DFI 9

The last day has arrived, I will miss the Tuesday online meets. I learnt more about 'ubiquitous' today which links to the Manaiakalani Kaupapa. It was the essence of the whole lockdown period anywhere, anytime, any pace, with anyone.

The course has made me reflect more on the opportunities the DFI will provide not only for myself but for my students and colleagues. To be added to the 'team of DFI' trained teachers at kura will ease the burden off them, especially my two teaching colleagues. I can match the standards they have set and will be up there with them.

The Google Level 1 Exam just topped it off, talk about pressure. Learnt a whole lot of new tricks using an ipad to take photo's of the instructions rather than changing tabs all the time. The work by the facilitators really help get you there, but overall it has been 9 weeks of learning new skills wise.

What are you proud of?
I am extremely proud that we(my teaching team(who had both completed DFI course) & colleagues) were at the right place with just enough professional learning amongst us at the right time and place to get the 'job' done during lockdown using the Manaiakalani resources.

What do you regret?
The only regret is not looking at the Manaiakalani kaupapa closely before coming onto DFI. Dorothy's input has clarified and expanded the horizon for me.


What will you be taking forward into the ‘new’ era of schooling?
I will be taking the components of Learn, Create, Share and looking into it more deeply. e.g. Too much learning, Where is the create and share?

The balanced and varied approach will be used more carefully.

DFI 8

Week 8 kaupapa 'Empowered', was a turning point because it shows where I've sometimes rushed to finish projects in class, without having an equal amount of work you'd tend to rush the finish.
There should be a Learn, Create, Share balance and how much effort is required for each otherwise we cram the create and share at the end with the final product not fully presentable.

The future of technology is so fast that I can't keep up now with how much Youtube and new digital tools are changing every day, minute and seconds if that were the case. Is it that important to improve the quality of our lives if it doesn't need any more 'tweaking'?

I like Gerhard's Moral Machine Activity but I'm thinking of how to introduce this into class and the discussions that would follow.

The Hangarau Matahiko site has been quite good for my own personal development. I am steadily working through the pikau workshops and they make a difference to understanding DDO and CT knowledge.

I am looking forward to the Google Level 1 exam, it will highlight skills of what I need to know in order to assist, lead, demonstrate, model to students and colleagues how the learning can enhance, engage, empower both students and parents.

DFI 7

Today the Manaiakalani Kaupapa, was about Cybersmart and the power to make the right decisions as a learner. The idea of intentionally supporting children resonates with me and that all children need support at varying levels.

The Hapara overview was quite interesting because in our set up at kura we have the senior classes to manage and share work even if we're not in the same rooms. Share files across the whole year group.

I liked the Digital Dig into the Chromebooks and spent the time getting to know the actual keyboard, e.g. naming of the keys and what they're aligned to. If only our children were able to print their own work, but costs feature here and the constant drone of children photocopying unrelated school items would be a drain on the classroom budget. Will look to use Digital Dig at the beginning of the year.

ipad 1:1 journey

Tool/App Explain Everything, dynamic and creative learning opportunities. This is a task for today, a bit challenging trying to keep the square in the drawing vertical.

The embedding of videos makes sense as you can wander off into 'Neverland' It took a while to get this video up, I tried going through Youtube but it kept on playing after my clip finished. I checked and it said video clips had to be more than 25 secs long, maybe thats it.

DFI 6

This blog post is late, but here I am. I enjoyed tidying up our class Google Site and adding new bits on it. I have been making multi-modal sites for reading-'Matariki'. I thought I had it ready but I kept finding more material and kept adding on to it and still am.

I find the Hapara tips very helpful as I use it everyday for checking blogging, managing and sharing work.

The audit of our learning site proved valuable for upgrading content and the spreadsheet showed that the feedback on most sites varied.

Our site is managed by the three of us and the content is mixed according to the groups we teach.

DFI 5

Today was the highlight in learning how to construct a Google Site for learning. Making learning visible using a 'hook' to engage the student in learning is my favourite theme for student engagement and motivation, and how we should go about it. The 'Pedagogy and Kaupapa' that encompasses making teaching and learning visible.

Visibility enables accelerated shift through multi modal design for behavioural engagement and multi-textural design for cognitive engagement. A well thought out concept Manaiakalani & Fisher Woolfe et al.

