DFI final session 21 August 2019

Today's agenda Wednesday 21 August 2019 - Final DFI revision

Today's agenda Revision

Dorothy talk on Ubiquitous Learning

Idea for learning to potentially take place 24/7 complete open access.

Learning anytime, anywhere, at any pace.

Suggests we ask principal for a TO day to pursue our own rewindeable learning.

Sharing work between classrooms - some students find another perspective easier to follow.  When we share we make this possible for their learning.

Digital learning - power to transform learning and turbo charge learning - theory when we are not there the digital environment allows much more consistent and powerful learning through e.g. our site.

Students being able to make the choice about when they learn outside of school.

Plan to change the summer drop off and outside of school time productivity- summer learning journey is one way to empower students not to drop in learning over the summer.

Blogging writers were doing most surface features correctly over the summer without explicit teaching over that time.

Technology is not just a tool but a way to allow students to access new things in new ways.

Today was frustrating as my test login came too late to sit the test so now I still need to do it on the weekend.

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

Digital opens up opportunities for our young people that were not there before. Rewindable learning is crucial for student success. The importance of things being visible for students and whanau.

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

It has been a journey of understanding sites, being able to edit and update slides and get them onto my site. When I started DFI I found putting things into my site very time consuming and was still using email as a quicker method in Hapara to get students quick access to things. Now instead of email I either use the site or share a document in Hapara so it is saved into the right folder. We have done a lot of work on saving work in the correct place for teacher accessibility and this is running a lot smoother with practice.


What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

I hope to inspire some of my students to utilise the opportunity of the summer learning journey. We have been working on getting them able to make regular independant posts to get them ready to continue their learning over the summer.


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

Making some good connections on the course was very helpful. It is good to talk things through with people.

DFI session 8 14 August 2019

DFI session 8 Wednesday 14 August 2019

DFI session 8 agenda

Most people have been working on scratch and others have also used squawk squad VR to have a try at it.

Connected links to share really well. You can't make a strong connection with someone if they don't share a little of themselves. The default is visible - you cannot connect with others if the connections are not available.

You need connection and buy in to have genuine sharing.

Cluster websites allow for connectedness. Twitter is also being used for staff - never for students. Allows for a huge audience to help kids connect globally. Posts list in order so you see the last post first.

We can't leave it to chance to teach our kids to be digital citizens - Dorothy.

Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu allows students to do this with another school - allows students to connect in a kind manner.

This is a resource to help

Positive/thoughtful/helpful comments!

New hapara feature - shuts screens to black for 15 minutes - pause button in highlights - if student not included they must be in a non-school email or incognito.

We looked at Google maps, sheets and forms.
We had to place locations from a sheet onto a map.


Google sheets
Thick grey lines can be moved to lock things into place.

Designed to support work with numbers.

Text wrapping can sort keeping the text in one place.

We made a Google sheet about student blog posts and then created the graph below in google sheets.



Reflective questions

What did I learn that increased my understanding of connectedness within the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?
Connectedness requires all parties to share and be committed to mutual engagement. True sharing requires commitment and buy in from both parties. Visibility is the primary requirement for effective connectedness. It is exciting to be teaching in a time when this global opportunity for connection is available to us and our students.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
I had not attempted to use a google forms before today. I am really excited to use this to check my students understandings of topics as we progress. I made a filmmaking form today to check students have retained all the concepts that Harley has been teaching them.It will be fascinating to see how their answers go. It will be great to integrate photos of their learning to remind them of what we have done. Today I had three photos from the unit to include in the form.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  How to use google sheets - it will be great for checking students understanding of topics. Also how to use Google forms more effectively. Finding how to insert graphs was awesome. I am looking forward to using this tomorrow for science fair with students who are currently finishing their display boards.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
All efficiencies help improve workflow. I used my break to do some more work on sorting my email into categories. I still feel I need ongoing practice to feel confident using things in class. I am now a lot more confident with all the areas I have been putting into practice in my class.

Hopefully I am now registered for the exam for next week too.

Waitangi Centre DFI 7 Wednesday 7 August 2019

DFI Session 7 
7 August 2019 - Waitangi

Today's agenda
Agenda week 7

Shared writing for students is working really well for some people - I might trial it for a writing warm up in a shared document this week.

Patsy modelled using a site for a school trip overseas. It looks like a great forum for organisation.

Idea that we need to empower our students to be ready for changes to the environment and their employment opportunities.



What are we preparing students for with the new curriculum?

In the Technology Learning area  there are two new technological areas:

Computational thinking for digital technologies – Students will develop an understanding of computer science principles that underlie all digital technologies. They’ll learn core programming concepts so that they can become creators of digital technology, not just users.

Designing and developing digital outcomes – Students will learn how to design quality, fit-for-purpose digital solutions. 

Today's focus is on computational thinking.

Computational thinking is a two-step process:

1. Identify the steps needed to solve a problem.
2. Use your technical skills to get the computer "working" on the problem.

For example, if you’re going to make a video animation, you need to:

1. start by planning the storyboard
2. then, use computer hardware and software to help you get the work done.

We had a play on scratch as a student.

Goal to become creators not just consumers - prepare for the modern workforce.

Ordering a story or teaching kapahaka is teaching a sequence of events, a game in order is also computational thinking. It can be applied across the curriculum.

5 progress outcomes to the end of year 10.

What is the same: Authentic context - end user online.

What thinkgs will change?

Progress outcomes currently in Level 1, Level 3, Level 4 and 2 in Level 5 of the curriculum.

They need to be rewritten in kids speak.

Progress outcome 1 is non-computerised.
PO 2 is both computerised and not computerised.

Based on a code that is communicated bby input and the output e.g. a robot moving.

Scratch - free, accessible on any device and in English and Te Reo.

Scratch can be used for things like pepeha or creating a story.

Dorothy - the word empowered

Agency was used initially - but for whanau the word had bad connotations - so another word had to be found and the word used is empowered. Didital learning to empower and transform our young people. Digital is not just a tool. It is way to expensive for whanau to invest in. Power of digital is to go way beyond past learning experiences.

Rangatiratanga - digital empowerment of students, whanau and teachers getting control back in your life.

Money is a crucial factor. You are disempowered with housing, warmth, rubbish, health - all aspects of life have costs.

Students mean academic age at school start is a 3 year old. Decile 10 students arrive at school having heard 32 million more words pre-school than low decile school. Decile 1 community turnover rate is 1/3 a year - so no settled opportunity inside the school.

Parents need to have a five step conversation with the child every day. Every speaking opportunity must be a 5plus opportunity.

We created a stop motion animation of children and a bird moving around a tree - it would be good for storytelling or explainiing learning for students.

Can be done with a green screen and have a background put in later but requires purchase of a green screen app.
This was my stopmotion animation.

Empowerment can't flourish if you are not connected and ubiquitous.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa today - specifically empowerment? I found the reason for the change in terminology from agency fascinating and very helpful for whanau. It is great to give students more empowerment but our students are not yet really connected at home so it is hit and miss who is able to work on their learning from school at home. My year level are still using school devices not their own so cannot yet take home and many parents said at interviews they have limited or no access at home. This will change as devices are purchased throughout the school over the next few years although our rural areas still have wifi access issues.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
More experience in working with scratch and coding ideas so that I could know what the students are doing and be better prepared for thier questions and needs.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  We are looking at purchasing a robot so it was interesting to have a try with another type of robot whcih seems more robust than some of the other ones I have seen. I also enjoyed having time to work with stop motion animation. I can see this being a great tool for retelling a story.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life? I need to try only one new idea at a time as otherwise I am getting bogged down and stressed by trying to implement too many new things at once.