Learning to use Screencastify

This week we have been learning to use Screencastify and publish our work on our blogs. The hardest part I found was trying to find somewhere quiet to do my video. How do you think I have gone?

Am I showing my age???

Over the holidays, i was asked by one of my fabulous teachers to take a lesson on transformation, in particular enlarging a drawing using a grid.

'Really, on a digital platform?' was my first thought as I vividly remembered how I used to love making enlargements of pictures in my childhood. I remember getting the activity colouring book in my stocking as a child and using it as we traveled to our holiday destination.

So I set to making a slide show with tasks for the students and enjoyed reliving one of my passions but on a new platform. I personally thought it was quite fiddly using the polyline tool to draw the object, but with lots of concentration, I managed to complete the task and have to admit to enjoying the challenge.

I found the students reactions to the task so interesting. This was something so completely new and challenging to them and even the 'tricky' students were totally on task. They were so keen to share their efforts with their classmates and are looking forward to blogging about their learning at our next session.

That night I was sharing the days events with my family and I suddenly remembered the amazing 'Pantograph' that I had received as a gift. It brought back fond memories to both my husband and I, however while I knew the students would laugh at this device, I never expected their teachers to have no idea what I was talking about. It seems I really am showing my age, but in my day it was so cool to have one of these ... yet another extinct tool!

Sharing over the term break

Term 2 concluded with another awesome Hui with the Manaiakalani team in Auckland. Creativeness played a huge part for me this time as bad weather cancelled the first leg of my trip, meaning my connecting flight was just not going to happen. With bag packed, I needed to be there face to face as no Hangout was going to suffice for this 3 day Hui. So I began the 3 hour drive (no comparison to what would have been a 35 minute flight), and managed to avoid being blown off the road, surface water and slips to make a slightly later flight. With the focus being on SHARE, it was so beneficial to do just that with my colleagues from around NZ.

Blogging is a huge part of sharing and is something we discuss in our family quite a bit. Having been a parent for 34 years, I sit back and smile at how things have changed over those years. Phones were joined to walls and one would never have imagined they would be carried in our pockets, and certainly not a way of taking photos or sharing our learning via social media. I remember training for Reading Recovery in the early 90's and being told we would be facing an ongoing battle of getting children to focus and concentrate when they were watching TV before school. (Yes, children's programmes had just started playing from 6-9am and who would have thought they would now be available 24/7?).

With my youngest just reached the double digits, it was impressive to think that I would have some well earned down time these holidays while she visited relatives. However it has been far from that as I field sad phone calls because she has run out of things to do. Yes you guessed it - there's no internet! This child loves the outdoors, enjoys reading, and has a wonderful imagination, but tells me it would be nice to be able to share what she's done with us and see what her mates are up to. I totally get that because that is the way she is learning, but the 'Y generation' family members she is staying with don't understand it at all. The 'we never did that' conversation keeps rearing it's ugly head, and they don't want to share how things have changed and that she's not complaining to annoy them, she's simply trying to voice that a part of her life is missing. Don't get me wrong, we have lots of breaks away (usually in the summer) where there is no internet, but we are usually so busy doing new things that we don't have time to contemplate it's not there, and because it's rained everyday these holidays ... things are a little different.

These relatives struggled to learn by conventional methods and would have benefited greatly if they had been in a 1:1 learning environment where the 'Learn, Create, Share' pedagogy was used, but sadly they won't see this while they have their heads buried in the sand and refuse to get internet connected. After all we are simply sharing the learning we are doing, as we have always done, and there is so much learning happening, what better way to share it than on platforms such as blogger. So, my answer was to write it down and together we will share it when she gets home, don't think a smile was born with that answer, but it's the best I can offer from 500+kms away!

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 9

Ubiquitous

Ubiquitous  means accessible anytime, anywhere, any place. Learning Sites do exactly this. No student needs to miss out as by having your learning visible, every student can access it even when they are not at school. Also for those who need to revisit the lesson, it is visible so it is rewindable.

Being able to access the internet outside of school hours and outside of the classroom empowers the students to want to learn because they are not being disadvantaged. 

We offer our students the Summer Learning Journey, and Tuhi Mai, Tuhi Atu to keep them connected. Teachers are offered Toolkits, PLG's, Google exams and to participate in Tuhi Mai, Tuhi Atu so as to empower them to be on top of the learning they are setting up for their students.



These 9 weeks have been fabulous to empower me in my role as Facilitator and I look forward to sharing my knowledge with other inspired teachers in the future.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 8

Devices

It is really important that as teachers we make the time to try out the devices our students are using for their learning. It was a wonderful opportunity to play with these devices today and feel the frustrations the students have when they are in them. 

It was also beneficial to remind ourselves of the shortcuts available on the devices, and how the language is the same no matter what device you are on.

