DFI Week 9

DFI Week 9 - Final thoughts and reflections. 

Today was our last session of our "official DFI", there have been so many valuable life learnings, teaching tips and technology based tips that I have taken away from this experience. I feel that during my time I have pushed myself outside of my comfort zone on a weekly basis, not to mention the abundance of support and knowledge that I have been privileged enough to acquire through this experience. 

When I started my DFI journey I was apprehensive as I work in a junior classroom and I was slightly intimidated as I do not have the same experience level as some of the other participants with Google and chrome books, however through the learning process I found myself adapting and ensuring that I was relating the valuable learnings to my every day teaching practise. I was experimenting more with google tools, iPas apps, the LCS pedagogy, you name it I was trying it. I found my confidence growing with every session which was a great reminder that even though I am technically a teacher I was in the exact same position that my learners were in on a daily basis. 

I feel my understanding of the Maniakalani pedagogy has grown exponentially through this experience, I find myself being an instigator with my colleagues about how we can implement more of the things I have been exposed to through this DFI experience. Moving forward I wish to continue to develop and perfect many of the skills I have learnt. I especially want to introduce more computational thinking into my classroom and will endeavour to do so. 

DFI Week 8

DFI Week 8

What does it mean to be empowered?

The term 'empowered' can take on various different meanings, in today's session it was used in the context of the learner which was extremely appropriate and provoked a lot of thoughts and wonderings. It was discussed that being empowered in a sense means taking back of their own lives- in essence putting themselves in the drivers seat and making a conscious decision about moving forward and making decisions.  

The slide below outlines how technology can be used to enhance empowerment, not only with the students in our class but the wider community. 

I really enjoyed listening to Dorothy discuss the statistics around many hearth breaking real life situations that many New Zealander's are dealing with on a daily basis. It was a prime example of how dis empowered people can become, and for good reason! Many of these situations are unavoidable and are out of the control of the individual due to many external factors. It was a good reminder that money can't buy happiness but it does help relieve some of those pressures that many people in our country face.  

Computational Thinking

Later in the session we began to investigate computational thinking and how we can implement it in our classroom, it was very interesting listening to Kerry address the key components of what computational thinking actually is. My past experiences with coding and this way of thinking have been very limited so it was a great opportunity for me to listen and gain knowledge that I could take back and implement in my teaching programme. Truth be told I actually found the whole coding experience extremely challenging and it highlighted that this is an area where I need to develop skills in. I was however very aware that in today's world it is essential that our children are going to need a solid foundation in computational thinking, coding and understanding algorithms. 

Overall I found parts of todays session challenging but it was great to unpack and further my understanding of computational thinking. 

Week 7 - DFI

Week 7 - DFI 

Unpacking what it means to be 'Cybersmart' 

During todays session we discussed the purpose of being cybersmart. What does it mean? why is it so important? Can we not just hand our learners a device and trust that they will know what to do? The answer is NO! We need to take charge and think about how we are going to empower our learners to make smart decisions in an online setting. We are here to intentionally support the students by giving them the correct tools to manage themselves. 

The key words discussed were; power, positive and proactive language. It is so important that we focus on the positive language and empower the learners to take control of that language. It gives the feeling that we are in charge and hold the power to make the right decisions and that sits with the user. The need to be cybersmart is Embedded in the Maniakalani goals - being cybersmart empowers our learners and they learn to make smart decisions, it combines to create their own digital footprint. I found the content of the session very valuable and it allowed me to reflect on my own practice and think about how I deliver my cybersmart curriculum to my students. Am I assuming too much? I will be taking many of the key points discussed and be implementing them into my classroom.

The second half of the day we focused on developing skills on the chromebook and iPad, I found it extremely challenging to put myself in the position of the learner, it was a very vulnerable, confusing place to be. It was another reminder that we should not assume or take for granted that our learners know everything about how a chromebook works. There were lots of tips and tricks that I had not seen before which made the session very beneficial.

