Digital Fluency Intensive course - Day 7

Today's selfie to go with the chilly weather outside!

It was lovely to meet Stef today. Always great to put a face to the name behind the emails. It's a shame we weren't able to put on some sunshine for you! Seeing's we are the "first to see the sun" and yet today, we were the last.

Dorothy's focus on "Connected" was an interesting learning curve for me. I needed the reminder to "be visible" and "give as well as take". Quite often, and not on purpose, I forget to make myself visible as an individual or stay connected. I particularly enjoyed the statement "Connectivity is a way of life for our students. Take it away from them and they will check out". This is so true and to be taking away their connectivity we will be doing our tamariki a disservice. It has been difficult to change my way of thinking and in turn to change my pedagogical practice.

I made my first Google Form today (yep I'm forever playing catch up).  Here is the link to my Form . I decided to create a form that I was actually going to use in school with our tamariki. For our older students this will be a great way for them to feedback their ideas around Cobham School. I do thank everyone that completed my form (and for your kind words Sharyn). As with all I have learned in the past, I will pick up the ball and sprint with these Google Forms. They are a quick, efficient way for me to gather information when I need it. It will be a great tool for community consultation, staff feedback, student engagement in learning. I giggle because I know when I find something I enjoy creating my staff, board, students - all get bombarded!

Digital Fluency Intensive course - Day 4

To be fair, I haven't walked away as enthusiastic today as I have in the past. I found that the disruption to my morning left the rest of my day a little disjointed. So I now feel I have missed out on some important info and I'm unsure how I am going to catch up. However, onward and upward ...

Cybersmart is new to me (as are most things we do here on our DFI days) but I have enjoyed learning the kaupapa behind Cybersmart and how it works alongside Manaiakalani goals and supports the learn, create, share pedagogy. I also like the idea of partnering with whanau (this is a huge focus at Cobham) and making sure our learners are "at home in the digital world". I really like the Smart Footprints, Smart Relationships, Smart Surfing etc ... I have always tried to stress the importance with my students (and my own children) the importance of knowing what your digital foot print looks like. So imagine my joy when I found out there was this "Cybersmart"!

"Be internet awesome"

I would like to look further into using Hapara at Cobham School - what would this look like? Would it be beneficial? Is there a cost? When would you look at joining this if your school isn't completely "Manaiakalani ready". So many questions. A completely new platform for me. Hapara looked to me like it would be something I would enjoy using but again ... baby steps.

A few years back I was introduced to screencastify - it wasn't the best introduction could I say. I absolutely disliked using it, so today when I saw we would using screencastify I was hesitant (noooooo not again!!!!!). Drum roll please ... I think I rocked it! It was so much easier to do this time round. I remember using it for an assignment in the past and it all just went very wrong. I've embedded today's efforts below. I enjoyed it so much I think I might use it to feedback to the staff on my day today. Thank you Cheryl and Maria for the positive experience!

I'm not a fan of videoing myself and another note to self: Put your hair up Gina or get it under control!!!

Another positive experience ... hangouts! The last time we used hangouts it didn't go so well so I was a little disheartened (though was hoping for another opportunity to use it) and lo and behold here Cathy and I were today, chatting happily away to Sarah and Leanne after their exam and getting some much needed advice and guidance for our own exam. Absolutely stoked that it all went well today. So yes, I can definitely see hangouts being something I would use in my classroom/school/learning/teaching.

So although I was pretty tired and mentally exhausted after today I walk away having learned and eager to learn more.

Digital Fluency Intensive course - Day 3

Wow! What a day!

What did I learn? PUBLISH YOUR WORK GINA!!! Note to self: No one will see your blog if you don't publish it!!!

Today I realised just how far and wide the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy net can be cast. Create is an endless amount of teaching and learning where anything is possible and the 'journey' isn't a set path but all about discovery. That was my day today ... discovering!

I loved being able to create my own site. What was even better ... I can use this in the future with my own students. Better than that ... can't wait to share it with the staff at school who will then share it with our tamariki. The options are endless. I could see how I could spend days creating sites for all sorts of topics, for all different year levels. What a fabulous tool for school!! (Rhyming and I love it).  To be fair, Tiriti wasn't my first choice. I did start a site based on speeches (that's what we are doing in school at the moment) but then decided I wanted to work on a site with our kaiako at school so will leave speeches for a later date.

For my first site I don't think I did too bad. Always room for improvement. I have made a list of all the sites I would like to create. Ladybirds, Nga atua, all things Dutch, crocheting, purple, bananas, slow loris, sunflowers, harakeke ... never enough time in the day.

Anyhoo, here is the link to my Tiriti site ...
https://sites.google.com/cobhamschool.nz/te-tiriti-o-waitangi/home

Create, create, create!!!

In a few weeks I am going to a 3 day conference in Palmerston North. I am expecting great things from this conference, as are my staff and board. So, because I am feeling quite confident in my ability to create a site that is useful, informative and just plain old fun to make, I will be feeding back via a site. This will serve as a great "hook" for both staff and board. It will get me practicing my newly-learned skill. I'd love to be able to use sites with our year 6 students. With it being their last year at school it would be great to see them put together a site "A Cobham Moment in time ... ". Baby steps though ... hook in my wonderful kaiako ... then hook in our tamariki.

Professional life seems to spill over into personal and vice versa so I'm already thinking a site for my crocheting, a site for children's 21st birthdays, a photography site ... it all seems to be a whole lot of fun. It isn't boring, it's not onerous ... too good to be true.

