DFI 2021 Week 9

Well, what a wild ride! It's been like a roller coaster, with some parts zooming around at break-neck speed and others going slow, so I can look around and enjoy the time. It has definitely been exhilarating!

I wish that all schools with the need could have access to Manaiakalani and the possibility of being part of an Outreach cluster. I also wish that all teachers had the opportunity to participate in this PLD programme.

It's reminded me of what I think is important about learning and teaching and given me time to reflect on how much education has changed since I started out in the classroom.

When I look at school and class sites I now have a greater appreciation for what sits behind what we see. I am definitely conscious of the 'three click' guide when I am on websites, particularly PLD sites that seem to take me down a merry path to get the information I want.

I also create and look at presentations with a more critical eye - what is the key information and how is it presented? I recently shared a presentation from the Teaching Council with my staff and two of them noted the amount of information on single slides. We then discussed what we would do.

I know that often we do PLD, then get caught up with the 'busyness of work'. I will certainly make use of what I have learned. I've already started changing and adapting how I work, to incorporate what I have learned.

I still have lots of 'techie' questions, for example, why does the new blog post always start with a letter indent? Does it only happen when I transfer a previous post? I guess I will find out.

Will I continue to add to this blog? What will I blog about? Would it be a good forum for my sabbatical wonderings, learnings and musings? I guess I will find out.

I'd love to do the DFI again; maybe dip in and out in the areas I want to learn more about.

A huge thanks to the Ako Hiko Education Trust for enabling our Ako Hiko teachers to participate in this PLD. As I've said before, I'm very grateful to have had this opportunity. A huge thanks also to everyone who has shared their time and expertise to help make this a very positive learning experience. 😀

DFI 2021 Week 8

I got very excited about today's learning. I've spent a lot of today emailing our teachers asking them if they have tried the options that have been shared with us.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Empowered - communities having a voice and having choice.

I agree that connectivity in every home is a need now and should be supported by the government. I also agree that in some of our communities 'agency' has negative connotations.

I think I agree with Bill Gates' comment that tech is 'just a tool'. I think it is a transformative tool of 'this' time. I also think pen and paper were transformative tools initially too.

I feel very strongly about the 'working poor'. These are people who work incredibly hard, often with multiple jobs, but they just can't get ahead. The 'system' seems to be set up to thwart them at every turn. Their hard work needs to be recognised and supported by the government.

The results from the Starship testing that correlated with the SEA data on children from decile one schools really surprised me - that their mean performance, both academically and physiologically was equivalent to a 3 yo. It made me think of the Dunedin study, when they looked into 'nature versus nurture' and found trauma in early childhood had a lasting effect on people genetically (I'm simplifying it, I know).

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I've realised how frustrating it can be when people say 'play'. I do it frequently myself. I tell both students and staff to 'have a go' and 'find out' what something can do. What I didn't realise is how important it is to have some kind of a foundation on which to explore. When I got a couple of tips on Scratch it made such a difference to how I could explore and 'play'. With no foundations the experience can be incredibly off-putting (when it should be fun and exciting!). 

It's important that students have opportunities to be innovative designers and creators of digital solutions. How do we do that? Do we give them these opportunities? It makes me think of PLD and trying to make the school or the students fit the model. It just doesn't work! We have to change how we work, not try to fit our digital workspace to the traditional model.

'Kua tangata whenua ki te ao matihiko'. For our children to be 'at home in a digital world' they need to have a voice. How do we give them that voice?

Thank you to Manaiakalani for looking at how the Cybersmart Curriculum aligns to the new POs in the DTHM. 

Thanks for the link of POs 'decoded for learners'. 

Questions I have:

The questions I've asked above will add to our curriculum review.

As teachers do we have conversations with our students with five or more interactions? Do we allow time in our programmes for children to have these interactions with each other? Do we provide learning experiences and vocab to support these conversations?

What did I learn that could be used with my staff?

I would like our teachers to have 5+ interaction conversations with their ENGAGE target students.

I've emailed my teachers asking them if they have used the Moral Machine activity. It could be a part of our P4C programme.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

I think my learners can probably do a workshop with me on Scratch. I may see who is reasonably confident with it and ask them to work with me as a SODA task.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I need to remember to use the Explore button to find something quickly eg an image.

