Misinformation / Misconceptions

Kia ora koutou,

I realised that I hadn't posted for a while so here we go. This term's focus in class has been Smart Media, with part of this topic being misinformation. It was really good to clarify for students the difference between mis and disinformation:

I came up with a nice way of remembering this... MISinformation could be a MIStake i.e. the person spreading the information might not know it's false. DISinformation is DIShonest i.e. the person knows the information is false. Also, I'm sure someone else has come up with that before me so don't credit me with that!

So with that in mind, I thought I'd share some misconceptions that I've come across this year as my hunch is that these MISconceptions might be caused by some MISinformation being passed on.

I was going to make this post themed on the 12 days of Christmas but I don't think I'll be able to come up with 12 ideas!

Disclaimer: this is by no means a moan or a criticism of anyone in particular. It's more of a reflection on the systems we have in place and how we share information with each other.

1. Cybersmart does not = Kawa of Care 

Hearing some conversations and reading some comments, I sometimes wonder if everyone realises that Cybersmart has many strands, from Smart Learner to Smart Surfing and from Smart Relationships to Smart Money.

Yes, the Kawa of Care pops up in Smart Learner and is an important lesson to revisit termly and as needed, but it is only the tip of the Cybersmart iceberg! Just because a student can look after their device is does not necessarily mean that they are confident when making Cybersmart choices in different situations.

2. Cybersmart does not = Digital Skills 

Yes, students do need to learn how to use their devices and familiarise themselves with new tools and apps. But I feel like it's selling the Cybersmart session short when I hear phrases like, "Phil is here to teach us some new digital skills." 

3. Cybersmart does not = Older students or 1:1 classes

I believe that if we wait until students are in the senior school or are in a 1:1 class to teach them about making Cybersmart choices then we're already too late. Many students are surrounded by devices, whether that's at home or at school, so not teaching them how to make smart choices online is an equity issue.

In fact some of the most fun and engaging content on our Cybersmart site can be found in the junior lessons. Sure, we use apps like Explain Everything and Scratch Jnr a lot but there are also offline activities for all our Cybersmart lessons.

4. In Class Facilitation does not = Cybersmart

Yes, as a facilitator I go into classes and teach the students Cybersmart lessons. But that is just the lens we use for in class facilitation. The real joy of the job comes from empowering teachers and ensuring they are confident to use devices effectively for teaching and learning and for their own workflows. 

This year for example, while students have been working away on their Cybersmart activities (being scaffolded by the rewindable resources for each lesson), I have worked with teachers on using Google Keep to organise their to-do lists, turbocharging lessons by moving beyond substitution on the SAMR model, exploring engaging activities like Genius Hour, integrating apps like Explain Everything into literacy and maths, ensuring students have an audience for their blogs using blog hops and creating animations for our film festival.

All these opportunities have relied on teachers understanding the purpose of in class facilitation and being vulnerable and honest about their current needs and goals.

And of course receiving in class support is only one piece of the puzzle in terms of the opportunities that are on offer to teachers who are part of the cluster...

5. In Class Facilitation does not = One year only

In Terms 3 and 4 I start to back off and hand the apron over to the class teacher to lead the sessions. This ensures that the following year, when they probably won't be receiving in class facilitation, they will be confident to implement everything they have learnt throughout the year.

Of course the facilitator will still be available to support as and when they can, but if all goes to plan the teacher will continue teaching Cybersmart, using an effective class site, integrating blogging and using tools like Hāpara Teacher Dashboard as part of their effective practice.

Fin

So there we go, some ideas to ponder over the summer. Please leave a comment if anything resonated with you or if you'd like to catch up to discuss any of the above ideas.

Ngā mihi nui.

12 weeks of lockdown

Kia ora koutou,

Twelve weeks ago was the last time I set foot in a classroom. Despite there being plenty of positives about working from home, it has been a very challenging time. Over the weeks I have constantly been asking myself what is the best use of my time, what are the biggest and most urgent needs and how can I serve my schools, teachers and students most effectively?

