!
Til next week team...
The hook from heaven is certainly a great description of the value added from the support given by Manaiakalani. The skills I am learning I can see now and in the future as I become more proficient will enable me to learn more with ease and to assist me in becoming digitally fluent.
I now find myself wondering as I go to create and share ... is this the best and most powerful platform to be sharing on or is there a better place. I don't always have the answer yet I am asking the question!
To support my shift from Face-Booking with my families to Blogging I have been introduced to an app ... If This Then That which will push my Blog Post to Facebook.
OOOOOOPS ... while setting up IFTTT ... it was discovered that my blog cannot be pushed to a closed FB page so this is important to be mindful of.
My next goal is to post at least once a week to my class blog and post the link to my class FB page.
My purpose for blogging is to introduce the parents to Blogging so that as their children move through the school and grow into blogging themselves the parents will be more comfortable with this process.
Create, Share, Learn ... I will be using this Inquiry Cycle when I create a video recording using loom to navigate my families through our class webpage, Share it on my class blog and then the families can use it to learn how to get the best from our webpage ... Greedy Cat Learns. This week I have been introducing our set of iPads to the children as learning tools. To begin with, the children shared what they know about iPads and then a rule they have when using iPads. This was a very interesting conversation to be part of. On our class FB page I then asked the parents to share a rule they have at home for their children with iPads. I am now gaining an insight to where the families are at in iPad and device usage. The next step is for the class together to create our rules for iPad usage in our class.
A huge personal gain for me today has been around gmail and my organisation ... a goal is to clear my screen by next week ... 974 unmarked emails to now find homes! Google Keep is going to revolutionise my alerts, reminders and list making on both my phone and my laptop!
I am loving extensions ... knowing how to find them, add them and organise them. So this along with the bookmark bar are my new BEST organisational tools supported by One Tab!
Bring on Next Week ... ERO are visiting ans I am so READY!
Today the pace was intense for new learning ... yet at the start we were informed ... this is Digital Intensive, not Digital Retreat! Manaiakalani is about increasing outcomes for children, raising achievement and creating equality for all! I have learnt so many new skills to include in my practice from ... talk to text, managing My Drive, organising HUB minutes, add-ons and so much more! 'Talk to text' is a skill that I most certainly will include into my 'New Entrant Reading Programme'. Discovering how to make Docs an attractive document is definitely a skill that has a far greater capacity than I realised! The Google skills I have been introduced to today will definitely enable me to be more confident and efficient in my personal and professional life!
This is our fabulous learning team for Term One / we are joined by 11 new learners in Term Two.