I enjoyed the iPad section because I work in a digital 1-1 class with iPads. Explain everything is a wonderful tool and it was great to have some time to create a learning task that relates directly to the children in my class.

In essence there were many valuable learning opportunities presented throughout the DFI today which I will reflect on and implement in my classroom in the future.

Week 6 - DFI

Week 6 - Reflection 

Connection- What does it mean to be connected?

Week 6 was another very busy week back on the DFI front. We began the day further unpacking the Maniakalani pedagogy and reflecting on what it means to be connected in the school setting. It was very interesting to listen to all the ways in which Learn Create Share can be used in various different contexts, it was also good to discuss the ways in which digital technology is used to turbo charge learning for our students.
Another key point that I took away was the modern affordances of digital technology in schools allow us to connect with our parents and our wider community. I really enjoyed listening to Dorothy discuss the idea that we need to make the teaching and learning visible in order to get parents connected and on board with their child's learning. The analogy about if we want to turn parents off and push them away from being interested in what they are doing at school then send home a whole bunch of passwords and login details. This really resonated with me as I have been working really hard to stream line things for my parents and not bombard them with lots of expectations post lockdown.
The key points I took away from the mornings session were to keep things simple, engage with the parents and make it enticing for them and don't make it harder than it needs to be.

The rest of the day was spent further exploring Google sites, we navigated our way through everyone in our groups site. We then had to complete a google form and give feedback, I found this extremely useful as I was able to access a variety junior sites and look at the different resources they were using.
I spent the rest of the day updating my site and applying the feedback I had been given. I worked on adding in more content to my maths page, ensuring that it only took three clicks to get somewhere. My next step is to introduce my lower reading groups to multi-modal reading on my site.

I really appreciated the slower pace of this weeks session, it gave me time to catch my breath and I enjoyed the time spent on my site making it more inviting for my learners.

Week 5 - DFI

Week 5 - Reflection

Multi Modal - "The hook"

Today's morning session was one of my favourite deep dives to date, I am currently focusing on the multi modal approach in reading for my TAI and I found myself reflecting on my journey with this concept and I felt extremely excited about the direction it is heading. I am seeing a huge increase in engagement from my students, I cannot wait to take my learnings back to the classroom and expand on what I am already doing. Some key points that really stood out to me were.

- Engage the students, personalise it, scaffold, delivering communication directly to the learner.

- It is so important how we communicate and how we receive the information.

- Engagement, personalised learning (students take control) acceleration, empowerment (drivers of their own learning).

- We are in the 21st century we need to get with it and sell the meaning of learning, sell the love of learning to the students.

- The novelty of the device wears off and we need to manage the pedagogy.

Visibility

Another area in which I really enjoyed diving deeper into was discussing the topic of visibility. This is something that I have been working really hard to ensure that I am achieving with my students through my class site. It really hit home to me when Dorothy discussed how historically the children who could read the teachers mind were the ones who succeeded. It was really alarming to me how true this is even in todays 'modern classroom' set up. It really made me reflect on how everything needs to be visible and scaffolded for all learners so that each and everyone can experience success with their learning. Some key points that I will be taking back to my classroom are.

- If you can't see it, its not visible. It needs to be visible to everyone. colleagues, students and whanau.

- The use of the word 'murky' intrigued me, we have hidden things from the parents etc so they don't have the ability to see the learning journey. We need to get rid of this fear of sharing our planning with others. What's the point in hiding it?

- It is about accelerating teaching and learning. We want to change the outcomes of the lives of our little people. Every child should have the luxury of the learning journey in front of them. Make it accessible and rewindable.

- If you want to disempower learners then keep choosing the kids who can read your mind. This needs to change!

During the second half of todays session we focused largely on google sites. It was a great opportunity to practice the skills I had learnt over the years and it defiantly gave me a few extra tricks and strategies to use. I felt empowered as an educator as I listened to the facilitators talk us through what appeals to students and as they went over many ways to ensure that our class sites are user friendly. We had to opportunity to create a google site from scratch and broke off into groups to create a user friendly site that contains meaningful content for our learners to access. I have come away from today's session really eager to update my site and implement many of the tips and tricks I had the privilege of learning today.

