DFI Day Nine - Revision, Precision in a world full of Collision

This was the hardest but the most in depth session of the DFI journey. As this is the last session for DFI, I am left with one thing to do, reflect on the kaupapa of Manaiakalani and my readiness in ubiquitous learning.

What does being ubiquitous learning mean to me? It means exploring and undergoing authentic experiences that leave you with a better understanding of the information that surrounds us, and the idea to trial and error, no matter where you are, what you are doing, who you are with and when your doing it.

How can we be ready to inspire ubiquitous learning? By developing and implementing new ways of learning and making it happen, helping them to flourish as life-long learners, anywhere, anytime at any pace from anyone. By giving our students the freedom to take the lead on their own learning journey just like we did ours. By giving them the opportunity to take ownership of who they are and giving them the strength to develop their knowledge in an effective and endless growth. 

Upon reflecting, there are 3 major questions we need to ask ourselves, what are we proud of? What do we regret not doing? What are we taking away from this to move forward in our pedagogy?

What am I proud of? I am proud of all the connections I made with others during the journey, and watching and growing alongside my peers in our journey of reconstructing our knowledge on digital fluency. I am also proud to be a life long learner sharing that journey with my students.

What do I regret? I regret not being able to spend more time with my peers and see their progressions in their journey into the digital world of teaching. I also regret not not taking advantage of all the other facilitators and their knowledge

What am I taking away from this to move forward in my pedagogy? I will be taking all that I have learnt at the DFI and trialing what works and what doesn't in my classroom. If you are unsure on what I have learnt, please read the previous eight posts to find out.

There is just so much I have learnt and reflected over the DFI. I would like to leave my last and final post about the DFI with a quote from the most creative man that is ever known to man (who is also my hero), Walter Elias Disney.

Well that's all from me today.

And, if you have reached this point, you are a legend! Thanks reading!

Stay tuned for the next post!

DFI Day Eight - Computational Thinking, Blinking, Clicking, Hyperlinking

Empowering the students!

That was the theme for this session. Manaiakalani are big believers in establishing rangatiratanga - encouraging others to change themselves for the better, taking control of your own life.

This doesn't necessarily mean you need to go out and be the one to making the most money, it means that you take what life throws at you and use it to influence how you succeed in all your endeavors.

This lead into a discussion of how we will be encouraging our students in becoming digitally fluent to problem solve in the digital world - creating digital ready people for jobs that are yet to come!

Digital Technology has become the new scare in education. It's all brand new and we as creatures of habit do not like new. This journey with DFI has assisted in helping me understand this new strand of Digital Technology. It's not as scary as we make it out to be, it's just the fear factor kicking in. All basically is, is understanding the technology that we use in our every day lives. 

It's just someone seeing a need or a problem, thinking of solutions and then constructing software or something that solves that problem or need. For example, phones. We use them everyday but we don't think about all the time and effort someone went into seeing this need and initiating a better solution, which is our mobile phones that are forever being developed. Someone out there is using computational thinking!

Computational thinking is about thinking like a computer scientist, not always acting like one. Always thinking about the specific purpose of the need or problem and how it will benefit and support the end user.

Using devices are apart of computational thinking but are not the end product, so it's important that we give our students the experiences they need to develop these skills using plugged (devices) and unplugged activities to get them problem solving. Thinking outside the square! (Please bare in mind that using devices is not the new literacy!)

Pro tips:

Ethics and morals need to be taught to students to implement them in their inventions, as technology does not think and feel like humans unless we program it too!

Cyber smart is so important, and confidence is key to build the students into becoming proficient users that understand and know how to contribute to towards a product that solves problems.

Well that's all from me today.

And, if you have reached this point, you are a legend! Thanks reading!

Stay tuned for the next post!

DFI Day Seven - Devices, Digital advice to be precise

 Cyber Smart in an evolving world

I was quite engrossed in the discussions we had for this session. It was one of the many important things that we as adults are subconsciously aware of, but children are oblivious too, and that is being Cyber smart. 

Cyber smart is very vital in our daily lives because we are progressing and moving into a digital word. Teaching our students to be Cyber smart is enabling them to learn, experience and recognise at a young age, how to problem solve and move forward in a digital space, empowering our learners to become empowered, positive and proactive digital citizens.

This links in real well with the Learn, Create Share model as most of their learning can be done on a device, their creations can be administered on a device and it can also be shared with others online, which can generate more exposure into the digital world. 

As exciting as this is, our students need to be prepared for the things they encounter and be confident enough to know what to do and what to be aware of when entering the digital world.

So during this session, I put on my student cap and entered the learning world of using devices.

First up were the Ipads!

It's well known that younger children love using Ipads and I can see why. There are so many apps that you can download and use to create things as well as apps that you can use to playing games!

Scratch Jr is a fantastic game to play on the Ipads. And I throroughly enjoy using Explain Everything to create new learning opportunities for my students.

Next up were the chromebooks.

Just like any other laptop, they were very easy for me to navigate and use. I was very enthusiastic about learning new key board shortcuts and refreshing over shortcuts that were long forgot.