This blog post is essentially a reflection on the ideas I have played with over the last three months. Writing these out has made me realise that I've tried a fair bit but I still get the overwhelming feeling that I could still be far more effective and efficient. I feel like there are missing pieces of the puzzle I haven't found yet.

I would absolutely love to hear about any ideas you have trialled in your schools or clusters as well as any feedback on the below items.

1. Podcast tutorials

I was keen to keep the Ako Hiko Podcast running so I put together four tutorials to support students while making their own episodes using Screencastify (audio only). Initially this was aimed at the Ako Hiko Ambassadors but I posted it on our blog so that anyone could have a go.

There are 54 views on the first tutorial, 36 on the second, 8 on the third and 6 on the last. I'd be interested to dig into why there was a drop off and what the barriers were that prevented students from producing an episode. My shining light though is Neha @ HPS who took up the idea and ran with it and it now preparing season 2 of her own podcast.

2. Podcasts and critical literacy

With a lack of episodes coming in and no chance to get into schools to record students I decided to make some episodes myself. I'd been doing a fair bit of reading around critical thinking and critical literacy so I set out to create some activities through the podcasts that would help develop these skills.

As you can see the numbers aren't huge but the episodes did get used, with Who is the baddie? being the most popular. Another aim of those episodes was having a main provocation to get students commenting and interacting with each other. Four comments in total was not a huge success on this front.

3. Relentless about reading

At a principals' meeting some people mentioned that they were concerned about whether students were reading enough. This reminded me of a wananga where the term 'relentless about reading' was used. With the help of some fellow facilitators I created a set of resources that teachers could use to keep engagement up with reading. 

It's a bit harder to know how many people used these or how useful they found the resource but I have seen the slide deck pop up on a number of class sites and this post has been a good reminder to follow up with those teachers.

4. Animated Film Festival

One of the huge disappointments was having to cancel the Ako Hiko Film Festival. We did still want to provide a creative opportunity for students so we turned it into an animated film festival instead.

I put together these resources for teachers and students to use and yesterday we had our first offical entry (see below). I also know that a couple of schools made this a big focus either at the end of term 3 or at the start of term 4 so I'm looking forward to seeing those entries come in.

5. Fun ways to engage students during Meets

I can't take credit for most of these ideas. Joining different class Meets and perusing class sites has helped me 'magpie' some great activities. Would you Rather has been one of the most popular so I've made a few of these on Google Forms. They have actually provoked some great discussion, with students justifying their choices, agreeing and disagreeing with each other and sharing whether they have been persuaded to change their minds.

My current favourite is playing Guess Who? with the people on the Meet screen as the characters. This has also been a great way to reinforce the expectations of having your cameras on and sitting still.

6. Currents posts

The number of people in our Currents community has kept creeping up. With some extra time on my hands I've tried to do a weekly update to share Blogger of the Week, other examples of quality blog posts, activities on class sites and other opportunities and events coming up.

7. Holiday blogging

This was more of a recycling and curation job to make sure students who were keen could do some holiday blogging.

8. Blog boosters

I created these blog booster lessons earlier in the year but I got a chance to use them in some classes where students had been blogging for a while and were ready for an extra challenge.

9. Online and optional Inquiry PLGs

As our Inquiry PLGs came a few weeks after lockdown started we decided to make them online and optional. We started with a demo slam with myself, lead teachers and a few other teachers sharing tips and tricks that we find useful, especially in a distance learning environment. We then broke out into groups to have discussions around discussion, critical thinking and creativity. 

36 people attended with representatives from each school present.

10. TBC - my thinking cap is on and open for ideas...

Ngā mihi nui

Thanks for reading this far...

Planting Seeds (part 2)

Kia ora bloggers,

This post is number two in a duo of blog posts. If you'd like to read part one you won't have to scroll too far to find it!