Hapara has certainly made it more visible for teachers to ensure their students are in the right place at the right time. This visibility is the key to empowering the learners, the whānau and the teachers to partake in the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy.

It was really informative to learn how Manaiakalani 1:1 devices came about. Partnership, Participation, and Protection are all important to ensure there is engagement and whānau are able to experience this, but in a safe environment.

Screencastify is a great app that can be used by both students and teachers to show rewindable opportunities.  It was great to hear how others use this resource in their teaching. 

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 7

CONNECTED:

Learn, Create Share pedagogy, the default is visible, so it is important to ensure all our connectedness is visible.

Clustered through connections in our outreach groups. Principals traveled to Auckland to connect. Now we have made it possible for Facilitators & School Leaders to travel & connect.

Shared language of Learn, Create, Share is very important in this connection and this happens because of Manaiakalani's pedagogy and visibility consistency. This enables us to support our colleagues.

Digital has a lot to offer in our 'time poor' lives

Connectedness through Tuhi Mai, Tuhi Atu, Online Toolkits, Twitter, Outreach Group sites, Blogs, Class on Air, MIT teachers, Google+ communities - all are very VISIBLE!

YOUTUBE:

CyberSmart ways to use YouTube include making a playlist and embedding videos onto Learning Sites are ways to ensure students are only exposed to what they need to be seeing. We need to remember that children don't watch TV these days. they go onto YouTube so we need to ensure they are using it correctly and smartly. 

GOOGLE DRAWING:

Patience is a necessity when experimenting here, probably more so for adults. There are so many wonderful ways to use Google Drawing and this slide has some great examples that could be really useful in a create situation. 

GOOGLE SLIDES:

Slides are only supposed to support the presenter, they shouldn't be the star of the show. Keep the format simple and remember blank slides are also empowering. 

Slides enable access to learning, and allow rewindable learning. By putting a weeks learning for a group on a slide, you can provide links, then copy the format of the slide for the next weeks work.

Slides can also be used to allow learners to create animations, story boards, pick-a-paths, 

movies and digital pepeha.

This is a great way to show collaboration amongst learners.

Kent from Point England School came in via Hangout and explained how they see visibility in their community. He explained the need to push the waka out so that the students are proud of their efforts. It is a great way to have the whānau involved by having a live link to the video on YouTube. Drones etc are costly but worth the effort to show the students learning in good quality. Videos can be used to do rewindable learning and are a way to turbo charge.

Today I have come away with a lot of new ideas for delivering the CyberSmart curriculum and making it visible to my learners, the teachers and the whānau. I can see the benefits of using new ideas and how this will empower them in their learning.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 6: Let's google Google ...

To be empowered is an essential element of the Manaiakalani pedagogy. All learners and teachers need to be empowered and it is essential to recognise  that technology is not just a tool, it is something that should be transforming our learners lives.

                                                                            

Using Google Forms are an excellent way of collecting data as it automatically links to a spreadsheet so can be analysed. You are able to analyse individual or group responses and then present them on a spreadsheet so they can be discussed.






Google Sheets is a fantastic tool but it does need to be set up correctly for it to display the information you put into  it. There are many shortcuts that were shared with us today and these alone will make our production of Google Sheets so much quicker.

Google MyMaps is an app that I have  not explored prior to today. I can see how beneficial it will be with so many of my classes who have been asking how they can get their students to do some mapping of their community. It will also allow students to map their journey and all of these activities can be embedded on a student's blog.













I found this session very practical. It was great to see everyone using their sources of data to make use of these Google Suite tools. I really enjoyed being a part of conversations with teachers about how they could use these tools in their classroom and everyone seemed to appreciate the facilitators assistance with their ideas.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 5

Computational Thinking ... as it's now an integral part of the NZ Curriculum, it was great to have the opportunity to have two skilled visitors expose us to some of the amazing skills we can teach our students. Zoe & Viv from OMG Tech shared a workbook with great ideas that we could use with our colleagues and students, including practical activities that would be a wonderful addition to school play areas.

What this session confirmed for me was that we must allow students to be the problem solvers. We can structure their learning, but ultimately they need to be empowered to work independently and use the skills they have been taught to work things out. 

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 4

Share - Tohatoha 

was the focus of today's session and how important is it to acknowledge that we have always shared our learning and that of our students so we mustn't throw the baby out with the bathwater! The difference is that our audience has changed. This DFO shows how this has happened.

In order to share globally, Manaiakalani has come up with Blogger to ensure we are sharing safely and widely. It is certainly not the most out there way of sharing but it is a simple, safe and reliable way of allowing our learners to share their learning.

