DFI #8- Computational Thinking

Wednesday 6th November 2019

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa today - specifically empowerment?

After talking with Dorothy she made a huge point of saying that if Chromebook's are only a tool then get our families to purchase a $2 tool. We should be using these things to change the lives of our whanau. We want to empower our children in their learning. I connected with this because next year our school is offering parents the opportunity to buy the devices so this has made me really think about how I am going to make sure my students are really getting the most out of them rather than using them as a tool.

Also completely agree with what Dorothy said about Imoko, I think that this service is absolutely amazing for kids and their families as a lot of parents can't get into the doctor in our area so its great to get kids what they need when they are at school.

I also really liked what Dorothy said about making sure we use the comment section on the blogs to have a conversation with others- rather than "look someone commented on my blog" and ignoring it- this is something that Kerry and Vanessa have made sure we do when commenting on blogs at DFI. 

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

I learnt how to use scratch better which will make me use it more in my class- my kids love to use it so this will be great!
It was also great to look at the kid speak progressions for digital technologies- will be really good to share these with my school and our students so they are clear about what they are able to do.

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

It would be awesome if we could get some of the dash bots for our school. We got to use these today and I have been to another Manaiakalani school and the year 6 students taught me how to use it and it was an amazing way to connect with their learning and have the students as the teachers! I would love to see my students do this at school and in our community.
I have also used scratch with my class but now that I know more about it I will use it more in class.

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

I think something that I will use in my personal life is the removing background app we were shown- makes it so much faster and easier to add pictures and get rid of the background, will also be using this at school!

Had a go at making a scratch video- want to get my kids to do something like this to show how to be Kaitiaki at our school.

Hard at work today!

DFI #7- Media

Wednesday 30th October 2019

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

After talking with Dorothy my understanding of what connected means now links with why we do DFI and have sites and blogs. Connected- connecting us to a powerful network. Through Manaiakalani we get to connect with other teachers from different schools through DFI. This means we get to share ideas and resources easily with each other.  We would not get these opportunities without DFI.

Connected and share go together- because when you share you are connecting with people.
Dorothy also discussed that it is important to be connected face to face too. I agree with this because from DFI it is great to get the opportunity to meet with different educators and chat about what works at there schools and also any struggles we may be having. I also think this is why google hangouts is such a great tool that although we are not in the same room we still get to see and talk to each other easily.

I did not know that they had used the technology of twitter to use the blogs that we have to see how many blog posts have been made.

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

After talking to Kent about how he uses the drone to load videos onto youtube to share with wider whanau in different areas has made me think more about how we could use this at our school. It would be amazing if we could stream live to youtube straight away.
We have a huge cross country event in the Far North and it would be amazing to have footage of that day.
I am keen to use youtube to live stream things we do in a class- I didn't know you could go live from youtube or schedule an event to happen- could be cool to have this on our class site as a count down.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 
I learnt how to create an animation and hide things behind pictures. I can show my students this, they will love it!!


Also learnt how to make a portrait on google draw which I would love to teach my kids as well!

DFI #6- Devices

Wednesday 23rd October 2019

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

- After talking to Dorothy this morning it has really established what Cybersmart is and why we use the positive language opposed to using "safety" or the more negative language.

- Cybersmart- we want to have the positive language so we can empower our learners as connected and confident decision makers. Manaiakalani is committed to using powerful, positive, proactive language and have developed the Cybersmart curriculum so we use on a regular basis.

- We want the students to be able to make the right decisions online and be in the right places at the right time. We want to encourage our students to tell us if they come across something they are unsure about. We want to encourage them to always do they right thing online.

- I didn't know that there were term focusses for Cybersmart- Term 1: Smart Learners (LEARN), Term 2: Smart Footprint (CREATE), Term 3: Smart Relationships (SHARE).

Everything we share online ends up being personal- "whenever and wherever we share online...it's personal".

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

- I learnt other ways to utilise Hapara- I can sort so that the kids that are online are at the top. Can use this to look at blog posts and comments.

- I am able to create differentiated groups through Hapara which I could use to link with learning groups that I have in class. You can also edit students groups from clicking individual students.

- Sharing files- you can create new files or select a file from drive- you can send to class, group or individual- could use this when I forget to add to site or if kids can't find it.

- Workspaces are great for topic- you can put the link into your site and use your site as the hub for kids to go through. You can also search for public workspaces that you can copy and use- looks amazing!

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

- Digital Dig activities with kids- to see what they know and what else they can learn.

- I might try and use explain everything with some of my kids to help with their writing.

- I am also going to create some different screencatisfy's that I can put onto my class site that will help my kids that don't know or can't remember how to do something.

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

- Learning all of the shortcuts was amazing there were a few I didn't know about so those will come in handy!


Something I created on Explain everything. 

Screencastify about the digital dig.

DFI #4- Collaborative Sites

Wednesday 18th September 2019

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

- After listening to Dorothy via google hangout this morning it made me realise how important for kids to share to an actual audience and that it is much more powerful for students to share using blogger than just sharing in class with other students and teachers. It was also very interesting learning about how the blogs are set up so the kids can use them safely.  

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

- I learnt how to create a site that I could use to introduce a topic to students and that I can keep the site saved in my drive to use anytime I want to do that topic again. Keeping it all in my drive in a sites folder that is shared with viewing access was helpful to know so anytime I add or create a resource I know everyone will make sure that everyone has access 

- I also learned that I can use Hapara to check my students blog posts and comments so that will make checking on their blogs much faster!

Lauren Seymour Site

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

- I can use Google sites and update my current site to make it more multi-modal. I will use this to introduce topics or to add more resources to my literacy and numeracy pages which I m hoping will make my kids more engaged when they are on our site.   

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

- Pre-planning my site was really helpful to organise my thoughts and ideas- I will definitely do this more to plan out other things. 

Was amazing to get some much time to practise what we had learnt. It was amazing to be in Paihia and be so close to the beach!

Manaiakalani WFRC presention