Embedding Slides Into A Blog Post

Todays DFI tip
This is how you embed slides onto your blog.

1. Click file
2. Go to publish to web
3. Click embed
4. Choose small
5. Copy
6. Click HTML
7. Paste link

Our Last DFI Day

What an amazing learning opportunity this has been.

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Cohort 2 2018

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive has not only given me the skills to work in a digital learning community but the Manaikalani kaupapa has inspired my pedagogy.

Learning alongside a beautiful bunch of educators, who share their fears, frustrations, successes and aha moments have been equally as special.   

There are many aspects I need to revisit such as sheets, google keep, and google calendar but I'm well on my way.

Thank you to the DFI Cohort 2 2018 for a wonderful 9 weeks.

And....... I passed the Google Educator Level 1 exam!

The Digital Curriculum

Reflecting back on my Manaiakalani DFI learning journey I think one of the most memorable sessions was with the OMG Tech Team.

Unpacking the New Digital Curricula

I'm one of these people that likes to know the 'why' behind things. The new digital curriculum does just that. It takes the teachers away from just teaching technology as a tool, to teaching students 'the theory of how technology works and how they can use that knowledge to solve problems'.This is the guts of technology, the knowledge that will have our students immersed in the digital world at a much deeper level. This is the knowledge that will hopefully allow our students to get innovative jobs involving technology in the future, allow them to keep up with technological change and develop some student's passion for technology.

The digital curriculum is broken into three categories 

• Technological Practice - The How
• Technological Knowledge - The What
• Nature of Technology - The Why

There are two key areas; computational thinking and designing and developing digital outcomes. 

During the day we also explored:

Binary

I can now say that I have a little more knowledge about binary, hexadecimal number systems and data representation.... and I kinda liked it. The seemingly foreign language actually began to make a little sense. 

Off-Line Sorting Network

Possibilities galore for the use of this in maths. We used it for sorting numbers from smallest to largest. A fun physical activity that the students will love.

Coding

Scratch

Create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.

Hello Ruby

A fun way to learn about computers, technology, and programming.

Cybersmart

Last week in the Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Dorothy talked about cybersmart weaving throughout the curriculum, built on each year as the students move through our schools.

Manaiakalani Cybersmart

We compliment those children listening during mat time, focus on positive behavior in our classrooms and playgrounds,  knowing that this has far better results than highlighting the negative. Yet with Cybersmart we are often focused on the things that could go wrong, the big scary world that students can be exposed to.... are we almost dangling a carrot under their noses?

I must say this is something I hadn't contemplated until now.

This article ISTE- Empowering Student Voice Through Digital Citizenship  discusses turning the focus of digital citizenship around from what students shouldn't be doing online to what they should be doing. This turns Digital citizenship into a positive instead of a negative.

As LeeAnn Linsey (ISTE) points out as citizens within a digital world we have 'rights, privileges, and duties'.  Focusing on the opportunities that the digital world offers we can empower students to navigate through the digital world developing healthy interactions, a positive digital footprint and increased learning opportunities. Teaching digital citizenship in a positive manner allows students to be empowered. Technology and an online presence can amplify student voice and give students digital tools to make a difference in their communities in the physical world and online.

So what does this mean for my practice?

I will:

• See cybersmart as positive, and empowering and transfer this belief to my students.
• Make sure that once a week I take a lesson on cybersmart (thanks Manaiakalani for the resource bank of lessons), and make sure cybersmart is entwined within our daily curriculum. 
• Allow students the opportunities to share their voice online through blogging and commenting on the blogs of others, using communication opportunities to learn from the global community as resources, and give feedback to each other and me through online tools. 
• Students can not only use technology to create but to share their ideas and learning with the world.

Empowering Students Through Listening To Student Voice

Reflecting on my Inquiry

Inquiring into how I can develop students oracy so they can express themselves and their learning.

What is now happening as a result of my improvement actions?