So, how do we get that authentic audience to interact with our learning? The same can be said about getting the learners to interact with the class site, and this is where we went with the final part of the session. I felt very privileged to be given the opportunity to view other's Class Sites, and they empowered me to rethink my ideas about what should be on a Class Site and the ways students can connect to this site in a positive way that assists their learning.  I found it of interest to talk amongst secondary and primary teachers and things they found worked better with their age groups. It was of interest to hear secondary teachers say that they felt some of their learners would connect more if there were more visuals, something they hadn't considered until they had seen others sites.

This was a wealth of information that will assist me in my future facilitation of class sites.  Danni had such wonderful insights to share and it made me inquisitive to look into other sites and see their amazing efforts.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 3

Create / Hanga - It's all about the hook!

As Kohl says, "Creativity focuses on the process of forming original ideas through exploration and discovery" and so today has seen my creativity be allowed to shine.  My memories as a young child are full of fun times. I barely have any memories of doing reading, writing and arithmetic (as it was then called) but can vividly remember the painting, the chalk drawing, making the fort into a hut, dressing up, dancing and the list goes on, and so, I could totally relate to the 'HeART of the Matter' clips.

Create is a verb, a doing word and so it makes total sense that Maniakalani has used Dewey's quote, and this illustration to show the importance of it in their Learn, Create, Share pedagogy.

Clarelle shared some amazing ideas using multi modal resources that will be useful to empower the 'create' in all of us. 

We were lucky enough to be able to explore the Garden Science link and build a collaborative site on this topic. I found this an amazing resource, but was intrigued to see that the reluctance of our students to work collaboratively obviously comes from how the see the adults in the life collaborating. It was intriguing to me to watch those who chose to get an amazing resource they could use, making a great site, while others went off on their own to produce something of importance to them. Still great practice, but to me an opportunity missed. 

From this session, I take away a clearer understanding of multi model resources and see the utmost importance of create in the effective practice of teaching. 

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 2

Day 2 saw lots of experimenting in Google Calendar, Google Mail, Google Hangout / Meet and recording using Quicktime.

One of the best ways of learning is to try and work out why things aren't working as they should. It was  informative to see how to use these tools to make our workflow simpler and how they can be used in sync.

Using Quicktime was relatively new to me. While I had used it, (I was unsure of actually how to use the tool and have sound and pictures actually working on my finished product), save it and share it to a blog, by embedding the video. It was great to learn this process with others in the group and by doing the recording, I will (hopefully) be able to do it again successfully.

However, the best thing I learned today was the Toby add on. I plan to use this rather than One Tab which has not been as useful as I had hoped. I believe Toby will be more useful for me to organise my tabs and look forward to sorting them so they are easier to find.

Digital Fluency Intensive - Day 1

What a fantastic programme to be involved in to assist my digital knowledge which will (hopefully) in turn assist those I work with. It was fantastic to hear how Manaiakalani had evolved and Dorothy and Russell Burt's passion is a gift that our learners will always be very grateful for.
Learning new Google tricks was amazing and should help me in my delivery. While the session was at a fast pace, it was great to see so many people meeting the challenges and wonderful to be able to assist those who needed a bit more time. Now my task is to revisit the day's programme so I can fully understand all that we achieved, and I will be recommending https://www.remove.bg/ to teachers.

I have been lucky enough to read the other participants blogs and share in the knowledge that they too found this a fantastic opportunity to learn new skills and I look forward to the next session.

Students and their chromebooks ...

I can't believe the difference a year makes in a 1:1 digital class. This time last year I felt like I was a broken record, reminding students that their chrome books were their learning tools and needed to be brought to school everyday and must be charged - I mean you wouldn't bring a pen with no ink to school would you.

I feel like I'm working with a different group of students. I guess some of these students have been using devices for over 3 years now and while they are the new students in the high school, they're leading by example to their peers.

Today as I came into class I watched the continuation of a  wonderful lesson where the students were making a digital card to a senior student that had helped them at camp. They were all at work on their devices, no power cords were to be seen and there was lots of conversation happening about having to fit all their comments on the one page, not deleting other's posts, colour choices and complimenting others on their work. While quite noisy, everyone was on task, the teacher was confidently checking students were in the 'right place at the right time' on Hapara and positively reinforcing their efforts.

When some students began having a loud conversation about the task 'not working', the teacher stopped the class and used a CyberSmart lesson to remind them about being respectful of others when all working on the same page and the class had a discussions on ways they could work together better to get this card completed with every class members comments visible. It was interesting to hear them allocate the task of moving and maybe making the font size smaller, to a class member that they felt would respect their efforts.

These students have certainly have come a long way.

Dreams becoming reality

Well, my best laid plans of blogging every week have sadly come apart at the seams. With all the excitement of starting a new year with great teachers in fantastic schools, once again, I have got myself so involved, that the blogging just didn't happen.

