Digital fluency Intensive, Cohort 1, 2021

 Day 8--Computational thinking and coding

Dean Shareski (2011)   ".....when it transforms the way we learn, offer us new unchartered experiences and opportunities." We need to understand that technology is not just a tool, it's more than that. Effective teachers use the technology to transform students lives.

EMPOWERED

Today Dorothy talked about another important element of Manaikalani Kaupapa i.e  'Empowered'. This element is really vital for our young students so that they feel empowered and take the ownership of their learning in the digital world.  Manaikalani has played an important part in empowering both the whanau and students. We also learnt about using the word' Empowered' instead of 'Agency'. Using the word 'Agency' especially with our whanau can carry a negative connotation.

We  looked into some of the famous breakthrough technologies in year 2019, 2020 and 2021. With the new changes in the technology, it's good to stop and have conversation with our students about the moral and ethical questions that can be related to both the advantages and disadvantages that these changes have brought so that when these students grow up they have a understanding about it.

Digitally Fluent teachers and learners

Digitally fluent teachers feel confident in using technology in the classroom so as to turbocharge students learning. Learners when digitally fluent have mastered the skills like synthesis, collaborate, validate, innovative, cybersmart which is going to help them as the time is changing and new things coming up in the digital world.

Computational thinking and coding

Today I enjoyed learning about computational thinking and coding. We also got the opportunities to explore the computational thinking through progress outcomes and exemplars. I have always thoughts that computational thinking and algorithm is something to do with Maths. But I watched a video where the teacher has used the 'Three little pig story' for her students to do the computational thinking. It was quiet interesting to see the whole lesson and gives me an idea of how I can use it in my class.  I also  had a go on creating coding on the scratch Jnr. As my class also have a set of ipads, this app. will be really suitable to begin with teaching coding.  

My Scratch Jnr Project

DFI

 Digital Fluency Intensive, Cohort 1, 2021

Day 7- Devices

Ubiquitous learning: Anytime, Anywhere, Any pace

Ubiquitous learning helps in removing barriers (time, place, pace). It allows learners to learn at their own pace, any time and anywhere.  Being myself an online learner , I have seen the advantages of  the Ubiquitous learning for myself. If I missed or couldn't understand something during the DFI sessions as it was too fast for me, I know I always have the option of rewindable learning and can go back to the learning content and learn at my own pace. Teachers who had their sites up and running last year during the lockdown was a good example of providing Ubiquitous learning for their learners.

Cybersmart

We also looked at  'Being Cybersmart'  and using the positive Cybersmart language. Cybersmart learners knows how to confidently use their device, respect others online, make use of most of the opportunities for learning. They are always at right place, at right time and doing the right thing. They know what information to keep private or public. It's really important that students understand how to be Cybersmart especially when they are blogging. As a teacher, I would be playing an important role in making my student understand it in order for my learners to be successful digital citizen.

Devices 

Today's session was about devices where we got the opportunity to explore the use of chromebooks and ipads. We did the digital dig activity on the chromebook to get an understanding of the different functions of the keys on the keyboard and compare it with the keyboard on the mac. We also looked at Explain Everything app. and screencastify. As my class is given 1:1 chromebooks for my learners, I find the drag and drop activity will be helpful for my students to familiarise themselves with the keys on the keyboard.

Today I felt very draining and found the session too fast for me. Following are my create activities that I managed to do today.

Digital Fluency Intensive, Cohort, 1 2021

       Day 6- Enabling Access Sites

                           Connected

Today we got a deep insight of another very important element of Manaikalani Pedagogy i.e Connected. We learnt how important it is for us to create a powerful network as it creates so many opportunities for us to learn from each other. The act of sharing creates connections and it should be give and take relationship. Today Dorothy shared that many regions are part of the Manaikalani cluster and Manaikalani programme is designed to bring the people together. 

Today we also got the opportunities to evaluate other teacher's class sites. We looked into 2 important aspects of creating sites i.e Visual Appeal and User friendly.
The learning I am taking away after doing these evaluations is that in order to maximise the visible teaching and learning, I need to consider the following things when creating my class sites:

1. Is the site user friendly and accessible?
2. Is it engaging and hooking the learners/parents/ other teachers?
3. Is it personalised for my leaners ?
4. One stop hub for learning
5. Information for the parents
6. weekly overviews/ timetables
7. Consistency through all the year groups.
8. Archived to the previous contents.
9. 3 clicks and should be taking the learners to the learning page

I will be working on the feedback I got from my peers in my bubble group to make my site more effective for my learners. Today I set up 3 goals for my class site and I am happy to have achieved 2 goals. I spent quite a good time on creating buttons on my home page. But I am happy with my final output. 

I have also added labels into my blog as this will help in showing only those posts that are under that particular label.

Digital Fluency Intensive, Cohort 1, 2021

Day 5- Collaborate sites

 

Manaikalani Pedagogy: Visible learning

Today we got a deep understanding of how important it is to have teaching and learning visible for our students, whanau, colleagues and teachers. Visible learning can help students to achieve better.
Learning should be accessible 24/7 and not restricted with a password. We can turbocharge the traditional classroom through Google sites. Class sites can make the teaching visible to learners and their parents and Hapara makes the learning visible to the teacher.

Today we also got the opportunity to look at some of the class sites from various schools that have set a good example of visible, advanced and accessible learning.

We were also shown step by step how to create our own class sites and making sure the title page is engaging to hook in our learners. I enjoyed creating my first own class site and making a multimodal site planning on jamboard.

Class site

 

Multimodal Site Planning: Jamboard

 

Digital Fluency Intensive, Cohort 1, 2021

 Day 4 - Dealing with data

                     Share (Tohatoha)

Today we learnt about another important part of Manaikalani Pedagogy i.e Share.

Sharing is so important to connect with people and sustaining relationships. 

                    Today's lesson make me reflect on :           

                          How vital it is to share with an authentic audience? 

    Blogging is the best platform for our students to share their work and learnings as being cyber smart and  students work could be shared to the world wide audience.

New Learnings :

GOOGLE FORMS: Today we learnt how to use google forms and this could be used to create quizzes, student survey, order forms, basic facts and spelling test.

GOOGLE MAPS: Enjoyed making my own google map on famous landmarks of Auckland. This could be used in class to make a recount of a class trip that we went to or to locate famous places in New Zealand or across the world. Students can also find out the nearest and the farthest places by looking at the distances.

GOOGLE SHEETS: Another effective tool to create and analyse data. This can be used to enter students score in their spelling test, Eassttle writing, reading levels and can be analysed to monitor students progress.

Following are my learn, create, share activities from today's session:

• MY GOOGLE FORM

• MY GOOGLE MAP (Famous landmarks in Auckland)

•  CREATED CHART OF A BLOG ANALYSIS ON GOOGLE SHEETS