DFI 9 - Revision

It is hard to believe, that this was our last session of DFI.  The journey that we have all taken, to get us to where we as educators needed to be, was challenging, yet rewarding.

Today's Manaiakalani kaupapa was centered around 'Ubiquitous' learning or previously known as the 3A's.-

Anytime, Anywhere, Anyplace 

The Power of Rewindable Learning for Learners

Ubiquitous is the idea of digital learning taking place outside the class/school.  Learners will be empowered, as they will have the choice of when their learning takes place.  Learning will not just be inside the school walls, but it will happen anywhere, anyplace and by anyone in the world, be that at home, or on holiday.  Basically, 'Living Local / Learning Global'.

Having gone through the 'Digital Frequency Intensive' (DFI) course, the Manaiakalani Pedagogy - Learn Create Share, has been at the centre of our learning.  We (the participants) were constantly, made to reflect on how well we were doing in relation to the Learn Create Share pedagogy for each of the DFI sessions.  This pedagogy led us toward - . ubiquitous learning, strong learner agency and connectedness to grow our knowledge.

Google Certification Exam - Level 1

To show our learning of the DFI course content, we sat the level 1 'Google Certification Exam' today.  Apprehension of the unknown had taken root before I had even opened the exam and it was this uncertainty of not knowing what was in the exam, that made me anxious.  However, with that aside, I eventually got into my exam, even though, the general discussions around the registering for this exam was not spoken about, in a good light.

The exam was broken up into sections and we were told, to work through the sections as quickly as possible, giving an answer, even if we were unsure.  Each question had a checkbox that we could tick, to review our answers/responses at the end of the exam.

What I found distracting whilst doing the exam, was working in an incognito window that had a dark background/theme.  Also, having to go back and forth between the instructions that were on the exam page and completing the tasks on chrome apps was time consuming and I ended up re-reading the instructions 2-3 times, just to make sure.  This was a major problem for me as I was not able to complete the exam because I ran out of time.  The end result was that I was not successful in gaining my level 1 Google Certification today.  However, I have made steps to resit this again.  I know that this was not the result that I was hoping for, but it did give me an opportunity to see what was in the exam, what it looked like and what it was asking me to do.  I have confidence that I will pass this exam in the end.

My Reflection

I am going to miss the weekly get together s. I know that all the facilitators and the participants from this DFI Cohort are only an email/phone call/hangout/meet away, but it won't be the same.  What an awesome experience this has been, particularly with the learning being done online due to 'Covid 19' Lockdown.  To all the Facilitation Crew, you did a fantastic job to ensure that everything ran as smooth as possible and our learning was visible, connected, empowered and ubiquitous. Tino kino te pai!    (Simply the best!)

To all the participants in this DFI Cohort 1, well done! I'm looking forward to reading your blog posts about  what you are doing in your classes and with your learners.

Ngā mihi.

Whakatauki: Mā te kimi ka kite. Mā te kite ka mōhio, Mā te mōhio ka mārama.
                     'Seek and discover. Discover and know. Know and become enlightened'

DFI 8 - Computational Thinking

Our first part of today's programme went into 'The Empowered Kaupapa' with Dorothy.  This was interesting as it made me rethink the misguided interpretation of technology from a teachers perspective, that 'technology is just a tool'.   I now know that this isn't the case as technology has transformed the way in which we and our learners learn.

From here, we looked at 'Future Tech' with Gerhard.  The main idea that I got from this kaupapa, was how technology has/is/will change vastly.  The 'Moral Machine' activity was hard to do as it wanted your perspective on a range of driving scenarios by self-driving cars. It was difficult to decide what course/s of action that these cars should make as the scenarios involved injuries to either the car and/or pedestrians.

We had a bit of time after Kerry delivered her talk on computational thinking and Hangarau Matihiko to browse through some computational thinking resources.  I liked some of the resources, particularly Kia Taukatū ā `Matihiko Digital Readiness. This programme was developed to ensure that teachers were well supported in implementing the new digital technology content (2020).  The toolkit section is a space where teachers can go to get  support through partaking in the sequence of courses.  Each course gives a brief introduction, video (if available), information and which progress outcome/s it links too. As a teacher, I would definitely use this resource, especially, as it provides teaching material to support my students and I.  However, more time is needed to get a grip on the orientation of this resource & its programme content.

Before we got to do the fun part of 'coding', we got to try out some basic coding from a list that was provided for us.  Lightbot was easy to do and so I moved onto Scratchjr.  I wasn't very good at this activity because it had pictures instead of words for coding.  This frustrated me.  The real fun was when we split into groups based on what coding activity we wanted to do.  I chose to do the 'Mihi maker' activity.  This was a game where the coding was pre-done, with a section of the code left blank to write parts of your pepeha.  I had some trouble, but I eventually figured it out by myself or from having read the help.  However my completed pepeha has given me grief as I am having a mental block and cannot for the life of me remember how to embed it onto my blog.  If I do get it on, it would have been my..... 23rd attempt.  

So, the end result is this.  I ended up doing a screencastify and embedding the code from here.

However, since first having posted this blog, I have been informed that no one could view my screencastify of my Pepeha using Mihi Maker. I have now rectified the problem and it is good to go.
 