However, I must say how invigorating it is to go into classes so immersed in digital learning that their teachers are keen to grasp onto any new ideas or ways to incorporate my support into their planning.

The excitement from the new class getting their first chrome books to the classes who were on the Summer Learning Journey with so much to share is like a breath of fresh air. The teachers are so encouraging of their students, that the feeling of success is contagious.

I saw this wonderful quote the other day and believe this is a great bit of advice to using the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy of Manaiakalani.  I plan to use it, what are your thoughts?

Getting my 'Creative' working ...

My planning time without having to visit classes is rapidly running out, so my mind is swirling on  that 'creative' side enabling me to plan lessons for the purposes of learning. I'm really needing to bring in that creative element as many of the classes I'll be working  with have been on devices for several years now and I don't need that complacency element creeping in.

It's such a great opportunity for me to search other blogs, lessons, posts etc and work on getting that 'aha' moment happening. In saying that I also need to provide just enough information to allow the students to want to search for more, and to use their own creativity to produce a quality pice of work. All very thought provoking and challenging at the same time.

And I'm still REWINDING ...

As I make my way through the list of things I need to do to ensure the students have a smooth transition into 2019, I keep finding myself going back to look at what I learnt last year (which was an awful lot as it always is when you start a new job). The fact that Manaiakalani have set up a Learning Site that I can access to find answers to my questions is the real example of rewindable learning. This is why it is so important that teachers have their Learning Sites up and running prior to starting the year, enabling their students immediate access to the learning that will be taking place, so they can revisit the lessons, or rewind their learning.

I read with interest Robin Sutton's blog on Rewindable learning and it really rang true for my schooling days. This particular paragraph could have been written about me;

"Do you ever remember a time when someone had just explained something to you, and you walked away thinking 'what was that she just said?' Remember that feeling of inadequacy? That feeling that you missed just about everything the explainer/teacher said? I certainly do, and the wish that I could push the 'rewind' button, that I could just have the 'teacher' run that past me again, in my own time, and at my own speed. That's what we call 'rewindable learning."

I was a conscientious student but sometimes I just didn't understand the task at hand and got confused, yes, and felt inadequate. To be able to access a learning Site and revisit what was taught is invaluable, and something I do all the time now. So, teachers if you need a hand with your learning Site, don't hesitate to ask.

Rewindable Learning ...

Today's been a 'rewindable' day for me. Last year I was on a huge learning journey of using Explain Everything on the iPad. I was just getting a bit creative when the year ended, and I confess that the holidays were exactly that - a holiday!! So, meeting up with two of the teachers I will be working on iPads with this year, brought me back to reality

I was able to answer their questions and point them in the right directions, but I left with a list of things to do to get me back up to scratch. I came home feeling so mentally tired.

So, I grabbed a coffee, took a walk around the garden (and visited the new additions to our yard - 4 lovely lambs), felt revived and got back into it, surprising even myself.

                 It reminded me of this Banksy quote ...  

Where did that week go?

First week back at work for 2019 and boy did it fly! It's a wonderful opportunity to catch up with stress free teachers and hear their enthusiasm for this year. I've also found it a nice lead in to the year, using the time to do all those things I didn't get to last year and having the time to read those summer readings and answer emails in my office, rather than in the car while grabbing a bite to eat between schools.  Sadly my list of jobs is growing as fast as I tick things off,  but I'm going to enjoy the weekend before I get back into the swing next week and catch up with more of those amazing teachers.

Blog you later ... 

From boredom to creativeness.

Sadly, Mum is back to work and my baby is still in holiday mode ... the age old question in the morning "What are we going to do today?" with the answer of "Sorry love, but I'm back at work now" was met with the usual groan and comment " So it's going to be boring then!" I choose to ignore these protests, because there are other people who live in my house and I'm sure they can survive without me. I'd treated myself to a new lounge suite which just happened to arrive shortly after this conversation and you guessed it, it was packaged in bubble wrap and two very large boxes ... I guess the feeling of 'bored' was surpassed by fun and creativity as the bubble wrap was laid out in a line on my kitchen floor and the father and her jumped and popped till they met in the middle. Then the boxes were moved out to the deck where an eco house was constructed (although I'm not sure the power cord fitted the bill!!) This construction had all the mod cons, a chair, a table, a bed, a hole in the roof to check out the stars and was where she ate, entertained herself and even slept in it.

Creativeness at it's best ...

Into the second year with Manaiakalani ...

This year is going to be even better than the last as I expand my knowledge into three more schools based in the Greymouth area.  It is always exciting meeting new colleagues and sharing new ideas with them.

I continue to work on my Inquiry into the use of iPads in the junior classroom, and plan to share it as I go on my blog this year.

Have a great year & Happy Blogging ...

2018 Achievements