At the start of DIMC Maths Problem Solving sessions, I noticed heightened student interest in knowing which group would be working with me. I initially thought it was because they wanted to take part in the sessions, however, the opposite was true.

I thought this was the perfect opportunity to find out why.

The students sat in a circle and openly discussed their feeling about the sessions.

This showed me that my students are able to openly discuss how they feel about learning tasks and able to explain why they feel that way. They agree and disagree with each other with justification. This is done in a respectful and supportive way.

They are beginning to hold free-flowing conversations, listening to each other and interjecting naturally without having to put their hands up to share. They also offer alternative suggestions to learning tasks.

How has this impacted on my learners? 

The students have grown in confidence in sharing their thinking. They support each other and make connections with each other, by agreeing or disagreeing and offering differing opinions and justifications. This creates a solidarity and polarity among the students. This also shows them that people are entitled to their own opinions and that their opinions may not be the same as others.

Students are not just passive learners, they have a say in shaping their learning environment and learning opportunities. Hopefully, this raises student engagement. Also, it allows for conversations about the learning process and how it feels to be a learner.

One student stated that she didn't like Maths Problem Solving because it was hard, this sparked another student who said that he found it frustrating because he knew the answer but had to explain it to others which he found difficult. We were then able as a group to talk about how it felt to be in the dip, at the uni-structural or multi-structural level, as well as teaching someone else involved higher order thinking and skills.

What further adjustments might be worth considering?

Those students that did enjoy the sessions were less vocal. I would like to revisit it tomorrow by doing a PMI as a class to evaluate it. This I will use to reshape my delivery of the sessions.

I will also feedback to them the changes that I am going to make to my practice. This is empowering them as learners.

My initial thoughts following this discussion are:

-Shortening the sessions, with far less teacher talk, so students don't get bored.

-To think harder about the type of problems I'm giving them. Maybe they are too challenging. This is something that I have discussed with the facilitators and colleagues. I think the careful planning of the problem may be the key.

-More contextualized real-life problems may spark more interest?


Do they feel like their voice will be/was listened to? I will make sure I check in with them to see if they perceive this to be true.

Moving forward from here, does the voicing of their ideas about their learning have an impact on my practice? In reality, do I follow through with their ideas? I need to ensure I do. What is the impact of this?

DFI sharing of learning

Well, I am still a bit of an uncoordinated digital explorer as this screencast illustrates but I'm slowly developing my capabilities in the world of Google.

Here is my screencast on how to make buttons for a Google Site. 

How To Make Buttons For A Site

I choose to show this because developing a google site for my learners, that would link to their learning activities on slide decks and sites within sites, was a massive accomplishment achieved through the Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive.

I may be slow, but I can do it!

The Creation of a Class Site to Enable Ubiquitous, Empowered, Visible, Learning and Connected

Enough of my own excuses of being swamped down by the busyness of classroom life and thanks to the motivation and push from last weeks Manaikalani Digital Fluency Intensive session.... it was time to pull my head out of the sand and finish creating the class site that I had great plans for at the start of the year.
Although not pages of the site a finished, it is up and away.

And here it is...

https://sites.google.com/tamakiprimary.school.nz/jgrm3/kia-kaha-2018

The opportunity for learning to be Ubiquitous, Empowered, Visible and Connected strikes such a strong cord. I love that I am developing the skills to be able to make this happen digitally. Thank you Manaiakalani!

Thoughts while creating it

• A functional portal for students to access learning opportunities related to inquiry topics, and resources used in class.
• Stepping away from ability groups to mixed ability groups for reading meant removing slide decks for individual ability groupings and replacing it with a slide deck with learning experiences and resources for multiple entry levels and different learning needs. 
• Making it visually appealing (a vast improvement of my make-do links randomly placed on a blank sheet) 

Feedback from parents has been that it will be good for their children to access learning taking place at school when homesick.
They were also excited about the opportunity to see what their children are learning about at school. 


This week I'm going to step up my class blog, connecting our blog to our class site, and getting the children to take ownership. Also connecting our site to the school site for students at home.