A steep learning curve - DFI Session 4

What a crazy week! The COVID-19 situation in NZ over the last week happened so quickly - we moved from level 2 on Saturday, to level 3 on Monday, before hitting level 4 at 11:59pm on Wednesday night.

This has had huge repercussions for our whole community. Luckily for me (and my learners) being part of a Manaiakalani Outreach Cluster has put us in an excellent position to allow our learners to continue with their learning (even if it is from a distance!)

I was thrown into using Google Meet pretty quickly this week with giving our senior students (about 20 out of 90 attended school on Monday) a crash course in how to access a meeting. This was swiftly followed up by a crash course for staff on Monday afternoon.

Our Friday DFI also needed to be rejigged so that we could all stay safe and attend this PD from home. While we're at home over the next 4 weeks I think this is a great way to utilise my time by up-skilling.

6 clusters, 20+ people in a Google Meeting!

I learnt a LOT today. It was challenging having a split screen on one device, using a second device for viewing slides and a third device for asking for help! But we did it, and it will only get easier from now on.

I've never used Google My Maps before so today was a great introduction to this tool. I found it relatively easy to use, and think this would be a great tool to use in the classroom. Some of the possible uses could be:

• to map out where students went during their holidays - they could annotate their favourite memory or add their top tip
• as part of an inquiry topic, plotting where ancestors travelled from before they settled in New Zealand
• calculating distances between locations, calculating how long cross country is
• pinning different countries that students in the class are from
• mapping out the fastest (or most direct) route from school to a school trip destination then seeing if the bus driver follows that route! 

I think I'm utilising google forms pretty well, particularly to collect student or teacher voice and keep tabs on where students are at with the learning. I'd like to explore pick-a-path stories once we're back at school. 

Google sheets is another tool that I use - it has so much more to offer so it was great to have the opportunity to run through some of the other features. Lots of handy tips (particularly how to filter data) and extensions to explore over the next couple of weeks to hopefully increase my workflow! Tracking student progress and completed tasks is definitely another way that I can see this tool being utilised across my team. 

I really loved Robyn Anderson's blogpost about using student's own blogging statistics to look at trends and patterns. This real world maths would be so engaging for my own learners - I could see it benefitting my new bloggers as something to aspire to, as well as motivating those learners who are in their third year of blogging. 

Another aspect from Robyn's lesson that really inspired me was the amount of blogging that students completed. In comparison, my learners (particularly those who know how to blog) are really not getting the blogging mileage that they should be. This is also reflected in my own results. 

There is definitely room for improvement here! Very early days for 2020, but we're nearly at the end of March and I've done zero blog posts, which is a stark comparison to previous years. I have been out of class a lot this year, however I'm going to aim to write at least one blog post a week for my class blog. Modelling and posting some of the Summer Learning Journey activities in December may also support students who need an exemplar.

While my Year 4's are learning how to blog, I'll be working with my Year 5's and 6's to analyse their blogging frequency. I like Robyn's idea to display the graphs in class, as well as sharing them online. I believe this will keep students motivated to blog and hold them accountable for completing their learning tasks.

Online sharing will allow for amplification and for instant connections to be made. In saying that, here's my class blog. Now that I've shared it on here and have stated my goal, I'm making myself accountable!


Kia kaha and stay safe NZ!

Enabling Creativity - DFI Session 3

Learn, Create, Share

Those 3 words are at the core of  Manaiakalani's pedagogy. In today's DFI session we focused on the element of CREATE. For a lot of teachers, opportunities for students to create were lost due to National Standards and yet creativity develops problem solving, collaboration and communication - key elements of the New Zealand curriculum.  With national standards no longer a barrier, it is now time for teachers to become more creative with their lessons and provide opportunities to enable creativity to empower learners.

Using google slides to create an animation was something that I had seen before several years ago, but had completely forgotten about. I was absolutely blown away by the level of creativity from Martin at Grey Main School and his place value animation, not to mention Tanner's Indo Rex animation!

These examples of creating got me thinking about what I could get my own learners to create - particularly at a time where schools may need to close due to COVID-19. I created the animation below as an example of what learners in my class could create at home as a follow up to our trip to Taumanu Reserve to clean up our coast. I'd like to see what my learners can create to demonstrate their learning from the experience and then use it inform others in our community.



I also picked up some great tips for how to enhance my slides presentations - I'm running a parent workshop next week and am starting to plan out how I can "tell a story". I'm also super keen to get in there and tweak some of the great themes from slides carnival! This will save me heaps of time and also provide me with templates that work for me and that I can use for teaching my learners.

Another idea that I'd like to explore with my students is creating some digital artwork using google drawings - I think creating self portraits are a great example of creativity and resilience whilst exploring line, colour and shape.

