Day 9 DFI Manaiakalani

DFI Cohort #3 Recount


We're done! Success! Congratulations to everyone in our DFI who passed the Google Educator Level 1 exam we've been working towards.

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

In terms of this DFI & Manaiakalani's kaupapa & pedagogy, this DFI helped me to relate more to the idea of a digital classroom and how the development of such will aid my students to further their knowledge and give them that extra chance for success later on in life.

"Teaching and learning is clearly the umbrella mechanism to activate and sustain the pedagogy, which is essential for learning, whānau engagement, and device readiness. There is an expectation that participants will constantly reflect on how well they are doing in relation to the Learn Create Share pedagogy. This pedagogy drives toward visible and ubiquitous learning, strong learner agency and connectedness to grow knowledge." - Manaiakalani.org

Elements of Learn, Create, Share from Manaiakalani.

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

Personally, much of the information we gained throughout the DFI has helped me through many aspects of creating resources as a new teacher. On top of this, it has helped my students to learn, create & share their own assignments. Though much of the add-ons & applications were familiar to me, it was useful to become more adept & confident using the software.

The big idea of this DFI was to obtain the capabilities of combining the pedagogy & kaupapa of Manaiakalani with the digital tools to invigorate learning amongst our students. I feel that this 'journey' has aided to bring a shorter end to the prolonged inevitable of teachers having difficulties with the incorporation of a digital classroom.

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

Before this DFI, I felt that my learners knew more about the software than I did! Luckily, after completing this, I will have the opportunity to transfer my knowledge to them to incorporate in their work & their personal lives.

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

In general: ORGANIZATION! Going into this DFI, I aimed to be more adept with the software so that it would be easier to locate/ organize my work & data. Especially during this time of year with assessments.

Goodluck to everyone on the rest of their term!

Day 8 DFI Manaiakalani

CYBERSMART

Being Cybersmart is a key landmark in Manaiakalani's pedagogy. Though it goes fairly in-depth, the following are the heavy focus for the first three terms:

- Smart Learners: Term 1
- Smart Footprint: Term 2
- Smart Relationships: Term 3

Digital Dig

As Educators, it's important to learn about Chromebooks and Ipads since our learners use them on a regular basis for their learning. 'Digital Dig' is a short workshop developed by Manaiakalani to help students improve their shortcut skills on their Chromebook to make learning more efficient. Below are some of the positives and negatives I found while working with the Chromebook over a short period of time.

Positives:

- Relatively Fast

- Quick shortcuts (if you know them)

- Privacy for students (GTS is capable of only allowing them to use the GTS wifi)

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Negatives:

- Too many shortcuts (would take a long time to learn)

- Not too many applications available (or not readily available) 

- Buttons on the keyboard at the top tend to be a little confusing.

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Despite the positives and negatives, what's important is the learner's capability of participating, engaging and becoming more digitally fluent.

Below is my video using the Chrome Extension 'Screencastify' talking about Manaiakalani's pedagogy regarding a Smart Footprint when it comes to surfing the web. It's critical as a learner and an educator to leave a positive digital footprint.






Goodluck to everyone writing the Google Educator exam next week!! :)

Day 7 DFI Manaiakalani

          Today in DFI, we focused on utilizing different resources to touch upon the new Digital Curriculum beginning next year. The idea is to connect with the Empowerment stage of Manaiakalani's pedagogy & kaupapa.
Some of these resources give students the opportunity to learn about what's becoming a technologically driven society. Since so many of our students come from lower decile backgrounds, they can't necessarily afford this type of technology - that's why it's important they have the opportunity while in school and to help them get ahead!

Scratch

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tutorial=getStarted
- Utilized for beginner coders. It allows students to get creative and create games, animations, etc.

Algorithms 

- Using a kinesthetic activity, students can learn how algorithms help organize data/ solve problems.
- I thought this was a particularly useful activity. Personally - I couldn't tell you the first thing about algorithms. I can hardly spell it correctly at times. Through this one activity, I felt that I learned a solid amount for a fresh beginner.

Zombie Lights 

- Looked into showcasing inputs, outputs and basic electronics. Could potentially be useful in cross-curricular lessons. (Lesson Plan inserted below)
- It could also be useful in fixing the LED lights in my backyard.

