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!

Visible Learning ... Mind Frames

Improving Practice through Mind-Frames

John Hattie's mind frames have supported me in unpacking my beliefs I hold as a teacher and a leader.

John Hattie believes “that teachers and school leaders who develop these ways of thinking are more likely to have major impacts on student learning.”

The presentation below is how I see myself as a teacher, leader and coach.

DFI- Google Exam ACHIEVED!

Google Exam Achieved!!

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

Boy ... success tastes sweet!

DFI- Collaborative Sites ... Collaborating Life!

Working Smarter / Living Smarter

Using digital technologies to smarten up the way I live and interact with teaching and learning will not only make my life smarter yet the learning more real and connected for the learners and their families.

The class web-page is the beginning of this for my new entrant room as it is a way of sharing the learning for home and school, making it visible for the families and rewindable for the learners. I have created for the first time an assembly page under Term 1 to make the running of the presentation to the school smoother yet sharing it with families earlier would mean the children can practice at home during the week so they are better prepared!

Multi-modal Literacy's - Design ... window dressing ... making the learning inviting ... with the support of Hapara you can give the children focused browsing time where their screens are locked for a selected amount of time so they can only work with the desired work.

 There are so many supports to keep our students safe and to make learning achievable and connectable. The focus on Ipads today introduced the many ways for new learners to record, review and share their thinking with others. 

Explain Everything is the next new skill for our classroom. I look forward to introducing this to our class as I feel it will add value to their thinking and learning and is very shareable for our families. 

We are currently accessing apps on our IPads to support us with letter formation, numeral recognition, subertising and now we will use the Makaiakalani philosophy of CREATE and SHARE.
It is a fabulous feeling to be at a place where technology is supporting me!!

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!!

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 - 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 / 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!