Let's get back into Planting Seeds by Susan Sandretto. One small note, these are not the official names of the chapters (I've now returned the library book so can not check), more a summary of what I learnt from them...

Chapter 4 - Making Critical Literacy Visible

Text selection...

The example Susan used was really interesting: the back of a box of pain killers. It was discussed who is excluded from this text. Anyone who is not confident with English is more than likely to struggle with the scientific and technical language. This just goes to show that you can teach critical literacy with almost any text.

Starting with a slightly simpler text was also recommended so that students aren't bogged down with decoding. This goes really well with the idea of scaffold texts that we use in our T-shaped literacy units. Another idea is to use a text that has already been used with students. So that they don't become bored with it, you can explain that this second reading has a different focus.

Role of the teacher...

Critical literacy and quality discussion can only happen when the teacher  has set up a caring environment for students where they respect each others' opinions. Teachers should also model having a questioning stance and support students to make connections, both between different texts and between texts and their own lives.

Role of the student...

It was interesting to read about literacy circles, with students having time to read a text, then prepare to take part in a dialogue (which may be written or verbal). It made me reflect on how often I expected students to have an opinion or to take part in a discussion immediately after reading a text and how unrealistic this is an an expectation.

Image by Wokandapix @ Pixabay

Reciprocal teaching was also mentioned at length, something I know a lot of Ako Hiko schools use or are experimenting with. What stood out for me here was how important it is for the teacher to model the roles of predictor, clarifier, questioner and summariser before expecting students to be able to do them independently.

Chapter 5 - Assessment

I learnt that assessment comes from the word assidere which translates as 'to sit beside or with.' This made me realise how much we have deviated from this original definition with so many of our current assessments, with the teacher being a long way from the student's side (literally and metaphorically).

Summative (assessment of learning) and formative assessment (assessment for learning) have obviously been discussed a lot but I loved the analogy used in this book. It said that summative assessment is equivalent to when the customer tastes the soup whereas formative assessment is when the chef tastes the soup. It's pretty obvious to see which is the more useful if the goal is to make the soup taste as good as possible!

It also highlighted the importance of assessment AS learning or in other words students being actively involved in self-assessment.

Chapter 6 - Student Voice and Feedback

Again, the importance of self and peer assessment was highlighted here. This time peer assessment was suggested as a scaffold to allow students to move towards self assessment. Other benefits of peer assessment include:

- Students often use language that is easier to understand

- The teacher is freed up to have other discussions (which reminds me of our 'powerful teaching conversations' High Leverage Practice)

This whole chapter reinforced for me how powerful blogging can be as a way for students to post published work but also to reflect on their growth, skills and progress towards goals.

This term we have a big focus on Smart Relationships which spends a lot of time on Quality Blog Comments. For the first time I started to think of blog commenting with a critical literacy lens. I'm not sure how or where to work this into lessons but I'm interested to explore ideas around:

- How am I making the blogger feel with this comment? Am I making them feel like they are an expert? Or that they are deficient?

- How will they consume this feedback?

I'm now rethinking how I get feedback from students on my sessions. In the past I've got some classes to fill in a Google Form. This was a bit time consuming and ate into the already busy sessions. I also realised (after reading this chapter) that I was excluding some people's voices from this feedback. For example, it was typically the more fluent and settled classes that got round to filling in the feedback. This probably gave a skewed view of how successful the lessons were. The voice of those students in classes who didn't get round to finishing the lesson was probably more valuable but was missing.

Image by Gerd Altmann @ Pixabay

Moving forward I might experiment with ending sessions with questions like:

- What did you learn about _____?

- What did your teacher do to help you learn 

about ______ today?

- If you were the teacher, how would you teach ______?

Chapter 7

My notes on this chapter were brief but pretty important I think:

"It doesn't count as critical literacy unless there is social action."

The book suggested a continuum which might be useful as Ako Hiko schools develop on their T-shaped literacy journey.