The Google Site for reading seems a great way to plan using the spreadsheet, using main text, challenging text and additional support using a multi modal approach.

https://sites.google.com/d/1z6jDcY6Es_7urKUumVDBtgF7ZWxwHfPP/p/1FpBVJ52GETWIl7M7S8aR_vsR8P9LO0RL/edit

The implications for teaching and learning is the rewindable aspect where students can always have a place to source their learning. I liked looking at other multi-modal sites made available with their HTML code available as a place to start with.

DFI 4

Today was full on with lots of new stuff to take in. It was 'Dealing with Data' day and the learning attached to it was quite interesting.

Another walk through into the Manaiakalani pedagogy, with today being 'Share'-Tohatoha and how that it is also an important part of the Learn, Create, Share model. It's about having an 'authentic audience for their learning outcomes.' Since 2005 the media bubble has kept up a frenetic pace with new apps and innovative ways to make life easier or to hold and capture audiences attention.

The Google Forms was great to finally tidy up the missing 'bits' that I wasn't sure of. I can see that information gathering, class tests and quizzes could be used in this way especially as I use it a lot in maths and literacy.

The Hāpara Hot Tips was great. I have done lot of trial and error runs using the dashboard, from checking student work, sharing a file to students, grouping students into literacy, maths and groups necessary. I am looking forward to more hot tips in the future.

Once again the time to explore and practise the new tools was great to sort it out in your mind about how it worked. The Google Sheets with Gerhard provided new information to take in and this would be very helpful to know and cut down the time to show and produce data. I am immediately putting this learning into practice.

Google My  Maps showed how it could be used to extend learning and develop a whole lot of discussion points about conversion, currency, distance, time zones. I will look at using this in the measurement unit.


The World Map can't be drawn in a smaller size to show distance or a flying symbol to create location to location.

Analysis Data from a Student Blog

The data shows that in one particular month there were a lot of page views with the highest being 9 views. A lot of activity during the lockdown.

The highest all time page views were 678. I think this is when this student started and everyone was keen to support each other with views and comments.

A wide range of audience with some South American countries involved. New Zealand had the highest recorded possibly from friends and families. A real spread of audience viewers.

Nogo's - Digital Pēpeha with sound

My second attempt and I've worked it out, cropping, trimming and recording.

Nogo's Digital Pēpeha-will be looking to add sound with Screencastify

DFI 3

Today was another full on day,I gleaned a lot from the tutors today in the digital bubble groups. The 'Create' part of the Manaiakalani Pedagogy as the 'hook' was very interesting with "a lot of time spent learning but little being creative" hindering student engagement. I've understood from Dorothy's presentation what SISOMO stand for; sight, sound, motion. Schools have based their pedagogy on the create theme allowing staff and students to be creative while learning. Learning about Media today it has been really great to upskill and learn how to use the tools within a class. I enjoyed the Youtube with Gerhard and the 'Deep Dive' with Kent. I liked Kent's shared vision about streaming events using 3 drones. Bringing the 'action' to the wider community enables engagement from community. The specifications for cameras and drones also were helpful. I learned about the digital pēpeha and how to incorporate Screen Castify to to add sound, which will be helpful for learners who are shy in front of others. Google slides have been our go-to for teaching and learning with students. This is also helpful for students who want to show their learning with sound and motion. My confidence has improved from being inspired by peers digital work on the DFI course. This has raised the question of why can't I do the same too. I have to practise and then use what I know with students, sequencing and a thoughtful approach using Learn, Create, Share. The emphasis for me will be to share both my students'learning and mine.

About Me-In the wrong place., will fix.

DFI 2

A lot to take in today.

The Manaiakalani, 'Learn' content is evidence based research to assist the community transition from analogue to digital. It is about teacher effectiveness and accelerating learner outcomes. The intentional and focus part really hones in on the teacher and learner, which is Ako.

What I've discovered is that today's session was about trying to make myself as a teacher more efficient in using digital tools e.g. Keep, GMail and Calendar to organise your work and personal life especially as a teacher. It does help with personal confidence and workflow. It provides balance e.g. scheduled emails can be sent at a specific time and date and incoming emails can be archived and sorted.