Overall, I was very intrigued on how important these devices are being used more than just a baby sitting device. They are the tools to a new beginning of the digital world. 

Well that's all from me today.

And, if you have reached this point, you are a legend! Thanks reading!

Stay tuned for the next post!

DFI Day Six - Enabling Access for great success!

Connecting with anything and everything!

I was very intrigued in this session as it was around Manaiakalani's concept on being and staying connected. As it is human nature to want to connect to others, whether it be with those we consider close to us, those that pop up on our feed, or those that we see on a day to day basis, we are always and will constantly choose to make connections.

We as humans make stronger connections with those we have things in common or think and feel in a similar manner, but tend to forget or lack appreciation for those that we differ from. We learn from the day we are born that connections with others is how we survive, learn and go through life, whether they be positive or negative.

So it's imperative that we teach and guide our students to think beyond where they are now and inspire them to begin thinking of the where to, how to and who with. These powerful connections with our students encourage them to go forth and crave their own connections to enhance their growth in their learning, who they are and how they see the world.

A classroom is an infinite zone of aspiration just waiting for connections to happen, and our students are apprentices in conversing and are only scarcely starting out in making their own connections, with those in our school, our community, our nation and others across the world.

So lets get out there and start promoting whanaungatanga (connections)!

Also, it was another session on Google Sites and how we can make them appealing and more accessible for our students to use. When making sites, we always have to think about what their purposes are, who the audience is and how the site will be used by students or others.

I found that making the learning on the Class Site was more inspiring and engaging when it is parallel to the learning that is happening in the classroom. It also enables the learning to become more stimulating and rewindable for those that are interested in extending their learning.

A couple of must dos while making a class site is, limiting the amount of clicks it takes for someone to reach a learning task and making sure that all the items attached to the site are visible for everyone to view.

The less clicks the better! Make it visible people!

During this session I took the time to update my Class site and ensure that all the items I had embedded into my site were visible and accessible for everyone that clicks onto my site.I had some spare time left, so I took up the opportunity to practice making digital badges with Google Drawings. I have to say, Google Drawings is starting to become my new addition. Move over Google Keep! It's time for the next new thing.

Check out my basic but cool badges here:

Well that's all from me today.

And, if you have reached this point, you are a legend! Thanks reading!

Stay tuned for the next post!

DFI Day Five - Collaborate Sites, learning using megabytes

 Visibility is key!

This session started off with an insight into Manaiakalani's goal of visibility for teaching and learning. It made me more conscious of whether I was making learning and sharing more visible for others, whether it be students, colleagues, friends or family. I started to ponder whether I was a great role model in making things accessible for others to see and learn and develop their own ideas. After all, educators are meant to the best role models for any type of learning or behaviour we are desiring our students achieve. 

One thing that stood out for me was all the thinking and decisions we as educators have to make around what is beneficial and what is detrimental if they are visible for those around us. Things like, what we consider appropriate to share with others and how they can be lucrative when made public as well as, what should remain private to safe guard our personal demeanor and our digital footprints.

My thought process then lingered on all the things we intentionally make visible and how they assist our students in enabling them to become more aware of what they are learning, and if it was actually enhancing their learning journey, or if it's even helping them to achieve and be more successful.

Yes, we are making learning outcomes, learning objectives and success cafeterias more visible for our students to access so they are aware of their learning and empowering them to have ownership, and we are giving them more access to sites for them to research, develop and share knowledge on what they are learning about, but is that really removing barriers to enable teaching knowledge?

One new thing I learnt from this session was multi-modal texts and how they are a form of delivering communication of learning for individuals, this can be digitally or analogue.

Here are my notes on how multi-modal texts work:

Multi-text, the main text with a theme, a supporting text that has the same theme, a scaffolding text that supports the setting, plot or characteristics of a character, Challenging texts that make the students think more about the theme, learner selected text a text the students choose a text that relates to the overall concept,  additional texts more texts that have the same underlining theme

Class sites is a multi modal mode that students often use, especially during Lock Down!

Sites I have found are a fun way to create independence and empower students to take responsibility for their own learning. With a click of a couple buttons and they are off learning things on their own.

My previous Class sites were barely ever used, and I always wondered why, until I realised that they weren't fascinating and the students were not interested in them, let alone keen on seeing what was on it. A class site should always be intriguing and enticing for a student to want to click on it, just like a shop window full of  colourful, fun, exciting things you just want to touch!

I learnt that the design of the class site needed to be catered towards the interest of the students, and depending on their year, it always defers. In order to make a site successful, you have to ensure that it is manageable and can be independently navigated by the students and sometimes their parents, (in my case, mostly their parents as my students are quite young, and still need lots of scaffolding in navigating and working independently).

Check out my class site by clicking on the link below, and see if you can guess what year my students are, you'll be surprised!

Hay park - Garlick Class

As sites are a form of multi modal design, I created a few more with different concepts.

Feel free to click on the links below and check them out. 

Superheroes Secret Training

Flood Safety Ranger Training

Well that's all from me today.

And, if you have reached this point, you are a legend! Thanks reading!

Stay tuned for the next post!