Digital Fluency Intensive course - Day 2

Manaiakalani Kaupapa & Pedagogy

I have enjoyed the Manaiakalani focus of Create, Share, Learn - effective teaching, accelerated learning. My initial understanding of Manaiakalani was "it's digital only".  I had this thought that I needed to be some kind of "digital heroine" to be able to be a part of this programme. It turns out this was yet another myth that has been loosely thrown about. It is clear to me now that the Manaiakalani kaupapa (whatever that may look like to each individual) and pedagogy is about "accessing and engaging with existing knowledge in a digital environment".  Today I am better than last week about trying to explain this. I think as the weeks go on I will get better at explaining what Manaiakalani is, rather than what it isn't. I have been resisting moving from the "analogue world to the digital world".  This isn't a new thing.  This started way back with my photography - I was reluctant to let my film camera go. Then I swore I didn't need a mobile phone. I was quite happy with my landline thank you very much. My pedagogy has taken a similar route. My journey has been slow to kick off but now I am actually on that journey, in that waka. I'm so excited. This is life changing. This is what Manaikalani has offered me.  It makes it so much more meaningful for me. Imagine what this will do for our tamariki at Cobham School?!

Professional Confidence, Capability, Workflow 

Today has been another day full of learning. There was not one thing that I could say I already knew.  That is a fantastic day.  Yes I had heard of Hangouts but I had never used it. Google Keep ... um ... ??? Completely new.  There are so many different abilities in Gmail, Calendars, Bookmarks and Tabs - I will need to go back and revisit some of the things we looked at today - especially Toby - I missed that kaupapa. I'm not sure what to do with Toby at the moment.  I can say now that my confidence has grown when using gmail and calendars.  This will improve my professional practice immensely.  Everything can run a lot smoother if we are all on the same calendar at kura. Very efficient. I think I have also got to a place where I don't mind making mistakes because at the end of the day, just like our learners, we are all learning, especially from our mistakes.

Learners

Everything I have learned today I have no doubt that I can take back to school and share with our Cobham tamariki.  Who am I kidding? Some of them probably already know it.  That is the idea of Manaiakalani isn't it? To up-skill teachers to keep up with their learners?  It would be amazing to set up a "Hangouts Community" at kura where the tamariki are put into a roopu and can discuss their mahi within that roopu. The benefits of this would be huge ... At Cobham we are just starting our Manaiakalani journey so we will be moving in baby steps. But I am imagining when this is the norm ... fabulous!

Personal Confidence, Capability, Workflow 

Gmail is a huge part of my personal life and to date I have really only been using a small part of it. Who knew? I like the idea of using the G suite for everything so that does mean having to convert from other apps or previous ways of thinking. This is a great thing.  Change is great. I will end up having an overall tidy up of all that is Google on my laptop, desktop, phone and I have no doubt life with flow a lot more efficiently.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 1 - 26 July 2019

Feeling a little anxious as I walked into my DFI Day1 class this morning.  The beginning of a new journey. Come walk with me! I may trip, I may stumble but I will get back up again!

It is funny how up until now, what I knew about Manaiakalani has just been "myth and legend".  I was so pleased to finally hear the background story of Manaiakalani, how it came about, how it has grown, the legendary vision that was captured by a few clever individuals - who knew it started in 2006?  I didn't even own a mobile phone in 2006.  I am pleased to (finally) be a part of Manaiakalani (better late than never). Day 1 and I am already excited about what I can take back and share with our kaiako and tamariki at Cobham School.

I guess it is time to confess that I am digitally "a mess". There is no rhyme nor reason with my google drive or my docs for that matter and imagine my surprise when I realise that all this time I have been using the wrong google account with the email account - personal with the principal, principal with the teacher, teacher with the personal - oh my! The tangled webs we weave. Pleased to say ... my google accounts and my email accounts are sorted! I usually pride myself in being orderly, little did I know.  Although I have a long way to go I can now say that I am able to set up a google group. I didn't know there was such a thing. I've always been a person that went to their email and put all addresses in manually ... no more!

One of the many things I would like to take back to share with our learners is the voice to text tool. Too many times I see our tamariki sitting, not writing, not being able to share their thoughts because they simply do not have that capability yet. How much easier for them would it be if they could simply tell their story out loud? The success would be huge, confidence levels would rise - I see a new love for writing on the horizon. I won't forget the paper cup as a voice tunnel - what a fabulous idea that is!

Remove.bg is my new favourite tool. Another magnificent tool I will taking back to kura to share not only with our learners but also our kaiako. All this time I have persevered with mucky backgrounds. I will be forever grateful for being introduced to this site. Today I was able to make an A to Z (unfnished at the mo) of Cobham School using Remove.bg ... wowza! I'm addicted!

I am constantly looking at ways to improve the way in which I manage the different roles I have outside of school. Google groups is going to help me with this. I can see how separating my google accounts and google emails is going to tidy up the way I store information on my laptop - no more chopping and changing between accounts because "oh no" I see I'm saving crocheting patterns in my principal drive!!  Planning for birthday parties, weddings, timetabling drops off and pick ups will work a lot smoother (in my head) as I have a platform I can use and share with the family so we are all on the same page.

I survived (click for a quick waiata) my end of day. Pic for evidence! I walk away mentally exhausted but completely full of knowledge.

Nau mai, haere mai ki tēnei taonga

Welcome to my professional learning blog.

This is a place where I can reflect on my Teaching as Inquiry goals

and how they link to the Education Council's

Standards for the Teaching Profession