DFI is definitely very empowering for educators, supporting us (in a ubiquitous way), very quickly in a wide range of aspects 😀

DFI 2021 Week 7

Today reminded me about how good I am at putting things into or considering things in silos. It was also about applying my new learning to what is relevant for me. It was great to build on the knowledge that I've learned in previous weeks and being able to apply it in an authentic context.

Using the iPad reinforced how frustrated I get when I 'don't know what I don't know'.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Our students love using the term 'ubiquitous'. It reminds me that kids love language and love using 'big words'. I had a class that loved using 'metacognition' and would throw it into a sentence whenever they could.

Ubiquitous learning helps students to have ownership of their learning; being empowered to continue or extend their learning outside of school at a time that works for them is so important.

It astounded me that children in low decile schools arrive at school at 5yo having heard 30 000 000 less words than children in high decile schools, and that it is the same no matter what the language is. Is it the same across the world? Is it linked to poverty in general, as it appears to be? Is it the same for the dominant culture in countries?

I was also surprised that the 'summer dip' isn't just a New Zealand problem. I knew that in the US they have 'summer school', but I never thought about it in terms of their student achievement after their long holiday (which is much longer than ours). I'm really good at 'siloing'! The Summer Learning Journey is fabulous!

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I have so much more to learn, but I feel much more confident having had a second session thinking about sites and our website. I have started a slide deck with photos that I will add a Screencastify voiceover to. I'm wanting to use it for students to introduce our school.

The Cybersmart curriculum is definitely embedded in how we work. Having the 10 categories with lessons, LOs, etc is such a great resource!

This whakatauki sums up our students so well - 'at home in a digital world', 'kua tangata whenua ki te ao matihiko'. As our students get older they understand being Cybersmart is something they will take with them through life, not just use at school and that it will help them when navigating through social media.

I really like how LCS is weaved into the Cybersmart curriculum as well. It is another opportunity for us to reflect on how we use LCS, maybe without even realising it. We've found using LCS is a great tool for inquiring into our practice!

I liked that the Treaty principles of partnership, participation and protection are focussed on in the iceberg analogy. I believe they make a strong foundation for a school curriculum.  

The digital dig using a Chromebook was good because I realised I know quite a few shortcuts. Even though I use a Mac, the shortcuts are basically the same. 

Questions I have:

We all know about positive, helpful, thoughtful comments, but are the posters up on the walls in classes? Would the students like the posters to be up there to refer to?

Do our classes do the digital dig?

What are the key messages on our website? What is being highlighted that isn't intentional?

How can I utilise Screencastify?

Is it time we discuss having 1:1 iPads from our NE-Y1 class? Cybersmart and iPads are integrated in this class. I think we keep it 1:1 from Y2, but I'm keen to hear what the staff think.

What did I learn that could be used with my staff?

We are looking at how the principles of partnership, participation and protection underpin our school curriculum and how important these principles are as foundations.

As part of our school curriculum review we will look at our Cybersmart overview with the one on slide 9.

I have staff who love using Explain Everything. I need to talk to them and find out why.

The leadership team have discussed how we can use Screencastify to communicate our graduate profiles - from the junior school and from the senior school. I'm quite excited about that. It also links to one of our Kāhui Ako goals.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

I want to talk the students about what they think this means: 'whenever we share online it's personal, it's visible and it's amplified'. I'm also going to ask our seniors if they know what A4 is, then we will discuss it further.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I didn't know about the Chrome tab shortcuts and I know I will find them very useful.

I'm also really pleased that I've managed to have all the text on the blog the same size. Even though I chose the same font and small in previous weeks, some parts are larger than others. Not being able to fix it is quite frustrating.

A huge thanks to Makaore for his patience and his resilience working with me this week, particularly when I got frustrated with trying to make Explain Everything work on the iPad 😀

DFI 2021 Week 6

Today has been so much less pressure! The pace has been much slower. It's been great! There has actually been time to breathe and consolidate what we have been learning. It's refreshing to finish the day with energy and not feel frazzled.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

The default for being connected is visible - all want to share. To make a connection, both parties need to share.

I found out that RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. I always wondered what it stood for, but not enough to find out. I think I thought it would be jargon I wouldn't understand, but there you go.

