Accelerated Literacy Learning

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!

Manaiakalani Wananga -2019

A two day journey through the impact that Manaiakalani has in education.

'The Manaiakalani Programme'

Digital Fluency / Accelerated Outcomes

An intentional, focused, evidence-based programme to support your community of learning move from the analogue world to the digital world 

Increasing teacher effectiveness and accelerating learning outcomes in this digital environment.

Day One ... we visited two schools on the Manaiakalani Journey ... seeing children in action.

"Desperation into Admiration" - the future for our children

This is the difference that comes for Manaiakalani being involved in our community, our learning, our education!

How fortunate are we to be a part of this outreach programme that is changing lives, adding value and making the world a better place for all learners.

Through Manaiakalani we not only make the future for our learners brighter yet ours also! 

Young people who are:

“confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners”

NZC 2017

Who are instructional Leaders?

'All who exercise influence to make a positive difference'

Vivianne Robinson 2011

'Learn, Create, Share'

Our mantra that is the focus of our delivery in the class to make learning for the children more authentic and to increase student agency!

It is through this model that my own learning and skill in ICT for the betterment of my teaching world, my learning world and my personal world is developing!

SHMOOSHED - A new word that means just as it sounds.

With the support of the partnership between Manaiakalani and Wolf Fisher we have the benefit of gather, sharing and analysing data in such a way that we can build on and improve the learning outcomes for all students. Together we can learn to make the most of all learning opportunities.

From the data gathered overtime the investigation into BEST practice is now benefiting us all! The breakdown of the data- the findings have assisted us in identification of these elements that make the difference to not just learning yet acceleration.

Just as we set deliberate acts of learning for our students we can also foster this for our teachers in order to make change and to increase acceleration and achievement for our students. Manaiakalani and Wolf Fisher have identified the strengths and weaknesses across our cluster and it now our responsibility to respond to this proactively and to change our practice. Robust discussions in our schools and across our cluster will support this change.

This statement may seem logical yet is it intentionally part of my daily teaching? If not it soon will be!!

Collaboration ... must be part of the reading process and reading is a language based activity and discussion will strengthen the outcomes! 

Student Agency- learners selecting the text to read and the way they will share their findings increases engagement which will increase ability.

A HUGE bonus today was our opportunities to talk in groups across not only clusters yet also the regions ... this has been very powerful to bring to light where we are at in our clusters and that we share the same challenges and having them openly discussed and solutions offered has been so valuable ... learning from clusters that a five years down the track is brilliant

As in writing ... when our focus moved from teaching surface features to focusing on the deep features acceleration occurred ... we now need to shift our teaching focus in reading the same way. Is this the time to increase mine and other teachers understanding of  Reading ... to unpack it just as we did for writing, to develop the language of reading ... to move away from teaching to the level to teaching to the need ... to also ignite our own passion for reading.

T-Shaped Reading is a researched initiative that is well supported as BEST practice by Manaiakalani and supported by Wolf Fisher research data.

Thank goodness Manaiakalani is rewindable as we were given the privileged of listening to innovative teachers that are excelling in their delivery! Each delivery ... 6 minutes long!

MIT- Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers

What do I feel has possibly been lost over time that supports learning and acceleration?

• The Tuakana-Teina philosophy - the planned and formal inclusion of this has faded in our school yet can it be just as powerful when we foster and encourage it as a way of being in our school and for us to encourage the philosophy across the school in order to build relationships, develop confidence and mana within all our students across the curriculum.
• Ubiquitous - "presence everywhere or in many places simultaneously."
• Provocation - 'something that stimulates' ... excitement, instigation, incitement

Investigate ... 

SOLO - 

DIMIC - Developing the Mathematics Inquiry Community ... NZMATHS

Let's celebrate brave and committed leadership

We are not here to keep you happy in your misery

Pat Snedden

Instructional Leadership

What am I going to do as a leader to make shifts happen?

How am I going to lead our teachers to make the change to accelerate achievement?

Raise teacher understanding so that they rekindle their passion for doing what we love ... increase our pedagogy. 

Today has inspired me to believe more in what we can do as a teaching profession through collaboration with our colleagues.

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." – Helen Keller

DFI- Google Exam ACHIEVED!

Google Exam Achieved!!

The tension was real ... 2nd time round and panic had set in!!

Boy ... success tastes sweet!

DFI- The Data Deal

The Data Deal

The Manaiakalani ethos ...

 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 a Google Form I 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!

DFI - The Final Frontier - Week Nine

Revision

Today was all about reviewing the distance traveled after Nine INTENSIVE weeks of ICT learning. The Manaiakalani kaupapa of making learning visible, rewindable and equitable has certainly been reflected for me in the past few weeks as I have built up to taking on an exam.

