DFI

I have thoroughly enjoyed DFI and learning about how digital devices and digital fluency is important in education.  I like the pedagogy and kaupapa around visible learning and understand that whanau need to see visibility.  I'm excited to work towards making my practice visible for me, my colleagues, students and whanau.  I know it's necessary to have conversations about visibility to make it clear for our whanau.  

I know that using a google site makes learning visible to my students and whanau.  It needs to be available and accessible to them.  I know I will continue to make improvements to my class site, adding a bit at a time.  I know time is an issue for me in getting my head around everything to do with Manaiakalani, but one step at time, I'll get there.

Computational Thinking

It's great how the students are given the opportunity to use technology to create new knowledge.  They are able to creators and does of technology.  It allows them to navigate through what type of technology you can use for a particular task.  We as digitally fluent teachers and digitally fluent students, can work side by side.  

I have improved my confidence and capability through working steadily through the given activities in DFI.  I have chosen which things work for me that I am able to share with my students and colleagues.  I think my students will thoroughly enjoy making use of these activities which will strengthen their ability to be creative and and help them navigate through the various stages and levels.

It's important to know the value and importance of digital technology and digital fluency to help all learners to critically think. solve new challenges and problems.   

Devices

 

• I have learned that I need to be practising with my class of how to facilitate things I'm implementing. ie, google meet, screencastify, google slides etc I need to think about my learners that are frequently absent from school, find out the reasons of why they are missing out, and think about how I can best support them when they are not at school. It's important to have rewindable learning for students so they can watch and listen, along with face to face interaction with learning.
  
  

• I learned that I need to encourage learners to be a confident decision makers online to make smart decisions. A digital citizenship curriculum needs to be provided for learners. Learners need to be engaged and internet smart. They need to focus on positive language. They need to know what's happening in their space.

  
  
  
  

• Learners need to be cybersmart of what they leave behind (footprint), and how they engage with each other online (relationships). They need to remember what they are sharing and not sharing.  

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• I am able to implement cybersmart with my learners and engage in discussions to make them fully aware of how to be internet awesome.

DFI - Enabling Access Sites

I learned that we as educators need to be leading the learning using google sites. Our google sites need to be visible, we need to be learning, sharing, and teaching. We need to accelerate shift. Being visible promotes effective practice and our role as a teacher is to ensure the nature of assigned tasks are relevant, our site needs to be easily accessed and allow our students to have choice and collaboration. Our google site needs to empower and be accessible not only for our students but also our whanau.

I learned that there is a purpose of a learning site for empowerment and visibility. It needs to be visually appealing. The layout needs to be consistent and simple for people to navigate through. I was able to embed my timetable. I was able to use google drawing to upload buttons for my site.

 

I can give my students/whanau the opportunity to navigate through our class site. I can ask for feedback from students/whanau to enhance/improve our site. I was able to be inspired by other teachers' class sites and identify what worked well and didn't work well. I was able to create my timetable and embed it on my site to edit. I'm excited that I created my site from scratch and I'm looking forward to sharing this with my students.

Google Site

• I learned that Learning has to be visible. I am accountable that my practice is visible to my students, colleagues, community and whanau. Encourage conversations about visibility to students, whanau and being transparent. We need an open view of what learning is. I need to think about the planning and the learning process, and using google site to make learning visible, available and accessible.

• I learned that google site needs to used in my class so I, along with my students can feel empowered. It's an opportunity for students to work alongside me and to personalise the learning and understanding that we all learn differently.

• I learned how a google site is created and demonstrate to students how they can navigate their way through the class site - keep it simple, yet effective. 

• I learned it takes time to create and share.

Dealing with Data

I learned how to create a form on google forms. This will definitely be something I can share with my students. I like the way that there's an option layout to create your forms. I need more time to navigate through creating my own My map. I have certainly increased my knowledge, confidence and capability of google spread sheets, entering data, average and inserting a chart. I can't wait to share this with my students.

Media

It is important that students have the opportunity to be creative. Allow them to create whatever they see. Setting up a youtube channel is challenging, so I need more time to familiarise myself with how to create one, and to create a playlist. I learned how important Media is, ie, multi-media, multi-sensory to create Media. Students have access to Media apps to be creative in doing video making, movie making, live streaming etc. I learned more about google slides that I didn't know before, let alone how to create one. I learned a simple google slide animation. I am most probably going to show my students how to do a simple google slide animation and then allow them to be creative. Be comforted that I don't know everything, it will be trial and error for me and finding time to apply what I've learned into my teaching practice as well as personal life.

Animating with Slides

 

Workflow

I learned about how to access Hapara. I'm not quite sure of everything that you can do on Hapara, so that's something I need to be familiar with. It's great how Manaiakalani have goals to move from the analogue world to the digital world. At first, I wasn't too keen about moving from analogue to digital, however, I am in a class that has one-to-one devices, so I'm excited to give it go and try not to get overwhelmed by everything to learn in Manaiakalani.

Remind myself that I can do this and I have experts that can help me if I get stuck. I like the increased confidence of being capable to teach my students what I'm learning and most likely to learn too from my students. I like the way I am able to share this new learning with my colleagues.

I learned that I can help my students to go onto Google Meet incase we going into another Lockdown. 

I learned that I can use my phone to access google keep and organise my emails on gmail.

DFI Journey

 

I learned that Manaiakalani is a programme that will improve students' achievement outcomes.  It's exciting to know that students from even year 1 can have a device.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this will allow students to be actively engaged and confident in the digital world.  Hopefully, the families will take up the opportunity to be involved and actively assist their children.  It's comforting to know that we can inform our families that the device is not to replace a book, but it's a digital pencil.    

I was frustrated that I was unable to open the google meet link.  I learned that the link had to be open in Chrome and not Safari.  I felt confident to go in and out of the meets.  It was helpful to write down notes for me to refer to, to practice in my own time, as well as sharing what I've learned with my colleagues (even though they are ALL IT literate).  I learned easier ways to navigate through the Drive and how to do things on Google Docs, but I need to practice this and implement this in my class.  I certainly need to organise my Drive (that's going to be a mission because everything is everywhere).  

I am going to introduce the eyes on text to my students.  I'm sure my students will enjoy navigating through this during their literacy session.  I'm sure my students will enjoy creating what I created today (HS Create) too.  

I wish I had learned how to do all these things.  Planning and creating Docs would be so much easier if I had known how to do these things.  Time to practice.