1. Shift thinking about texts

                2. Reconstruction of texts (writing our own)

                                3. Localised action (the example in the book was a group of students                                                         choosing to stop using the word gay in a negative context)

                                                        4. Global action

This continuum really resonated with me as someone who is passionate about the environment and does a fair bit locally. It was also a timely reminder at the end of the book that learning all of this content and reflecting on these ideas from a text is great, but it's pointless unless you act on it. This reminds me of a quote I heard this week....

"Knowledge without action is like a bird without wings."

So what next? (not a chapter anymore - just my thoughts)

Something I'll do straight away:

In my sessions on quality blog comments I'll make sure there is discussion on thinking about how people will consume our feedback. How will it make them feel?

Something I'll do soon:

Our Ako Hiko ambassadors are already creating podcasts. I'm now wondering if these could be used as shared books/texts in classes.

Could critical literacy be used as the focus for shared books for one day of the week? e.g. Monday = new vocabulary, Tue = punctuation, Wed = critical literacy?

A slow burner:

After reading Planting Seeds I feel like I'm in a far stronger position to support teachers or schools who want to dig deeper into critical literacy. I also feel more confident to offer PLG workshops or toolkits on critical literacy using many of the ideas I've discussed here.

Thank you for reading this far. I'd love to hear where you, your class or your school are at on their critical literacy journey. What have you tried? What's worked? What are your challenges? Let me know in the comments...

2021 DFI - Day 8 - A Coach's Perspective

Computational thinking day! Always one of my favourites. This blog post is mainly about sharing some resources that I explored today that people might be unaware of.

I love Compute It. I stayed away form it today because I end up doing it for hours! This introduces programming language and is great for students to work away at independently. Super engaging!

Hello Ruby was a new one for me today. This has some great offline activities for juniors. It reinforces the fact that younger students already do a lot of activities that involve computational thinking.

I'm still exploring Raranga Matihiko but I'm enjoying the links to other apps like ClapMotion and Gamefroot. I'd be keen to hear from anyone who has used these in class. I'll also be having a watch of the Raranga Matihiko TV home learning videos.

Let me know if you are aware of any other awesome resources that might be useful.

And good luck to all the teachers in my bubble (and all the other DFI participants) who are taking the Google Level 1 exam next week!

Ngā mihi

2021 DFI - Week 7 - A Coach's Perspective

Kia ora koutou,

Today was an extremely busy day on DFI (but then again when isn't it?) so I didn't have too many notes to convert into my blog post.

I did learn a few super valuable lessons though. One for Chromebooks and one for iPads

1. Screencastify shortcuts. These will be so useful and I can't wait to try them out. I think they will really help students too, allowing them to focus on delivering their content rather than worrying about clicking in different places.

Screencastify Shortcuts

2. Screen recording on iPads. I've already made a video about this and shared it with some teachers who might find it useful. I can't believe I didn't know this was a thing!

I'm also super proud of my wonderful bubble. They created some awesome resources in Explain Everything and Workspaces today. They have come so far in the seven weeks we have been working together!

2021 DFI - Day 6 - A Coach's Perspective

DFI day six already! Another great day focusing on the kaupapa of connected and on Class Sites...

Connected:

Dorothy's presentation reminded me of the need to encourage participation in the Ako Hiko Google Currents community. I think there is still a lot of apprehension when it comes to sharing our practice but there is so much potential for us to learn from and support each other that I think it is essential.

Dorothy's toolkit about attracting an audience to your blogs was very useful. I will use some of these ideas while planning Cybersmart sessions in future terms and will also unpack them further with our Ako Hiko ambassadors who are starting their roles in Term 2. 

Class Sites:

Having time to view some sites from other clusters was extremely valuable. I found some great examples where the teaching and learning is visible on the reading or maths group pages. In many cases the learning was also fully rewindable and had links to T-shaped literacy. These will be good exemplars to use with teachers I work with this year.

In the afternoon our bubbles had time to work on their own class sites. It was a good opportunity for me to reflect on my recently built Poetry Slam site (our Poetry Slam is next week and all online if you are interested in joining us).