DFI Day Four- Dealing with Data, it'll make you smarter

Analysis and stategise

What a great day of learning it was today. We plummeted deep into the Sharing section of the Learn, Create, Share model. Ooohhh man - tapping into the human experience in the past, present and the future has really progressed and evolved other the years, adding new and exciting ways to share things. Long gone are the stone age where everything was shared by drawing on a cold, hard wall!

Now, I'm not saying we no longer write on a wall to share, I'm saying that those walls have reinvented themselves into new types of walls to make it more simple and accessible to share our knowledge, journeys and stories. For example, we humans no longer draw on the walls inside caves to pass on information as this suited the accessibility we humans had then, we have simply reinvented our walls to suit the accessibility we have today, which is of a digital aspect - our walls on Facebook, Blogs, Instagram, Snapchat and the list goes on.

I came to the conclusion that there are two types of behaviours when it comes to sharing, those who are eager and willing to share (as sharing comes naturally to them), and those who are reserved and need more processing time to share (as they find it challenging to share things). I find that we all start at the reserved behaviour and the more we share, the more we transition into the natural sharing behaviour. I am currently in that transition from reserved to natural!!!

I am aware on how to fill out Google Forms and that they are great way to get information on pretty much anything, but I have never ever gotten around to or even bothered about making any myself, until today.  I didn't realize how fun and easy Google Forms were to set up and use. I didn't even know that there was a quiz section to the form. I plan on using Google forms in my class to create fun independent activities in my classroom. Long gone are the days were filling out forms were a hassle and a bore! Bring on the fun and magic of Google Forms!

Something interesting that I learnt today was the Google My Maps. I didn't even know this thing existed! I knew about Google Maps, but not Google My Maps. I can see how much fun it is to learn measurement in this app. I found it very intriguing that you could import data from a Google Sheet into My Maps and it would automatically map it for you.

*Pro tip - make sure you are specific on the area you are adding into the Google Sheet, (as I found out during making my own my map below). I had Hay Park as my school for here in New Zealand, and when I converted the data into My Maps, it had pinned my location at Hay Park in Vancouver, Canada. Oh how I wish I was in Canada, sitting by a nice warm fire, slurping on their such sweet nectar - Maple syrup!

I use Google Sheets on a daily. This is my go to if I want to collect and organise information on student data and for collecting information for school trips. Then I usually create my own graphs on another sheet and this is super time consuming!

I was completely blown away with how easy it is to create graphs with all the data collected in Google Sheets. I really enjoyed learning about how we can use the conditioning formatting to make it more visible to see which students are capable and which students are needing more support in particular learning areas. This will make informing my teaching practices are whole lot more simpler than what it used to be. These tips and tricks will definitely be assisting me to work smarter not harder!

Here is a quick look at my graphs and data analysis I made with the data that was provided to us for this session:

I am pretty impressed with myself if I do say so myself.

Well that's all from me today.

And, if you have reached this point, you are a legend! Thanks reading!

Stay tuned for the next post!

DFI Day Three - Media, Creating that look to get that hook!

Lights, Camera, Action!

This session has got to be one of my favourite sessions so far! We took a deep dive into the Create part of Learn, Create, Share. OOooohhhh, how I love the create part of this model! I get so excited because this is where everybody who is taking part in the learning gets to decide how they are going to share what has been learnt, while embracing the creativity that is inside all of us!

In the create process it's an opportunity for us to pass on our knowledge and inspire our learners to create exciting things to share like blog posts, a poster, a painting, a song, a letter, a story, a dance, baking, knitting something and even voice recording.

The most important thing I learnt about the Media is that it is all about the SISOMO - Sight, Sound and Motion. Using these 3 important concepts enhances our imagination, influences our innovation, and drives us to pay attention to detail to make connections.

I believe it is imperative that we as educators get into this habit of scaffolding new creative ideas and developing those creative ideas to empower students to feel confident in developing their skills in their creations, and to take ownership of their own creative master pieces.

It's a given that creating takes time to learn and develop new ways of sharing things, so it's important that lots of time during the week is set a side and given for students to produce their own creative ways of sharing their learning, after all, Rome wasn't built in a day.

I created this amazing piece of animation with the instructions from my wonderful facilitator Nicola:

For my very first time, I am pretty impressed with myself on this one. Who would have thought that you could make a great animation with Google Slides and have fun doing it too! I'm definitely going to introduce this my capable students and see what they come up with.

Another piece of information I found very useful, was that Youtube is a maze of madness if not used wisely! We need to ensure the content we link and provide is appropriate for our students, especially if they are watching a selection of videos from a channel they have subscribed too.

And, (this is a big and), if they have their own channels, (those who are 14 and up, or have parent consent), we also have to ensure that our students are being cyber smart when posting content on Youtube. So much travesty for such a very popular website!

I recently found that embedding the videos directly from Youtube into the class site, reduces the tendencies that our students have to go off task and click on other videos. No more adding links to Youtube on the class site for me!

Just because I can, I've embedded one of my favourite animated videos from Youtube.

Watch at your own dispense:

Well that's all from me today.

And, if you have reached this point, you are a legend! Thanks reading!

Stay tuned for the next post!