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!
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.
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!
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).
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!
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:
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.
Today we got to experience Google Hangouts/Meet. I had already used it many times but today I became familiar with some other features such as turning on captions and sharing my screen with others. I became more confident with creating Hangouts via Google Calendar. It made me think about the possibilities of teaching without necessarily being in the same room as students. I might have a play with this in the coming weeks.
Google Keep is another app that I have used for years but have never dug deeper enough to find features such as labels and reminders. This should help me organise my many lists and remind me to return my library books on time. I will definitely use the audio feature (after clicking the + button) to record thoughts as I rush between classes. Photo to text (click photo - more actions - grab image text) looks like an amazing feature when looking for resources!
And there's always more to learn about Gmail. From now on I will archive all emails (rather than deleting them or letting them sit in my inbox). I've already archived hundreds of old emails and set up 'reply and archive'. I will also experiment with scheduled send (so that people receive emails when they are fresh in the morning) and I have set up a filter so that all emails from blogger go straight to me 'everything else' folder (settings - filters and blocked addresses - create new filter).
Away from the tech and tools side of things, I found myself again reflecting on the RATE acronym (recognise, amplify, turbocharge, effective practice). I want to encourage more teachers in the cluster to amplify their practice but also need to ensure I am modelling this in my cybersmart sessions in class.
