Video Feedback on Blogpost- DFI Day 2

Create Task

Today's 'Create task' involved delving into a student's blog post and discussing what the teaching design was behind the post. We also needed to discuss what the learner's response was to the task and also to look at who commented on the blog post and how this contributed to the learning experience.

Here is my korero with Alicia Langton from Tamaki Primary School, about Lily's blog post (from Grey Main School.

Please jump on and comment on Lily's blog post as she has done a wonderful job! You can find her blog post

DFI Day 2

It is always fantastic revising the pedagogy of Learn, Create, Share and in particular 'Learn' today.

Today's DFI has cemented and highlighted a number of things for both me in my teaching and learning journey, but also for the students in my class. 

* Quality Teaching is at the core of everything!

* Learn is about 'accessing and engaging with existing knowledge'- so like today with our create task, we engaged with the knowledge we were given (how to use Google Meet to record, create calendar invites for Meet, Embedding our Videos onto our blog, etc),  to give feedback on a students blog post. All the while, reflecting on the effectiveness on blog posts and looking at how comments are an important part of the process. Comments enrich the learning and has scope for the learner to feel empowered and valued.

* We discussed the Higher Leverage Practices (HLP) and it sparked a thought regarding the children in my class and how I really do need to get them talking! (Talk moves here we come)

* Google Keep- is such an amazing tool at our finger tips! I do currently use this however it is underutilised. I have now shared our grocery list with my partner. I am going to use the grab text feature to be able to work with pieces of text. I can move notes from PD sessions and then copy it all to Google Docs. I can even make a voice memo to myself! The feature of setting reminders when you are in the vicinity (location setting) is also very valuable.

* I have learnt about organising my Gmail account and will go back to class and teach the children how to create folders in their Gmail so they can organise and keep their important emails.

* I can share documents from my drive in a Calendar invite, so no more sharing multiple emails to my Pedagogy Focus Group.

* Toby Mini is a fantastic extension and I have now created a collection that has all my students emails on it. I can imagine this being very handy for the EOY processes (sharing of blog links with next years teachers and then inviting them to their new student's blogs).

Here is the collection I created today with the links to my students blogs.

I think too, that it is really important to continually go back and revise this new learning, as I realised that there were a couple of things discussed today that I had forgotten about. A combination of old age and highlighting the need to have multiple opportunities to practice a new skill!

Once again a very thought provoking and empowering day. Loving the new skills and confidence that comes with being able to do things that you couldn't do previously. So for me, Learn was a definite winner on the day!

Digital Fluency Guru.......I think not!

Digital Fluency Intensive- Day One

In the beginning of our School Manaiakalani Journey, teachers would look to me for support and help to do things smarter, faster and more effectively (as I was one of the first teachers to have an in class Manaiakalani Facilitator working with me at my Kura). 

Everything prior to that point was learnt by 'Googling' what to do, or self taught. I was very blessed to work with Mark Maddren who taught me so much, however I definitely had the glaze over look (often) when I wasn't sure how to do something. Time was limited and the focus was mainly at the children's level. I was often going home to search 'the net' so that I could find out more.

Today's DFI session has confirmed to me the journey that we are on with Manaiakalani. How very lucky we are to be a part of Manaiakalani, especially with the support we receive as teaching professionals and also for our students, whanau and communities. 

The Manaiakalani kaupapa is successful because of the vision, the people, networking, research and resourcing. But not only this, it's effective classroom practice.

So what did I learn today that will support my confidence, capability and workflow as a professional?

Today I learnt many things that will help me in my work:

* I learnt how to make separate profiles rather than adding in many different Google accounts. I made the massive mistake of having a number of different personal and professional accounts open and then created blogs! Let's just say that it was a nightmare to sort it all out and I had to keep signing in and out of Google accounts trying to sort it out!

* I learnt about the benefits of having Google Groups and the differences between 'Groups' and 'Contacts'.

* I had time to organise my Google Drive and learnt tips on how to do this more effectively (changing folder colours, giving the folders numbers so they pop up to the top)

* Things that I need to teach the kids- folder permissions, naming your docs- initials and then the document name, no underlining in titles (ooops), making headings and table of contents, hyperlinking, using the explore tool, etc

* Using a Google Doc to create an info graphic (I didn't even think this was possible!)

Speaking of info graphics.....check out my creation here:

It's funny because we only know what we know, until our eyes are opened and until we are challenged and taught other ways of doing things. 

Thank you Manaiakalani for supporting me in my Professional Learning Journey and I'm sorry, for being one of those teachers who have been teaching things the wrong (least effective ways)!

I am feeling confident that I have learnt lots of new things and now is my job to retrain and rethink the ways that I do things and do things smarter!

Personally, I am just looking forward to being able to move between profiles and not having to log in and out again! 

I am very much looking forward to the DFI Day 2.