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.