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

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?

Distance Learning Week One

Well, what a week! I feel exhausted from just a couple of days of distance learning and I don't even have my own class to teach! But my overwhelming feeling is of pride in the wonderful teachers and leaders in the Ako Hiko cluster (and all over the country) for the amazing effort they have put into making the transition to distance learning as smooth as possible.

I'm extremely grateful for the collaboration and support the lead teachers of schools have been giving each other, the enthusiasm with which teachers with differing levels of experience have adapted their sites and set up Google Meets with their classes and with the gusto with with students have been posting on their blogs. This post is really to share and celebrate the awesome successes I have seen already.

I've been really impressed with the class sites I've seen with teachers considering how to make them visually appealing to students while keeping them simple and easy to navigate. This is true from new entrant classes up to Year 7 and 8 and also from beginning teachers through to more experienced staff. Here are a few examples:

I've also been inspired and enthused by students posting on their blogs and seeing teachers and support staff leaving positive, thoughtful and helpful comments.

Zara @ Waikowhai Primary

Gaylene @ Hay Park School

Floyd @ Owairaka District School

And I also need to acknowledge the vast raft of support that has come from the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme and from facilitators around the country. I couldn't imagine being in the role I am in without the advice and expertise that is oozing from such an amazing group of professionals. Thanks team!

Moving forward my efforts with the cluster will channelled into blogging and engagement. I'm asking myself (and others) how we can best support students to blog independently and effectively, especially those who haven't had any practice at this (check out some 'how to' videos o the Ako Hiko Cybersmart site). In terms of of engagement, students seemed engaged by the Google Meet sessions. Our challenge may be how to keep the enthusiasm and engagement up as the days and Meets go on.

Ngā mihi.

DFI Session Five

Hump day of the DFI course already! Today we kicked off with Dorothy talking about visibility. I enjoyed the explanation of it being as simple as 

'Can you see it?' 

This means can students, whanau and colleagues all see content easily? It reminded me of another quote that went something like: 'It's not ok to keep doing something wrong if someone next door is doing it right.' Now with sites and blogs the 'next door' isn't limited to our physical buildings. So how can we make sure all teachers are 'getting it right!'

The WillIAm story is inspirational and also a perfect example of how important visibility is. If Manaiakalani was not as visible as it is think of what they would have missed out on. I will definitely be checking the Ako Hiko school and class sites to make sure they're are visible as possible. And what other ways are there for us to increase our visibility in the community, the country and the world?

Additionally we looked at multiple texts and multi-modal texts. A great reminder that...

 there is no one size fits all.

This got me thinking, how do I reflect this in Cybersmart sessions? Especially when I don't know the learners as well as the classroom teacher. Can I always offer an option to shift up or down? 

Creating these multi-modal resources using Google Sites will be invaluable during distance learning. One thing I will be bearing in mind is...

can this resource stand on its own? 

I created this site with the big question of 'What would we need to take to Mars with us? I tried to refine my site so that there was lots of engaging content but not too much scrolling to do.

My Site

And my last takeaway was to click the box to receive replies on comments that I leave on blogs. I can't believe I've never noticed this button! #lifelonglearner