Ngā mihi

Phil

2021 DFI - Day 5 - A Coach's Perspective

Kia ora koutou,

This week's adventure into the Manaiakalani pedagogy was based around visibility. I don't think you can repeat too many times that the default is to make everything visible. This applies to everything from planning to assessments.

I've been really impressed with the class sites in the Ako Hiko cluster, especially over our multiple lockdowns. I think a next nudge for us is having more of the teaching visible on the sites. This could include teachers' planning and assessments and as we have discussed at this term's staff hui, more rewindable learning.

I enjoyed hearing about the purposes of Class Sites and Hāpara:

Class Sites - making the teaching visible for learners

Hāpara - making the learning visible for teachers

Class Sites:

It was my first time presenting to the whole group today. It made me realise how much content there is to cover when creating a site. I also learnt that simple themes aren't the best for macrons.

In the afternoon our group was collaborating on a Jamboard to share resources for our sites. We found a few things frustrating such as not being able to add a hyperlink and text boxes being a bit awkward. A good reminder here that with any Google Apps you can send feedback. In Jamboard this feature is found by clicking the three dots, in something like Docs it is under the 'help' section. The more requests they get about a certain feature the more likely they are to fix it!

See you next time for Week 6!

2021 DFI - Day 4 - Coach's Perspective

Kia ora koutou,

Day 4 of DFI already! Today we heard Dorothy talk about tohatoha or share. I really like the definition of an authentic audience...

 "people who choose to view your learning"

i.e. they have other options of what they could be viewing. This will be useful to explain to learners, especially when I could be reading and commenting on hundreds of different blogs in the Ako Hiko cluster.

Also a good reminder about why we use Blogger as a platform for sharing...

MyMaps

I had the idea to use MyMaps for story writing. Here's a story I created today which will require the audience to read each section carefully and do some research to find out where to go next on the map. I'd be really keen to hear any feedback you have on it.

ps. I realise I got way to deep into this so it's a bit over the top...

Sheets

I don't think I'll ever stop learning new tips and tricks about Google Sheets. Today I learnt a new way to split data into two or more columns:

data - split text to columns - then choose your separator (usually a space)

My bubble also had great fun learning how to move charts onto separate tabs and then exploring the best way to embed sheets onto our blogs. Here's what it looks like when you move a chart to its own sheet and then embed it:

2021 DFI - Day 3 - A Coach's Perspective

Kia ora koutou,

Thanks for stopping by. Just clocking off from another awesome day of DFI.

Create

In terms of the Manaiakalani pedagogy, today we focused on hanga (create). Even though I've sat through this presentation (or something very similar) numerous times I'm always inspired by it and new ideas always jump out at me.

This video got me thinking about how we can make sure students want to be at school. As one person said while discussing his school experience, "I just wanted to be there." I'll definitely be watching to full version when I get the chance.

 

I'm also going to be digging into this blog post in the future. I was scanning it and the following paragraph jumped off the page and gave me a slap in the face. This pretty much summed up my current thinking about my role as a facilitator.

For all this what has been forgotten that it is the quality of the teacher that ensure such modern environments are conducive to learning; it’s the pedagogy, or teaching beliefs, that teachers hold is all important.

Media

Media is very much at the front of my brain at the moment after Term 4's Cybersmart focus on Smart Media. There were lots of good reminders in Dorothy's session about how how powerful it is to consume and create media.

I started thinking about what media I can create (or encourage other teachers to create) that will engage learners and help them make emotional connections. For example, this video made me feel quite emotional. It could be a good inspirational resource for our film festival this year, especially when students are thinking about who their audience is and what their main messages are...

Slides

The one post it note rule was a great reminder. If you're take home message doesn't fit on a post it note then you've got no chance. I think I've also fallen into the trap of reading my slides to people a few times lately so that was a timely nudge.

My new learning for today was adding GIFs to Google Slides after a good question for one teacher. This one is from Giphy.com.

