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