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!
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.
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