I really enjoyed the create session I ran on pick-a-path slides. It was also a good chance to share the awesome work that Charlotte, Rita and Isabella did last week. You can check out their blog post here.

Bring on Week 4!

Ngā hihi

2021 DFI - Day 2 - A Coach's Perspective

Another great day on DFI, this time focusing on workflow. I'm so excited about finding new ways to save a few clicks or a few seconds here and there. I'd also love to know how much time I'm saving myself on a yearly basis by using all these tips and tricks.

Ako - 

It's always a great reminder hearing about amplifying and turbocharging the learning. This week Auckland has been back in lockdown and I've found it interesting to have a look at some of the class sites in the cluster. I'm so impressed with the amount of learning that is visible on some of the sites, especially as it's only week two of the year for some schools.

Google Keep - 

I use Google Keep constantly and have it open alongside my Gmail. One thing I hadn't thought of doing is to have it open alongside a Google Doc so that I can add text directly form the Keep note to the Doc.

I also keep meaning to use the grab text and scribble features in Google Keep but never get round to it...

Gmail - 

I have never heard of confidential mode before (even thought the icon is right there). I can't think of a situation where I'd need to use it at the moment but it's interesting to know it's there.

Taming the Tabs - 

I've noticed teachers get very protective over their tab preferences. There are very strong allegiances to Team Toby and Team OneTab. It was good to see another option available that lets you create groups of tabs. It would be awesome if this was developed so that the groups were saved for future sessions. 

I think all these tips and tricks have a time and a place, it's just figuring out which one suits a particular need most effectively.

DFI 2021 - Day 1 - A coach's perspective

Kia ora koutou,

This time last year I was starting the DFI as a participant. One DFI badge, two lockdowns, a switch to full time Education Programme Leader and a lot of Google Meets later I'm back as one of the coaches.

First things first, every member of my bubble was absolutely fantastic today and I'm so proud of them already. Lot's of great questions to keep me on my toes and some wonderful creations using Google Docs.

What stood out for me today is that you can never know everything. Even having done the DFI last year I still picked up lots of new tips and ideas today. Everyone is a teacher and everyone is a learner.

For example Dorothy's session on Google Groups made me think about how I use them with different people, especially when it comes to people replying to messages. Do they realise the messages have come through the Google Group and that everyone can see their replies? A conversation worth having.

Google Docs continues to impress and surprise. I'd never thought of sending a link to a specific heading in a Google Doc and I didn't realise that you could increase or decrease text size using command-shift-< or >

I think I'll try using Google Docs when I'm advertising the 2021 Ako Hiko Student Led Toolkits (check out last year's toolkits here #shamelessplug).

Can't wait for session two!

Term 4 Manaiakalani Hui

On Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th December I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Manaiakalani Hui at the National Library. Above all else I really appreciated the chance to connect face to face with the extraordinary team of leaders and facilitators from around the country. On Tuesday we each had five minutes to reflect on our journey over the past three years. Further down this post I've included my reflection slides, but I also wanted to document and share some of the gems I picked up from other people during the day...

Amie @ Tairāwhiti

Amie reminded me that I should be blogging more (other than what I'm doing right now obviously).

She also mentioned meeting weekly with principals. This is something I'd love to do as I've gained so much insight and so many ideas from brief five minute chats with principals this year.

Cam @ Kootuitui ki Papakura

Cam simplified her main goal for next year as getting her schools to work together. This is very much on my radar for Ako Hiko and it's been great to see people working together in our T-shaped literacy PLGs and to hear of teachers wanting to visit other schools next year. 

Cheryl @ Tairāwhiti

Cheryl mentioned talking to individual teachers: What's your data? What's your starting point? What do you want out of this? This is a great reminder for when I start off with the new teachers I'll be working with in 2021.

She also talked about an unrelenting focus on reading which has come up a lot this year and is worth keeping at the forefront of my mind.