Tuhi mai, tuhi atu is a great programme. All our classes that have done it have really enjoyed it. I recommend it.

I really like how Manaiakalani makes everything so accessible, especially for whānau, wherever they might be in the world. 

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I have so much appreciation for what goes into class sites. I can look at them now with more understanding. 

I took the opportunity we had to work on sites to look at our school website. It definitely needs updating. It was good to spend time looking at what content we had, how relevant it still was and what needs to change to make it more 'user friendly'. I've also updated some content on our existing site.

I've made a copy of our existing site and converted it to new Sites. As I suspected, much of it will need reformatting. This is a great opportunity for me to have a purposeful play in preparation for when we will have to change our website to the new Sites format. I've started a plan. 

It was great to look at the other two websites in our group that have used the new Sites. Thanks Jonathan and Perrie. It's made me conscious of how much scrolling is needed to access some of the information on our site, especially on our front page!! I love that we have easy buttons now! I need to think about the purpose and suitability of dropdown menus and buttons.

The blogger tips were really good. Knowing how to control spam comments is very useful. I didn't even know 'spam blog comments' were a thing.

Questions I have:

How can we make our school website multi-modal? Instead of a home page blurb could I do a voiceover with images of our school and our students?

What can we do if we can't get an image of our artists' art from creative commons or other similar places? Would it be ethical to take a screenshot? Would it be a nice way to make contact with the artist (if they are still alive) to ask them if we could put a particular image of their art on our site this year as they have been chosen to be a class artist?

What did I learn that could be used with my staff?

I really liked the sites feedback form and I think it would be a good exercise for our teachers to do, especially after the learning we did with Phil on class sites earlier this term. They could fill in the form to analyse their own site and people could choose a partner to do reciprocal feedback on as part of their professional growth cycle.

I'm going to talk to everyone about us putting our pepeha as a link from our names on our school site.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

I look forward to integrating what I've learned on a multimodal site for my maths class. For example having questions in a form, YouTube video and/or song, ARBs. I still have my partially constructed site.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I'll keep the three click rule in mind for any sites I go to now.

I spoke to a couple of friends who couldn't understand, with all our 'busyness' why I was doing this. Sometimes, when I have meeting after meeting after meeting I also wonder, but it is opening my mind up to new understanding and helping me think of new possibilities about how my teachers teach and how my learners learn. Now. Not in the future, now. I felt it was time I tried to catch up.

Thanks everyone for this great opportunity 😀

DFI 2021 Week 5

The DFI has so much good learning! I began the day having slid into the learning pit. I've had some success today and I feel like I'm levelling out.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Teaching and learning is visible, not just learning
4 elements - visible to learner, whānau, teacher, colleagues
We fail when we keep the learning journey hidden. How much of the learning journey have we kept hidden? Hidden from the learners? Hidden from the whānau?
How many of our parents have experienced success at school? - cultural capital

The intentional use of technology to make learning visible - the whole learning journey; the learner is at the centre and each part of the process is visible: the planning, process, outcomes, assessment
No surprises - accessible, available and visible in advance (before it is needed).

Teacher can open up Hapara and everything the child has done is visible - also visible to others eg leadership team, principal, other teachers, RTLB, etc.

Slide 16 - are any of our Ako Hiko teachers wanting to be Class OnAir teachers? https://classonair.manaiakalani.org/

For passwords - what do we use passwords for? Are they necessary? Are they stopping access? Are they stopping equitable access to learning?

Slide 26 - acceleration - in a Maniakalani school if a child is there for three years, the gain in writing was twice what was expected nationally. This means that on average these students made one more year’s progress above the expected rate per year if they were there for three years.

We are tracking our students from entry to exit. We are noticing that in the last three years our WFRC data has started and finished at a higher level than previously. This indicates our strategies are working.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I've learned lots! Again! I've taken lots of notes, but a couple of points from the multimodal sites presentation are:

• Personalised learning - at the heart of multimodal learning; caters for all different types of learners; default isn’t the teacher and no default learner; engaging chn behaviourally (multimodal design) then engaging them cognitively (multi-textural design eg t-shaped literacy)
• Engagement - the hook; process of learning should excite and captivate them; learners actively involved in their learning; learning should be engaging with or without the T being present; part of our job is selling the love of learning; home page of our class site reflects teacher, school, learners; can our sts see themselves reflected on the the class site? It needs to be what is currently being learned now, not old work; the home page is our shop front window, is prime real estate; is our content engaging in a way that hooks them in and engages them in their learning?

