Reflection - Week 7 DFI

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Today just reinforced for me that I need to continue to work on becoming digitally fluent and that it won't happen over night. Each week I can see how a 'One Stop Hub' with only 3 clicks will make learning accessible to my students. I had a situation this week where a boy had become upset as he couldn't remember the criteria that had been set for our recount on 'All About Me'. The criteria was on the site but hidden because of the many clicks that had to happen before he found the correct information. This also highlighted the importance of things being rewindable on my class site. Something for me to work and reflect on.

At present I don't think my site is engaging for the learning or their whanau. I need to work on decluttering the site and making sure the work is up to date and appealing. I want my site to be a place where i am connecting with students and their whanau and celebrating the learning that is happening in Room 2!

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

Finally mastering how to make those pesky buttons on my home page on my class site. I spent so much time last week trying to make them and all I ended up doing was messing up my site. So I am totally thankful once again to my Bubble coach Amy for working with me one on one today. It really is appreciated!!!

I also gained some knowledge on how to have sub pages with reading groups etc. I have been desperate to find a way to have this on my site after looking at some well established sites today.

I really find it extremely hard sharing my work in the digital bubble because I don't have the confident digitally yet. I get anxious to the point of feeling sick. It probably sounds a little silly saying that especially seeing I am generally pretty confident. I guess this is good to reflect on as I am pretty sure there will be times my students feel the same during their learning journey.

Again Amy just showed a simple thing like having your folder with the share permissions open. I have often created something on the site and thought the kids could see it and unfortunately they didn't have access and that has been an issue when I've been out of my class.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners, how could they use?

I think I might get photos of the kids and their artwork onto our site to make it more personalised and create some cool photo buttons.  - Didn't get a chance to do this so I intend to the photos tomorrow so I can get creative.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Getting my reading and writing pages sorted on my site this week will definitely decrease the time I spend in the weekend mucking things up. I can waste a lot of time trying to do things on my site but never ever make it any better. I feel I have gained a little confidence from working with Amy today.

Below is a screen shot of my home page for my site. I think having a class photo as the banner will look better. I am just stoked to have those buttons finally on the home page. I may add more but just wanted to keep it simple for now so I don't become overwhelmed.

 

 Reflection - Week 5 DFI

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

I guess today I gained more of an understanding as to why Manaiakalani encourage a digital classroom as it makes teaching and learning more visual for not only the student but their whanau and their support village. It is encouraging students to feel more connected to their learning. A digital classroom allows the facilitator to share what the students are expected to learn. Something that has stuck with me from today is the Learn - Create - Share - that a visible teaching and learning lead to acceleration in learning.

A visually appealing site for students with the 'wow' factor hooks the learner in and encourages learning from the start. I like the link between a 'good shop window' and the first page of your site. Grabbing that attention visually right from the start is going to help create success.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

Making buttons on my site would not only improve my workflow but also the students. Less time wasted clicking into different places to find the work.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners, how could they use?

I think I might get photos of the kids and their artwork onto our site to make it more personalised and create some cool photo buttons.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

 Reflection - Week 4 DFI

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Today I liked how Dorothy explained that we have an instinct to share and over the past years we have had different platforms that we could do this on. These platforms have been a way to 'hook' learners in. It helps the learners stay connected and enables them to share.

I am still very new to the digital classroom and one point Dorothy made today stuck with me and that was with the slide containing the box of exercise books in a plastic tub sitting under the teacher's desk and this does not empower our learners, it does not enable them to be connected and often probably dampens their will to share. It made more sense why we get our students in our class to blog and the importance of that feedback - feedforward process. Blogs enable students to share with a much larger audience in turn they receive a lot more feed back. This feedback is so valuable to the learner.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I find this course kind of like a roller coaster! With some activities I can feel my confidence growing and then with others I feel completely lost! Highs and lows just like a roller coaster. This has made me reflect on what the classroom must be like for some of my students. I have a certain few in mind!

I am gaining confidence in taking activities back and sharing them with my class. Some of my students are very capable digitally so it's quite a big thing for me to 'have a go' with my class! I must admit they are very patient and I have shared with them I am learning and need time to practise with them.

I liked part of the google sheets and can see how this would help me organising data collected from students. I just need to have some quiet time to practise.

I like learning the 'quick tips' on Harpara. A great wee tip on viewing blogs in one space and moving those tiles around to keep an 'eye' on some students.

I found the data collection and converting to a table tricky today but I can see that this would be very useful in the classroom and in my personal teaching work.  Thank Amy for being so helpful!  

It was such a quick way to gather data and create a table.  I like how we can use the formatting tools to add titles, axis, change colours of texts.  I think I will have another play with this function before next week to ensure I feel confident enough doing this on my own.  

What did I learn that could be used with my learners, how could they use?

I like the idea of using google forms in some way with my students and then maybe linking to the Google My Map. I really like the My Map and can see my students would enjoy using this feature. I intend on finishing my Pepha in slides with my students before I head into another activity.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I could totally use Google My Map in my personal life when planning family adventures away.

 DFI - Week 3

I love that Manaikalani still wants us to be creative educators in the digital classroom.  For me this is very important as I best learn through creativity.  I love to share my creative side with my students while encouraging them to be creative.  Hooking our students into learning using a variety of tools is important and I can see in my classroom how many learners are empowered by using digital technology to be creative and to achieve success.

I am finding the Hapara Hot Tips really useful.  Learning that this programme is not just for 'spying' on students.  I think Harpara will definitely help with workflow as being able to view and manage student files and folders in one place is so time saving!

I am going to do a Pepeha with my class and get them to publish this on their blog.  We are working through a unit 'About Me' and this fits perfectly.  The slideshow will also allow the students to use their creative side.  

I am also going to get the students to make a video of them reading some of their recent writing that then can be posted on their blog.  The students have artwork to accompany their writing so they can share this alongside their writing.  

I have been to nervous to attempt to work with the student blogs as this is very new to me but I am gaining confidence due to DFI!  To be honest I didn't think I'd ever say that!

Me Pepeha Slideshow

 

How To Embed Video On My Blog

Reflection From Today:

For me the move to a digital classroom is very scary and exciting.  I am having to learn a whole new way of presenting my teaching.  I have found that I am still able to work alongside my students rather than just presenting.  It will be a long road of learning for me but As Dorothy said 'we are not throwing out the baby with the bath water' and what has previously worked and been successful in my class teaching can be adapted digitally and still be a winner.  

I really liked the example that Dorothy used about teaching the Treaty of Waitangi because it did show how effective technology can be in the classroom.  I also felt like I am not completely failing with the digital classroom as I did have some great videos and links that I used specifically for teaching the Treaty of Waitangi and other curriculum areas.  I am a work in process and am learning how to be more effective in my practice.  

Once again it was a full on day of leaning and have found many things useful.  I really liked the deep dive around cleaning up tabs and making folders.  I am not completely confident I know how to do everything I want but having the slides to go back and look through is a bonus for me as I am a person who likes to follow written instructions.  I must admit I sometimes jump ahead and think I know what I am doing but often that isn't the case.  This has made me think about some of students in my class who do the the same thing. 

I like  when others can share their tips and tricks as I often can pick up a shortcut that I did not know about and oh how this makes the digital world easier for me! 

Blogging is very new to me and I will  have a professional blog set up shortly for my school.  My students also have blogs that they share work and learning on.  I am hoping blogging will make more sense as time goes on.  I liked the tip of being able to have your student blogs in a folder pinned to your tab to make these blogs more accessible.

I can see attending this Digital Fluency Intensive will help me become a more effective educator in the classroom and in my practice.