Dave @ Manaiakalani

'He aha te rākau hei whakatō mā tāua?' (What tree shall we plant?) This is a great reminder when thinking about what new opportunities we can offer in 2021. I need to remember to talk with teachers, leaders and principals to make sure their needs are being met in order for them to fully invest in new ideas.

Another great quote from Dave, "It's not what you do, it's what they do when you're not there." This got me thinking about sustainability. How will I support the teachers I've been working with in 2020 to make sure the great progress continues? And how can I work with lead teachers to make sure there is consistency across (and between) schools?

Fiona @ Manaiakalani

'Leadership empowers strong teams.' I'm lucky to have an amazing group of lead teachers and am looking forward to working with them next year. I'm also mindful of making sure I give them opportunities to develop and grow their leadership.

Herman @ Tairāwhiti

Herman discussed 'community feels' which reinforced what Cam talked about. He also talked about rewindable learning and what that looks like. Another timely reminder for orientation 2021.

Nicola @ Hokitika

Nicola fed back how people felt overwhelmed with lots of information at orientation days and suggested that it might be worth chunking this information. This is something I will definitely have in mind as I prepare the orientation and site building days for 2021.

Sharon @ Te Ara Tūhura

Sharon emphasised how important listening is (luckily I was listening to her). Especially in terms of listening to teachers and where they are at. You can then use this as a starting point to know what to work on with them next.

As promised here are my slides. My reflection on the last three years was slightly different in that I spent 2018 as classroom teacher and AP at Wesley Primary, 2019 travelling in Europe and Canada while trying lots of part time and voluntary jobs, and then 2020 taking on the EPL role at Ako Hiko.

 

A common theme that came through most reflections was the importance of relationships. I can't wait to meet the teachers I'll be working with next year and start building those relationships.

Another key point I will keep in mind while facilitating is making it explicit what strategies I am using with the class. There was an interesting discussion about our role as facilitators and I think if we are trying to promote effective practices then these need to be pointed out to the teachers we are supporting.

I hope this is helpful to others. Thanks to everyone in the team for sharing their reflections. Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions.

Happy holidays everyone! 

Cybersmart at level 2.5

Kia ora koutou,

I simply had to post today as yesterday I had two of my most successful and inspiring Cybersmart sessions ever.

The success of these sessions is a tip of the cap to the huge amount of hard work that teachers, leaders and principals have put in over the last few months. And let's not forgot the students and the epic stint they have put in!

I've been facilitating from home this week due to the current situation in Auckland. Around two thirds of the classes I was working with were in class and socially distanced. There were also some learners who were at home but joined via Google Meet.

 

 The biggest bonus for me was being able to facilitate lessons as I did during distance learning but having the teacher in the classroom to roam and trouble shoot any problems that arose. I think this was also good learning for the teachers as they could see what the learning looks like from a student's perspective.

I realise there are still huge challenges around equitable access but yesterday gave me so much hope with teachers and learners showing they are flexible, resilient and willing to learn. It also reinforced what I already knew about the technology we use empowering learners and making the learning visible and ubiquitous.

The lessons were around quality blog commenting. Once students had learnt what quality blog comments look like and demonstrated their confidence they moved onto creating DLOs to teach others. The choices included Scratch, Canva and Screencastify. Here is an example of each:

Screencastify - Asfan 

Canva - Mehmet 

Scratch - me (no one chose to do Scratch so I did one)

                             

If anyone is interested here is the link to the lesson on the Ako Hiko Cybersmart site. On reflection there is a lot in this lesson and I might split the create part into two and move the actual commenting half into the learn section and scrap what's there already.

And if you're looking for a chance to practise your quality blog commenting yourself, why not leave me a comment or check out the Ako Hiko bloggers of the week and give them some well deserved feedback.

Ngā mihi

Reflecting on the Magic

At our Manaiakalani end of term hui each facilitator created a slide deck to show how the Manaiakalani kaupapa of connected, ubiquitous, visible and empowered shone through during (and after) distance learning.