Someone has put a huge amount of effort into the Tree Octopus website. It is stunning!

Things are starting to come together. It's really good being able to utilise, practice and build on what I have learned in previous days to new learning and new contexts.

I've found that if I take a screenshot it is saved as a png. I can then add a link and insert that image from a drawing to the site. It is very easy. Yay!

Thanks for your help Vicki with an idea for context for multimodal learning. As a visual learner I found sketching a basic outline for a site helped with ideas for content. I even managed to complete a (very!) basic site.

It will be great to be able to edit, add and remove content from our school website, rather than having to rely on others.

Questions I have:

Is it possible to embed a site? If it is, where do I go to get the html info to put into the blog? Is it possible to embed a form into a multimodal site?

What did I learn that could be used with my staff?

I've already emailed staff to see if they have used the multimodal spreadsheet. I will encourage them to add content to it.

I will have a much more critical eye when I look at the class sites from now on. I will be able to understand what sits behind how great the sites look and I will be able to give much more specific feedback.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

I look forward to integrating what I've learned on a multimodal site for my maths class. For example having questions in a form, YouTube video and/or song, ARBs.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Maybe I take time this week to be cognisant of how and where I use digital tech outside of work as I didn't do it last week.

It was full on, but I found it much easier this week because there were multiple presentations linked to the new learning.

Once again a huge thanks to the very patient facilitators who have helped me today 😀

DFI 2021 Week 4

So, I have all this 'stuff' jumbling around in my head - useful stuff - very useful stuff! I hope documenting it will help me to organise, categorise and make sense of it.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Share - Tohatoha

Social media changed the speed and amplification of sharing

Manaiakalani started in 2006 - understood harnessing technology for this speed and amplification of sharing was a hook for students

An authentic audience chooses to listen to you - they have the power to move on when they want

The Manaiakalani prog focusses on the positive

A blog is a portfolio

Fiona Grant - ‘Don’t say, “I’m finished.” Say, “I’m ready to share.”’

Sharing can be a starting place for new learning - LCS isn’t linear; it can start at any point

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I've learned lots! I've learned about Forms, Maps and Spreadsheets. I've learned that the three dots have important information lurking behind them.

I really like that forms can have a range of questions. We want to give our students lots of practice with multichoice questions and this is a great way to do it. I like that text and pictures can be embedded into the form. I created a simple form about some favourite things. Thanks everyone for their ideas about how to use forms. I thought Jeremy's idea about using a form for completing, marking and analysing Schonell spelling was really useful.

I'd never heard of MyMap before today! I really like the different views you can choose. I decided to create a map of all the places I've lived.

With my newly learned skills, I'm really looking forward to using Sheets to analyse our data. I've used them for creating graphs, but not to manipulate the data. The slides with the animations are a great rewindable resource! Sparkline was completely new to me. I did a couple of simple graphs from the data we were given. Here is an example:

Questions I have:

I've been trying to embed things, but I'm just getting grey boxes with play arrows. Why does it look okay when I go into preview, but it doesn't show how it will look while I'm writing my blog? What am I doing wrong? What am I forgetting?

Why is the section between the two embedded images smaller than the rest? I've selected the same font size, but it looks really different.

What did I learn that could be used with my staff?

I look forward to discussing with my teachers how they have used it or could use MyMap.

I can see now why my teachers use Sheets for their timetables and why Vicki created our term timetables in Sheets. I'm going to talk to our Reading Recovery teachers about how they can use Sheets, including using Sparkline.

I'm going to get staff to share how they have used Forms. The teachers can show the Learning Assistants how they could use Forms in their work with children.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

I look forward to trialling using Forms for multichoice quizzes with my maths class. I might also get them to graph their maths data. They will be able to see their areas of strength and weakness, and if/how that has changed over time.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I always find this question harder to answer as I'm not very digital in my personal life. Maybe I take time this week to be cognisant of how and where I use digital tech outside of work.