Another helpful link from Viv: https://omgtech.co.nz/kaiako-wharenui/home
I look forward to using some of the lesson plans found on OMGTech with my 7/8s. Many of my students excel in these types of technology and several of these can help them reach the next step.

Day 6 DFI Manaiakalani

Today, we had the opportunity to explore both Google Sheets, Google My Map & Google Forms.

Personally, I don't enjoy inputting the data into Google Sheets. I tend to find myself becoming increasingly frustrated the more I input but I'm confident this will be something that comes with time. What I did find interesting was the potential to collect data via Google Forms onto Google Sheets. I thought this would be a fairly useful aspect of the extensions especially when collecting data from all students at once. Understanding what level/style of learning my students are at is detrimental at the early stages of the school year. With continuous planning, a Google Form focusing on their interests & goals would be beneficial in annual planning.

Digital literacy is increasingly important in the classroom and I can see how these extensions could help students develop further cross-curricular and once they continue on into College. With my 7/8's , I've considered creating a 'Genius Hour' where they can learn about something they're passionate about, Create via Google Extensions, and then share with the class. Utilizing Google Forms & Google Sheets would be a good tactic to collect data from my students for this assignment.

In terms of my personal life, I can see Google Sheets proving useful in creating a budget, paying bills & keeping track of fitness routine data.

I hope everyone has a lovely Labour Day weekend! If you're interested in taking the quiz I created today in Google Forms, please click on the link below!



https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQGe4LxEggjKlyTPDlrM5Gs1BGedJyhkf6q6r02ZkUYxDyNw/viewform?usp=sf_link

Day 5 DFI Manaiakalani

Today has helped me create a solid canvas for my Google Site - it simply needs the assignments and details to go along with it!

We were very focused on exploring different Google Class Sites today. I found it particularly useful as a new teacher to help develop different ideas for my own class sites. I haven't yet met with many of the parents of my students, but I'm hoping with the development of this site to reach out and communicate to ensure learning both in the classroom and at home.

I'm excited to use this new layout with my students as I feel the new organization of the site is easy and reliable for them.

Taking a look at the school sites also proved to be educational. The idea of being able to collaborate with other teachers on one site is a powerful tool. I will be reviewing the Manaiakalani Toolkits to help me create sites more efficiently. My biggest concern moving forward is the time constraint (especially in such a busy term at GTS).

If you would like to see what my class site looks like now, please refer to the following link:

https://sites.google.com/glentaylor.school.nz/2019mrniksyear78/home

Another great end of the week! I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

Day 4 DFI Manaiakalani

I’ve been using Google Sites for quite some time now. I'm planning on setting a goal to improve more creative aspects for my classroom site. Merely experimenting with the layout and button options on the site helped make my sites look more inviting and entertaining. 

Rather than describe everything I’ve worked on today, I would prefer to simply show you. Please see the links below. 

MultiModal: Holes, the Novel by Louis Sachar: Because Holes is such a long novel for level ⅞’s multimodal can be a useful aspect for the lower level learners. The site includes supplementary documentation that can aid lower level students with visuals. This can be directly related to the T literacy technique taught in the DFI Cohort Day 4 which focuses on a wider sense of reading with a specific focus area to promote cognitive participation amongst students.

 https://sites.google.com/glentaylor.school.nz/multitextdatabase/home

‘My Planning Site’: will focus on easy links & planning for each strand in the NZ curriculum. This is personally useful as a new teacher in New Zealand and will likely help me develop an arsenal of lesson plans & templates over the next couple of years. 

https://sites.google.com/glentaylor.school.nz/sandpitsite/home

Overall, a very productive day! Thank you once again to Gerhard and Dorothy for their patience with everyone!

Day 3 DFI Manaiakalani

Today we focused a bit more on the 'Create' portion of the Manaiakalani saying of "Learn, Create, Share." This included focusing on Youtube, Google Drawing & Google Slides.

Personally, I've never had the opportunity to create an animation of Google Slides. If I'm being honest, I wasn't necessarily willing to attempt it due to the time commitment but after practicing in the DFI today, I can see how it could be beneficial for my students. There are several variables that can be arranged to make this a fairly creative assignment and it could be utilized cross-curricular to ensure growth in different subjects along with digital knowledge growth. In other words - endless opportunities to say the least! I do believe I should have done something a little more productive during my 'Create' portion of the DFI today, but I was having such fun with this dinky animation, I decided to continue it. You can see the masterpiece down below.