I thought I'd share my thoughts on here. What were your successes in these areas? And what could be your next steps to amplify these successes and lift the lid on the potential awesomeness?

Poetry Slam!

Last week we had our first ever Ako Hiko poetry slam. We had around 30 entries and while I don't want to pick any winners, I thought I'd share some of the poems here. The highlights for me were seeing students work their way through the resources to have a go at new forms of poems independently and seeing students commenting on each other's poems. This included across school commenting and some comments from Kaitaia!

Thank you to all the teachers who supported their students. I think it is so important to keep providing new opportunities like this for our learners. And what an amazing way to get creative! The slide deck will stay on the Ako Hiko site over the holidays if you have students looking for something to do (or if you want to have a go yourself).

Richard @ WIS

Franny @ ODS

Siaki @ CTK

DFI Session Eight

Tēnā koutou katoa,

Today we heard Dorothy talk about the term empowered. It was a good reminder around why we use this term rather than agency, which has so many negative connotations with some members of our communities. Every time I see this puzzle graphic I'm reminded how interlinked and co-dependant the terms empowered, visible, connected and ubiquitous are. One way of empowering our learners and our communities is by ensuring the other three parts of the puzzle are happening.

The fact that one third of learners in decile one communities are transient is something that I was very aware of while teaching at my previous school. Hearing this again today made me think about the Ako Hiko story and how important it is to capture this so that we can share it to new learners and whānau so that they can gain a deeper understanding of what the cluster is all about.

Kerry's section on the Digital Technology Curriculum was very interesting and informative. We were gifted time to explore a plethora of resources. As Kerry said it is important that we are using a consistent language and teaching programming skills and fundamentals rather than individual coding platforms. The apps and sites will change over time but the language remains the same. A good glossary for me today includes:

Input
Output
Sequence
Iteration
Selection
Variables

How confident are you with these terms? And not just confident in your own understanding but with your ability to use them with students?

These are all resources I found useful. CS Unplugged for the activities that might be perfect for distance learning and for students with limited internet access and Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko for the self-assessment tool that helped me see where I am at on my journey into the new curriculum.

Exemplars

CSUnplugged

Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko

In terms of my workflow as a professional, I've spent some time in the last few weeks trying to create engaging, creative and fairly independent activities for students. Exploring these sites today helped me realise that there are already a vast array of resources out there and that maybe some of my time is better spent elsewhere (warning some of these sites are very, VERY addictive).

Minecraft

Flappy Bird

Toxicode

In the afternoon I had an awesome time creating a game with Scratch. By going through the process from start to finish I was able to appreciate the debugging process. Mistakes and failures are all part of learning and students need to be encouraged and support while solving problems and getting over these hurdles. Enjoy!

DFI Session Seven

Today we heard Fiona share her expertise on all things Cybersmart. It was a good reminder to delve into the Cybersmart resources beyond smart learner, smart footprint and smart relationships (luckily I got a chance to do so on this very afternoon). 

I realised that in the last month or so I've focused a lot on the visible aspect of the Manaiakalani kaupapa, especially in terms of class sites and school websites. Fiona's session made me reflect more on the ubiquitous aspect. If the visibility is there and students have access to their learning (I realise some do not), what other barriers are there that might be preventing them from engaging in distance learning?

It was a timely reminder to check in with leaders around whether Cybersmart is being taught in all classes and how teachers are embedding Cybersmart learning into their existing programmes.

...

Gerhard's session on Chromebooks was really interesting. I've been using a Chromebook as my primary device through necessity but now I can see how valuable it has been as I am fluent and comfortable with the device. Having said that, I still learnt a lot of new shortcuts during the Digital Dig. For example:

• search-l to lock my screen 
• ctrl-l to copy the contents of the omnibox.

In the afternoon we were able to make a Screencastify based on the content of one of the Cybersmart areas. I chose Smart Surfing and created this summary.





Ngā mihi