Computational Thinking: Agenda Day 8

DFI was started to empower teachers!  We are working with highly digital children, a 9 week intensive programme for teachers.  Our journey began with our learners, Manaiakalani is passionate about empowering our whanau.  The partnership of all of us working together is most powerful!

It's NOT just a tool.   It's empowerment.  Money is empowering.  Let's be real it is.
80% of our community here in Tamaki is state owned.  Right now homes are being replaced by new housing.  This is a mixture of state owned and privately owned.

Researchers have found that where discussions are able to travel back and forth at least 5 times between individuals this will improve language for our students.  We can create this opportunity to build on discussion via their blogs.  Focusing on not only leaving a comment but to reply to them and more.  Build in that threaded conversation.

Our children at home right now are empowered because learning has been made ubiquitous.  What else is empowering our students.  Are the sites and links we providing our students supporting this empowerment?

Future of Tech

Deep dive of the big picture of future of tech with Gerhard.  The Jetsons come to mind! :). Gerhard shared a video of Boston Dynamic's Big Dog as an example of advanced technology in action.  The opportunities this opens up is impressive and exciting.  With these projects we consider the 'Why' behind these inventions.  Hanson Robotic's Sophia...it was amazing!!  A lot of her intelligence is from scrolling through  youtube videos.  Check out Sophia the robot on the tonight show with Jimmy Fallon.  This has prompted a whole lot of discussions around artificial intelligence.  How does it benefit society?  So many thoughts and discussions happening around this.  Creativity seen as such a human trait and now artificial intelligence showing this creative ability too...wow!!
Facial recognition is part of this too.  Gerhard lead us into an online activity where you had to decide which way a programmed car should travel with hazards on road.   Here are some images to give you an from the 'Moral Machine' online activity.  Some very tough choices to be made, who do you save and who do you hurt eek!


Kerry: Chalk'n Talk with Kerry
Year 1 - 10 to be involved in digitally fluent for online learning.   Today it's not an option it's a necessity for learning!  DFI is focused on this to have teachers empowered to lead and support our learners.  Giving students the opportunity to not only be consumers...but creators of content! 
Here is an example of progress outcomes as provided by ministry with a learner's version on the right.  Kerry has found these useful with learners to help us unpack packs of the digital curriculum.

Kerry is currently working on going through our Manaiakalani Cyber Smart Curriculum and seeing where the progress outcomes for New Digital Technologies Curriculum is present.   Kerry made a really good suggestion to look at whatever we are doing and where possible see if there is one thing more we can add into this...computational thinking outcome(s).    The basis of Digital Curriculum links so well with what Dorothy shared this morning about technology being so much more than a tool and also the links with future tech shared by Gerhard.  Kia Takatū has been put together by the ministry, it's another good way to update yourself around Digital Curriculum, provides little toolkits for teachers.  Thankful for this session to be reassured that we have already included some of this in our teaching phew! This was followed by our own explore time of Kia Takatū.

Exploring Coding:
We had 40 minutes of exploring coding.  I tried out mind craft for a bit. Then tried compute it, this is where you read and follow the written code. There's a trick at times to focus on the written code rather than the coloured dots!   A lot of fun...can be addictive!  To now check which curriculum strands and areas this does link to.
 

Here's my very poor attempt at scratch - I think tired brain kicked in!  Thanks Kerry for being very patient with me :).  Will need to re-visit Kerry's notes to have another go especially when our children have this working really well in the years before they get to my team.

Enabling Access- Sites. DFI Day 6

Connecting with cohort:

This was a good opportunity to check in with our Auckland cohort on how distance learning was going. Positive reports on all fronts. A key theme was the act of teachers to provide for learners regardless of how many students tune in. Schools are already communicating with whanau to work out what the needs are to get students connected online. Good thing we have hard packs and the learning channel there to support distance learning!

Connecting with Manaiakalani - Dorothy

Pedagogy and Kaupapa

Visible connected learners

Act of sharing causes connection. In this time of distance learning sharing and connection has been made through camera and mics on devices. Where cameras haven't been able to work I've found it hard to get a sense of whether children understand what I'm teaching.

Twitter is the domain that pulls from all our blogs - really simple syndication! Our students across Manaiakalani and outreaches across Aotearoa have been blogging a whole heap! Impressive stats are being collected in this time of lockdown. Our students are certainly sharing and connecting via their blogs.

In our own local blogs - specifically year 7 & 8 children have refined their sharing on blogs to grab the attention of their audience. Our age group are well into blogging and if you are not intentionally teaching/reminding students to be mindful of audience the blog can just become the old 1B5 that they 'work' in and that's it! This has been a huge plus of this lockdown time. The parts that make up connecting learning.

Maria: Visual appeal - shop window!

User experience - easy to locate ‘stuff’ (2/3 clicks)

A chance to visit sites to check for the above. A really good chance to not only visit sites but more so to reflect on how my own is set up...is it appealing?? User experience??

High school sites are as expected very different to that of primary schools. The various levels, range of class levels etc is reflected in high school sites. Having children myself who have completed college the site I saw from Karen at Tamaki College is really helpful. To be able to go back to review the standards/expectations/example of tasks would have been a great support to my children!

Local team site sharing time!

Really appreciated this time together to simply share what we work out of daily as educators and the other hats we wear in our school community. I am impressed the wonderful range - multimodal provisions in the sites that were shared. The familiar faces of teachers doing fun things like reading a big book, notices and reminders etc. Rewindable learning is key in our sites. The familiar 'What do we do again Miss'...our sites support this well! We had the chance to hear from the site owners for couple minutes at a time then we gave feedback via a form.