Here is a link to the demo site I created today to practice my multimodal set up for reading. I am already following a similar format on my own class site but it was great to get some fresh new ideas.

Kate Hanson

DFI - Week 4

Week 4 - Reflection

Today's session was absolutely jam packed with lots of information that was very interesting and pushed me outside of my comfort zone, again reminding me of what my students feel on a daily basis.

During the morning session Dorothy was discussing the 'Share' aspect of LCS. It was bought to the forefront of the conversation that typically this is the aspect of the pedagogy is often rushed and over looked. I think this is due to the fact that as teachers we are always saying, "oh we have run out of time, we will finish that on Friday, oh I will do that next week"......Sound familiar? It was a great moment for a self reflection and prompted me to think about ways I can ensure that I am always allowing my kids to share, even if its not the finished product. It also got me thinking about all the different ways there are to share. I feel that since I now have the affordances of technology in my class with having 1-1 iPads, I have definitely been looking for more opportunities to share the "works in progress" phase of my students learning and not to be so focused on the finished product. I think it also made me realise that we are often in a rush to get things done and put external pressure on ourselves to achieve to a high standard at all times, which obviously isn't possible to do all the time.

I found the 'Chalk and Talk' on how to create a Google Form extremely valuable as it is not something I had ever done before and is something I can see myself using in the future with my students, I can see it making collecting information very easy and stress free. In the past I have completed Google forms for colleagues etc but I have never had to create one of my own. I had lots of fun creating my form.

I must admit I was extremely nervous to tap into Google Sheets as it is not an area that I am confident in. However, I approached the session with a positive attitude and found myself actually really enjoying learning the new content. Although I don't have a huge need to use Google Sheets in my everyday teaching it was a great opportunity to learn the basics and gain some confidence. It was a great tip to learn how to generate graphs from the data that had been entered! Check out my analysis below.

I had no idea that it was possible. We also covered Google Maps which was a great introduction to a tool that I had never explored before. I don't think its something I will use very often with my students but it is a great tool to know a little about.

In essence I feel that todays session was very valuable and I got a lot more out of the session than I perhaps had expected. Allowing myself to be vulnerable and remaining calm definitely helped ensure I had another great week on the DFI journey.

DFI - Week 3 - Food for thought...

Week 3 was another concentrated dose of Maniakalani medicine! 

This week we started off by discussing the "Create" aspect of Learn, Create, Share. It become very obvious that the ability to create and to be creative underpins everything. In order to create, you are learning, whether it is through activating prior knowledge or,  a learn as you go philosophy it is always present. In essence it is human nature to want to create and that we get joy from doing so.

I was provoked to reflect and think about the opportunities I give my students within my classroom to create. Do I give them enough time to get things finished when they are creating? Am I providing a n authentic learning context? Am I allowing them to use as many tools as possible and not restricting their imaginations? As the session progressed I found comfort in what Dorothy was discussing. She reflected on days gone by when children were outside creating and exploring all the time.

One point that really stuck with me like super glue, was as toddlers we are always encouraged to be creative and be creating all the time. However as children get older and begin school at 5 it's almost like we expect them to conform and become robots who just regurgitate information that they are told.  I pondered this for a long time and will be looking at ways to ensure that this doesn't become something I come to expect from children in my class. I came to the conclusion that being creative, and allowing students to create will always be at the forefront of my pedagogy.

The second half of the session was extremely hands on, we covered Youtube and learnt how to set up our own account, we were given an opportunity to create an about me profile for our professional blogs (look to the right).

I selected a break out course in the afternoon which looked at Google Slides in depth. It was extremely valuable! I am familiar with slides and all my planning is done via slides but it was a great refresher and an in depth tutorial on how to present things in a much more aesthetically pleasing way.

I had a go at creating my Pepeha using the template provided. It is not perfect! But it is where I am at with my Te reo journey so far.



Thanks for reading.
Kate.