With possible school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, google slides and drawings are great tool for learners to create at home and share some of their learning.

Managing Workflow - DFI Session 2

Talofa lava,

Another great session at DFI today with lots of new learning for me!

Google Hangouts was an interesting learning curve for me and one that I am still getting my head around. I found it challenging to focus on what Dorothy presented at the beginning of the day as it was a totally new experience (I'm so used to someone presenting being in the same rom!) - however some key points that I picked up were:

1. “If its worth teaching its worth capturing, if its worth learning its worth capturing” - D Burt
Sharing what we're doing in our classrooms is how we as educators are going to get the best outcomes for our learners. I love looking at and reading about what others are doing - I often borrow ideas or use these to springboard off to enhance my teaching and learning programmes.

2. Effective teachers + digital affordances = accelerated learning
Recognising, amplifying and turbocharging what we are doing in the classroom will help to ensure that we are effective practitioners.

Practise is definitely needed with navigating, casting my screen, creating and inviting people to be part of a google hangout. We had some technical difficulties with recording our hangout today, but I'm hopeful that the record option will get rolled out for our domain soon. A lot of new learning for me but I'm keen to explore how I can use this with my students and collaborate with other classes.

Attempting to use google hangouts AND record the process. 

Exploring the settings in gmail was mind-blowing for me - both for my personal and professional life. At the beginning of the day I had 100+ unread emails in my inbox, not to mention numerous folders (I'm currently down to 78 - yay!). I constantly feel overwhelmed by the amount of "work" that I need to do. I think the priority inbox will work well for me and I'm keen to get started on this tonight while its still fresh in my head!

Google Keep is another tool that is amazing - I already use it to replace the stickies on my mac. I love that I can have it on my phone and computer, switch between my accounts easily and that it updates super quickly.

Grabbing the text from an image is going to be extremely useful for my literacy programme. Another way that I'd like to use it is to take my handwritten notes from meetings, take a photo and then grab the text - fingers crossed it will be able to decipher my hand written scrawl! Another tip that I picked up is to create a comment bank in google keep to use when giving feedback to students. This could be a great time saver!

I can also see some great benefits with google keep in my personal life. I've already created a grocery shopping list and shared it with my husband. I just need to figure out where the supermarkets are on his commute home so that it will notify him to pick up the items!

So many great tips today and I'm confident that they will help with my workflow!

Digital Fluency Intensive - Session 1

Kia ora,

Today marks the first day of my involvement in the Digital Fluency Intensive. Three teachers from my school have already attended over the last 2 years and as the Senior School Team and Digital Team Leader I thought it was timely for me to engage with this programme too!

My journey with utilising chromebooks and Learn, Create, Share started in 2015 at May Road School. 5 years down the track I am still teaching in a 1:1 chromebook class (now at Hay Park School). Both of these schools are part of the Ako Hiko cluster based in Mt Roskill so I had a good understanding of the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy and developing visible and ubiquitous learning, and empowered and connected learners. Dorothy's presentation of the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy highlighted the importance of partnership, protection and participation. What I wasn't aware of was the early years and the challenges involved in establishing the Maniakalani Education Trust. It always fascinates me that we are 20 years into the 21st century and yet there are some schools who have very limited access to devices!


I've been using google drive for several years (both professionally and personally) and have just started using the priority workspace area this year. Today's session was a good reminder about the basics of google docs and I learnt how to quickly format docs using headings - definitely a handy tip to work smarter not harder! I like the suggestion of using a template for students to write in with a table of contents and is something that I will consider. At present, I use collaborative writing docs called writers circles with a table of contents for students to navigate to their work easily.


There were several extensions that were shared that I am keen to explore with my learners. Some of my favourites are:

• Word cloud generator - would be a great visual for students to notice key words or which words they overuse in their writing. I'd like to trial it next week with my class next week where they list words/ characteristics/ traits that describe them. The fact that we can add it to their blogs and print them in class would be a great way to share some great vocabulary.
• Docutube - is another extension that I am keen to use with my class in the next few weeks. In the past I have found that some learners are easily distracted by other content that pops up when they are directed to youtube to view a video. I think docutube would be a great way to help focus students. 

A site that blew my mind this week was remove.bg Its simplicity makes it incredibly user friendly for students to use. We take a lot of photos at school of our learners and this is a great site that I will be sharing with all teaching staff (including our junior teachers and learning assistants) as the creativity possibilities are endless. 

My next steps are to manage my accounts and tidy up my bookmarks bar! I hadn't realised it but there are lot of sites that I type in every time I need it (eg: gmail, drive) that I could easily access through just one click!

I'm excited to further explore some of this new learning over the next week!