Thanks to everyone who shared their ideas on how they've used these tools.

It is so much better being able to process what I've learned on the day I've learned it and go back to it during the week.

A huge thanks to the very patient facilitators who have helped me on this journey so far 😀

DFI 2021 Week 3

Today seemed to be much more 'tekkie' for me. I never thought I would want/have/need a YouTube channel. Who knew I would find it useful to save and share clips I've come across?! There's a clip I like to share with my staff about language and clarity of language.

I've learned lots of things I'm keen to use, but it's unfortunately been a week since I've come back to this.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Creativity

This really resonated with me!

I haven't answered the Q above, but here are the key ideas from my notes:

PBL is creative learning experiences.

Kohl (2008) states "Creativity focusses on the process of forming original ideas through exploration and discovery."

Time again to focus on teacher creativity. Some questions:

• How are our teachers being creative?
• Do they think they are? Do they know they are?
• How do we hook our chn into learning?
• What opportunities are we giving our chn to be creative?
• Do/how do we intentionally use modern technologies to enable creativity?
• How many opportunities do we give our chn to be creators of content, not just consumers?

Michael Fullen - "It is in creating that the individual gains purpose."

The Manaiakalani blog post about creativity from 2015 is so relevant today.
The Heart of the Matter - Creativity in NZ schools. Elwyn Richardson was Hay Park School’s first principal. We do try and give our teachers opportunities to ‘play’ and follow the interests of their students.

The ideas from Sir Ken Robinson (in a BBC interview) about creative schools give pause to all of us about ‘what matters’ in our schools - ‘creativity is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status’. He goes on to say how much influence teachers have over children - his example was being reluctant to sing after being told he was flat - ‘when you’re that young it doesn’t take a lot to be encouraged or discouraged to do something. If someone says you can do something it lifts your whole expectation of yourself. You think maybe, maybe I can do that.’ Do we do that for our students?

He is asked about what would be seen in his school. He says there would be a whole range of activities, a lot of collaboration between children and collaboration between teachers, a great deal of activity - practical projects and inquiry projects - across age groups and adults from the community also working with the children.

In my experience creativity changed in education in NZ when the emphasis changed to being assessment focussed, which (I think) happened alongside the introduction of the coloured curriculum books with all the AOs that needed to be assessed.
In 1990 I worked at an intermediate in South Auckland. I spent a term on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with some maths and PE thrown in. We created a big book of the story, a wall story which we had on the ceiling, we chose pieces of Shakespearean poetry to display and found out he has his own number in the Dewey Decimal System. I condensed the play to 20 pages, my students auditioned for roles and we put on the play for other classes up at a local park that had a natural amphitheatre with woods. Why did we do this? I wanted to take my class to the Summer Shakespeare and that year it was A Midsummer Night's Dream. Sadly it was rained out, so we never got to see the play at the University of Auckland, but we did some great learning.
When I went back into the classroom, in 1995 after university, the emphasis was on evidence and assessment.

Each time I'm reminded it's about helping kids learn in 'engaging ways that simply weren't possible in the past' - from a pedagogical standpoint as well as a technological one.

We can't forget the fun!

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
I've started making YouTube playlists. What a great tool!

I've added the mote extension, but I'm yet to use it.

Questions I have:

Is there a better time to embed a YouTube video or to have a link to a YouTube video?

Is it possible to see the Manaiakalani slides in normal mode not only in presentation mode?

What did I learn that could be used with my staff?

I look forward to selecting YouTube clips from my playlists to share at staff only days and/or staff meetings. I will also use the post-it note size info on slides for staff PLD.

I will ask them if they want the green screen (and carpet) and DIY film-making set.

Often poor sound is what lets our students' videos down. The tip about sound when filming will be very important when students do their Ako Hiko films.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

I've started making a maths multichoice game. I want to do another one using the Mote extension so the students can hear the numbers. That's a longer term goal.

I've never thought of blogging as an EOTC experience.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I've created an About Me slide, but I haven't added a photo yet.

I look forward to trialling png and svg images.

There was a lot of new content for me this week and I needed more processing time, so I felt quite rushed during some of the sessions. I'm looking forward to taking some time and going through the resources.

Onwards and upwards 😀