I was able to use the skills that this DFI has taught me to view youtube, rewind skills taught in prior focuses and to save information all in readiness to sit the Google Level One exam! While not achieving the exam this time I am certainly close enough to had a resit in 14 days time. The challenge was real and my efforts stellar!!

I have learnt that learning is never ending and with the support of GOOGLE and a network of colleagues every challenge is achievable ... if not at first most certainly soon after!!

I learnt that the struggle is where the learning takes place and it is through the struggle that we achieve. It has been too long since I was last challenged in the way that I expect my learners to be challenged and this was a good feeling and a timely reminder how good ... no great ... achieving feels after the struggle!!

The skills I have learnt in applying the different tools and apps to assist me in keeping order in a busy life have been invaluable. Thanks to a fantastic SMART phone support, advice, planning, assessment and lists is never far away. Sharing across many devices and with teaching colleagues life is certainly much SMARTER!
 These pictures are a reflection from last weeks learning where I introduced my class of 5 year olds to CODING UNPLUGGED! Such fun ... I could see so many curriculum skills being covered as well as collaboration and communication. The list of learning skills was endless!!

A HUGE thank you to our fabulously patient and knowledgeable facilitators Maria, Amie, Step and Herman. Meeting new faces and learning partners has also been a highlight of the DFI experience!!

Computational Thinking ... Where will it take ME?

My Digital Journey

Magic Moments at 

Gisborne Mindlab

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!!

DFI - Daring to Dabble with Devices

Digitally Smart- Cyber Smart ... skills for life!

The Cyber Smart curriculum enables us to learn the skills to keep ourselves. When we teach learners to be Cyber Smart it takes away the opportunity to be UNKIND to others.
Using the Cyber Smart slides we explored the importance of Being Cyber Smart. Using Screencastify I created a video to share the learning around our 'Digital Footprint'.
Thanks to my new learning skills becoming part of who I am I now as I am more confident with HTML i have embedded my video, moved it around and added breaks.

Our online footprint ... what is my profile like? Watch this clip below to see how we would explore this with our students at school.

Hapara

A fabulous way to ease the monitoring and managing of students on devices. I can see current work, shared work, stored work and where the children have been on devices both at home and school Emails can be seen, passwords reset for the children and group emails sent to the children. This is a service that will support me once I have moved into 1-1 Devices with my class on ipads. This is tool I can see will enable me as a teacher to ensure that my students are being Cyber Smart! I will also be able to see all the children' ipads at once on my screen so at a glance can see where they are all working. I will be able to see their folders also to ensure that they have saved their work accurately.
The image below is a little something to think about and reinforces the purpose behind all our students using Chrome Books and encouraged by Manaiakalani. Manaiakalani carry out trials in classroom to ensure that we are using the best and most up-to-date devices! 

Explain Everything

This is an app for our ipads that I have been wanting to become more familiar with as it is highly recommended by Manaiakalani as a tool for Years 1-3 to use to share their thinking. I believe as I become more confident in this app that I will be able to create activities for the children to work with during learning time.

In my personal life gaining the knowledge and supporting information provided by Manaiakalani in SLIDES around Cyber Smart will help me to check my digital footprint and ensure that I am portrayed in a professional manner. 
I am also very excited about the fact that I am gaining the skills and practices of the Learn, Create, Share with Manaiakalani ahead of time before 2020 when my students and I will be supported in the 1-1 Device Programme.

Taming the RAT ...

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.

DFI - Connecting with Each Other

Connecting with 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...

DFI - My Inbox is Clean!

My Inbox is Clean!!

Done and dusted thanks to GOOGLE! I have finally cleared my inbox and my gmail is as fresh as a daisy!

Photo Credit: Joanne Mador 2014

DFI - Poster Design

Designing Posters - Using Black

Loving putting the new skills into practice that Manaiakalani are teaching me on the 'Intensive Course' ... 

Black fill in the table and selecting a bright page colour make all the difference!

As Robert Browning said ...  "Less is more".

DFI - Day Two - Untangling the Line!

Day Two

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!

DFI / My Nine Week Digital Journey

 Friday 1 March saw me leap onto a new and exciting digital learning journey provided by and supported by Manaiakalani. I am aiming to sit the Google Level One exam at the end of this nine week journey so to have my newly gained skills recognised!



This 9 week programme has been designed to meet these four key goals within a professional learning group.

1. Our teachers are supported to acquire fluency using the basic tools our young people use for learning
2. Our teachers are supported to acquire fluency using the basic tools required for effective teaching, planning, assessment and professional learning
3. Our teachers are supported to understand how digital technologies used effectively can have a significant impact on accelerating achievement outcomes
4. Our teachers are supported to understand how the Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa has been co-constructed over more than a decade to maximise the impact of effective teaching and learning in a digital learning environment.

Each week I will be focusing on these four key areas to reflect on the learning covered, introduced and acquired and how it will impact on me both professionally and personally!

Digital Fluency Intensive - Becoming Digitally Enhanced!

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.