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)