Whakatauki: He rā whatiwhati kō (A day of hard work)

DFI 7 - Devices

Being Cybersmart - empowers learners to connect when their learning is visible and ubiquitous.

An important aspect of today's' session was a slide presentation by Fiona around 'CYBERSMART' and how we as teachers empower our learners as connected and confident decision makers, particularly whilst at home in a digital world.  One key point that I got from this presentation was around the Manaiakalani Kaupapa - Visible teaching and learning and how we interact with others online and to make smart decisions about what information is shared. 'If you are unsure, don't publish!  Not everything needs to be published' 

Our next part of this session went into a Deep Dive on Hapara - Making learning visible.
Hapara allows you to focus on teaching, not the technology
I had an opportunity to have a look at the Hapara dashboard for my school, but I didn't have any classes set up this year for myself, so I ended up looking at other staff's hapara dashboards.  I found it a little difficult to follow the Dorothy slide presentation as some of the headings on her 'mock' hapara dashboard was not showing on any of the dashboards for teachers from my school.  I do have some recollection of how Hapara works from having used it last year, but would have really liked  to have followed this presentation with a class of my own (again, not teaching this year).

We did a digital dig about chromebooks with Gerhard.  We were given a variety of tasks to learn about navigating using the keyboard/shortcuts.  I found doing some of these tasks quite intensive, mainly because I ended up reading all of the tips on each slide and we were only given a small time frame in which to do the allocated tasks. My 'adopted' learners have benefited from knowing and using some of the chrome book shortcut keys.  They use shortcut keys to complete tasks.  I have also learnt how to use some of the shortcut keys for my computer to do some Google Classroom lesson for my 'adopted' learners and to help my grandchildren with their schoolwork.

One of my highlights today, was doing a screencastify and a Loom video based on one of the Cybersmart Areas - Smart Learners.  Here is what they look and sound like.

 Loom Video

Once again, lots of learning, creating and sharing occurring today.  I look forward to the next session.

DFI 6 - Enabling Access

Again, it was another hands-on session with us learning more about Google sites.  I was able to have some well needed time to really work on a google site (which I am preparing for my next years' class) and focus on the 'Five affordances of Learn Create Share in a digital learning environment,,,'

• engagement
• teaching conversations
• cognitive challenge
• visibility
• scaffolding

It would have been great to have gotten some feedback about 'my site', but at the time, I hadn't actually produced it.  I did find that looking at other peoples sites, gave me a chance to give them some feedback and to really think about the purpose of my learning site and would it be visible to the learner...

Purpose of a learning site 

• One-stop hub for learning
• learning is accessible anywhere, anytime, and at any pace
• rewindable learning supported
• personalising learning via multiple opportunities to access content and the learning process
• visible planning and teaching
• hub of information about events, groupings and progressions for both learners and parents
• weekly overviews and timetables

Keeping in mind, all of the learning that I have been given about Google Sites, I truly believe that this session (6) was the one that made me really think about how I had created my sites previously and gave me some positive direction into how my site/s can be improved for myself and my learners.  I will continue to work on my site/s and look forward to some feedback.

Home Team Google Site

Whakatauki: 

He iti marangai e tū te pāhokahoka (Just like a rainbow after the storm, success follows failure)

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DFI 5 - Collaborate- Sites

One of the six learning goals of  Manaaiakalani  that we looked at today, was the 'VISIBLE' kaupapa - Making teaching and learning visible.  During the time that Dorothy presented the 'Visible' pedagogy and kaupapa, I started to think about myself and the rest of my colleagues who were doing this DFI course. Everything was making sense.  We are learners too.  John Hattie states that “Visible teaching and learning occurs when there is deliberate practice aimed at attaining mastery of the goal, when there is feedback given and sought, and when there are active, passionate, and engaging people (teacher, students, peers) participating in the act of learning.”.

I must say, that I struggled a little today when doing the group activity on a shared topic in which we had to individually create a google site.  It wasn't so much as the creating of a google site, but more in the 'what should I have on my site that would hook the learners.  This was time consuming and I didn't get as much done on it as I would have liked too.  I will endeavor to keep practicing using google sites as I know that it will benefit my learners and myself.





The Multi Modal Deep Dive session with Kerry was a bonus for me. I got the opportunity to see
what other teachers had put onto their sites in terms of ;engagement - the hook'.
The little you tube video of 'Dressing window challenge - Mary Queen

My goal for the next two weeks, is to go through all the rewindable learning videos from all our DFI sessions
and see if I can improve my knowledge and understanding of some of the topics learnt thus far.

Whakatauki - learning to create and creating to learn

DFI - Dealing with Data (cont)....

This is an additional post to my DFI Session 4 about how I got on with creating of a graph using google sheets. I finally figured out why I couldn't label my 'series'.  I went back through some of the graphs that I created when teaching my year 11 learners and remembered that all I needed to do, was to put my cursor in a blank cell (without any data) and the series titles would show up when creating a graph.  Here's what it should look like.

DFI 4 - Dealing with Data

A snapshot of what my life looks like in my Covid 19 'bubble'.
My grandchildren's home-based kura