Our learners can use the GMail, Keep and Calendar to make themselves more efficient especially at Y7 & Y8 as this enables good organisational skills for later on. Keeping lists, making notes, taking images for future reference does help being mobile and agile.

What I could improve is organising my emails into an archive as they clutter my dashboard. The little extensions make life easier too. I preferred the 'One Tab' as it puts everything away neatly. I like the planning aspect of the calendar and got more tidbits out of it today.

The blog posting, commenting and recording in meets shows potential for having those rewindable moments to reflect back on and to share with peers.

I like the digital bubbles to share and talk about the focus of a lesson, but mainly the practise is important.

Today's video clip was about commenting and recording about a student blog. I found this very useful as an insight to what was the outcome for the students work.

Returning to School Under Level 2: My journey at the moment

The question that has been asked recently is, what will teaching and learning look like on returning to school? Have our students gained independence that transfers back to school? How do we teach our learners? In what format? Everyone knows that we can't go back to what it was before lockdown. Do we replicate our successful moments online back at school? I know that I have learnt a lot about online teaching and learning. My colleagues have had to work hard at it just like me and from observation of their teaching online, they have a natural 'knick knack' or 'pitter patter' talk which keeps the online audience fixated. I have had a support teacher observe me and vice versa for them. We debrief on what worked, the high and low parts, which students were engaged in the work. One teacher has taught and the other watched the chat box for any relevant comments and passed them on to the teacher.

 The implications from this, is that we have developed our own protocols for online learning that suited our teaching delivery and our online learners. We took bits and pieces from teachers on the internet and Youtube. We started in the first week teaching with a passive audience and then as they(learners) and we the teachers became more comfortable we started to transition to use an interactive approach as we'd discovered that our learners weren't being engaged. We up skilled ourselves very quickly from mediocre looking Google slides to ones that involved students being able to interact with the slides and explain their learning at the same time. Google Jamboard has been a great help especially in maths in division exercises and for students who loved seeing other students work. DMIC maths suits this app as students can explain their learning for all to see.

 Our basic core skills have come from Manaiakalani and our Te Arahura Cluster in Ōtautahi. Teachers and students at Rāwhiti School have responded well and have learnt as we went along. Our learners have really surprised us with their drive and creativity to their blogs, to their work and for the 'challenges' that have been gained from online. They have kept themselves busy and in the first few weeks some became 'slaves' to their laptop as they were trying to draw a fine line or balance between how much needs to be done. Our basic safety messages were to take breaks and that not all work had to be finished in one day and that it was okay not to do any work and spend time with their families. 

The one thing that stood out for me was balance in personal and work life especially from home. I realised that sustainability was the order of the day if I was to come out of the 'lockdown' mentally and physically intact. Seeing my colleagues and students each day put things more into perspective and made me think 'He waka eke noa', yes we are all in this together and possibly have improved our personal and work life in the process.

First Steps into DFI

The journey has begun with DFI Professional Development and Learning in action online.

I think the Manaiakalani kaupapa has enabled my kura, Rāwhiti School to meet the ongoing challenges right now with Covid-19. The vision to make us an outreach school can now be repaid with how staff, community and students are responding online. We are all learning each day, new things, exciting stories and of course developing an online family. We are welcomed into our families homes when online and catching glimpses of how they are all managing. I have so many online families right now other than my peers and students, I can say my bubble has really expanded with uni PD, Core PD, DFI, work and PLN to maintain.

I have learnt today about making professional and personal profiles using Google Chrome. The new photo will be up after this blog post. The making of professional documents with table contents was a 'winner' for me as it could easily point out the specific highlights in a document that you want to focus on. Creating Google groups is relevant for our profession and knowing how to set one up was always an 'eye-opener' for me. The Learn, Create, Share, modelling is evident in todays session and it gave me more time to explore and 'touch' on new learnings for me.

I have learnt some clear cut guidelines about 'routines' when setting up and naming your doc. This frustrates teachers when looking for student work. It needs to be taught. Setting up a doc to have a Table of Contents will surely help with doc organisation. I really liked the Speak Tool as this will surely help my reluctant writers and to compliment that the reading online fluency template too. We were discussing this the other day on how to maintain our students fluency while online.

I have learnt to organise my files, how to name and label them. I have just been shown how to post a blog online with particular focus on what is involved.

My learn, create, share today.