Google Drawing was one of the applications that I found a little too complicated - similar to Google Hangouts. Despite this, I know many of my students know how to use the application so it's critical I learn & practice more down the road. For now, I would prefer to keep my artistic abilities (or lack thereof) limited to Google Slides. I can see how this application can prove beneficial for my students but as a new teacher, the time commitment is difficult to schedule.

              Though I'm a bit of a veteran when it comes to Youtube, I found it useful for learning to put together playlists with the settings adjusted for Education. This would also allow me to upload photos of the class and since the privacy settings are adjusted, students and subsequently myself would be safe.

Day 2 DFI Manaiakalani

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

Implementing more digital literacy cross-curricular. Particularly, the SLJ Summer program blogs were great examples of how teachers would support that Learn, Create, Share perspective that follows along with Bloom's Taxonomy through Manaiakalani. I thought this activity was particularly interesting with the student developing their own personal questions for Sir. Edmund Hillary.

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

- Personally, I struggle with organizational methods and on that note... closing down my computer on a regular basis. Usually, I have so many tabs open, it's not worth it for me to close down my computer no matter how slow it's going. The introduction to OneTab today is a bit of a game-changer when it comes to my organizing skills. On top of this, it allows saving all my tabs while my computer restarts rather than hoping Google Chrome would reboot with all my tabs.

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

I found the Google Hangouts feature could be potentially useful with my students, especially on days when I'm away. This could also be fairly useful in their Manaiakalani Film Festival preparations.

Again, many of these digital apps & extensions can prove useful for students who are struggling in specific areas.

Ex: Using Google Keep for students who have trouble focusing to help them try to keep on task.

In case I'm not in class (such as every Friday), I can see Google Hangouts to be effective in any kind of consolidation circumstance while I'm away.

Having an assignment in mind and reviewing work from the week could be cast to the TV in my room and I can answer any questions from the assignments I left them for Fridays.

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

Though I've used Google Calendars for years, I've always thought I was forced to have just one calendar for everything.

Learning that I was capable of having my work and life calendar's separate makes things a little easier when it comes to organizing events.

In terms of confidence, many of these applications will need practice. Particularly the Quicktime Player & Google Hangouts being utilized in unison.

Day 1 DFI Manaiakalani

August 30th, 2019

         As a new teacher in a new country and being introduced to a totally new system, it's been nice to know that Google Suite is utilized as much as it is in the Canadian curriculum. I believe digital literacy to be a critical part of student development throughout all ages as we've entered a technologically demanding age that has no sign of slowing down. It's nice to know that the Manaiakalani kaupapa shares those pedagogical perspectives as the Ontario College of Teachers when it comes to digital literacy for both educators & students. 

          Below I've attached a Geography activity I might use with my 7/8 class that relates to the New Zealand curriculum (level 7.1). I utilized my time at the end of this workshop to practice using my newfound skills after attending the Manaiakalani DFI. To describe my hyperlink which is inaccessible in this blog, I downloaded an add-on called 'LucidChart Diagrams'. 'LucidChart Diagrams' allows me to create an exemplar of a Venn-Diagram that students could use to base their ideas off of. My students would also be capable of hyperlinking their Venn-Diagram to their Google doc which I would then be able to view and mark accordingly to ensure progress in their assigned digital assignment. 

          What I found particularly interesting was the font that I utilized in my Geography activity. This font is called 'Lexend'. In particular, this font was created for students who have more issues than the average person to read text on a digital document. The font makes the letters slightly more spaced out & larger to allow for easier reading. 

           The photos I inputted into this document all came from Google Explore, which is an option you can find on the bottom right corner of your Google Doc. An interesting and important aspect of Google Explore is that you can add images that have no copyright involved in your document - essentially ensuring infringement laws wouldn't be an issue for either me or my students. 

            In the future, I hope to maintain these skills and gain a little more speed when creating or editing documents such as this. Unfortunately, I find myself spending too much time creating visually appealing assignments and I hope to cut that time in half someday. 

 Please feel free to take a look at the activity I created in Google Docs using some of the aspects I outlined above. 

Geography Activity - Level 7-8