Some feedback I got from sharing our Team 5 site that all teachers for year 7 & 8 have their own pages. Hope my team get to see this as it's the work of Team5@PES.

• Awesome!!!
• Such a well thought out site with tons of intentional planning to ensure the success of your tamariki! Responsive to current climate with limiting the links too!
• Excellent site! Easy to follow, love the faces of teachers that match the group, has their names as well, so everyone knows where they should be. Like the visible timetable so everyone knows what's happening. Like instructions next to the slides. Great job!
• Brilliant organisation. Lucky kids

Blogger tips with Kerry was a good reminder for me! I found my blog list had students over quite a few years still sitting there in my class blog. Needing to get onto this pronto - adding students from my class this year! You'd think I would have had this done.

A great big thanks to Dorothy, Gerhard and the great team of leaders today!

Another productive day!

DFI: Dealing with Data: DFI Online FRIDAY 2020 session 4

SHARE is the theme for today!   Hasn't this been the focus these last two weeks for us all!
How relevant is it for us today!

After farewelling Team 5 this morning I jumped straight onto our DFI for our fourth session.   Blogger is where I have begun today!   Blogger was selected years ago, today it is still highly functional space for our children. It looks after us legally too so thumbs up all around!
WARNING!  Don't be swayed by the latest look/app, stop and check that it's safe legally, systematically secure.  Blogger still wins this hands down.

AUDIENCE: you want an audience?  We need an audience!  Blogger promotes celebration of completed tasks, the effort to share what you can with your audience!  As an audience we have a role to play too!
Our well being is very important!  Hauora - our students hauora right now is being supported by our ability to interact through comments on their blogs and google meets etc.





DEALING WITH DATA

Google form helps us to collect data!  We had a 15 chalk and talk session with Gerhard.  forms.googl.com is a way to get there.   Great idea is start with a black template rather than a themed form.
In sandpit time I've created a survey I will send to whole of team to find out what our students want for the weeks of distance learning ahead in regards to regularity of meets for various learning groups.  Part of this will be their need around social connections for Hauora - Well being.

Google MyMaps
So much opportunity here to support teaching and learning for literacy and numeracy.
Google Earth has many great functions - 3D imagery, embed html content, does not yet allow importing of spreadsheet.

Google Sheets
A lot of cool tips here for admin involved in teaching AND the teaching and learning we provide our students, whanau and school community across regions.

Blog data case studies - using spreadsheets and google draw to analyse blog data.
We had the chance to hear from Robyn from Panmure Bridge School.   Her sharing was around a case study on a Mele - a student in her class.  The idea of setting goals for blog posts and children planning using statistics to work out how many blog posts per week/month/year.  What is a realistic goal and how it can be achieved.  Along with this I imagine that students will also refine the quality of posts not just the quantity!

We had sandpit time to create our own graphs and analysis of a blog and it's data re posts etc.  That's the image I've posted right at the top!

So what you gonna do with this all Mrs Tele'a?
I will plan a lesson like that of Robyn and Mele's sharing today to support student goals and motivation during this time of distance learning.    I will send out the google form I've created to support our teacher planning.  Also refresh my own plans around rostering when and where to be giving feedback via blog commenting.

Thanks to the DFI team from across Aotearoa for such a productive day.
Ka kite Ano.
Le Atua i lo tatou vā

Andrea

Day 3: Distance learning. Teacher findings so far

Kia Ora to teachers of Aotearoa and around the globe! After 2 days of go go go via google meets and further online interaction with our students we had a chance this morning to catch up.

Here's our notes from our meeting, hopefully it'll give you some insight of our journey so far. We hope you find this encouraging as you navigate your next steps online with your own learners. Your connecting with  tamariki and whanau is so important!




Our chat went something like this...

1. How we all doing on the home front?Teacher 1: working at remembering the time to check, going ok wifi at home.
Teacher 2: wifi home is going good, can see that kids pop on and off. Home end going well
Teacher 3: wifi good. Recorded up at parents place last night to post and back home. Maths class got to see the dog so bit of distraction there - kids loved it!
Teacher 4: Going well, wifi seems to be going well have some moments but maybe it's the kids end?

2. What's going well for your literacy and maths meets with students?

Teacher 1: 8 - 10 students: Maths is consistent group, all tuning and on time. Always asking about the tasks that I’ve sent
Literacy: 2 this morning, 4-5 checking in daily more about connecting right now not so much school work.

Teacher 2: Literacy, had few more kids pop on today who were not at school on Monday and shared presentation how to access a book from TC online library. Keen to start reading. Good questions from girls today.
Maths: been more like coming home to mum - mostly home class children. More of social interaction rather than maths. Saying they don’t have enough so directed them to pages of other teachers in team.

Teacher 3: Literacy has about 10 kids everyday, playing game until others join. Do karakia and himene together before moving into literacy which a great way to connect with each other to start the day. When unmute we can communicate well.
Maths: most have been turning up, feels like too many at times. Cannot unmute here to discuss as 25 kids! Too many kids to let everyone have a turn! About 20 expectant of a maths lesson.

Teacher 4:
Good attendance at literacy
Maths going well too.
Internet band is not best at times for kids.
Getting through the work, have genuine questions. Have a good chat catching up. Trying to keep it short and sweet. Notice in maths kids are wanting more.

3. What improves our distance teaching and learning? Tips for the team
Teacher 2: make a list of 2 - 3 things to discuss / teach children in each session or else ending up awkward smiling lol!
Teacher 3: do a kahoot, did one on language features - could sense a great sense of community. Great for building morale. Check out blog - beyond the blackboard.
Teacher 1: similar to teacher 2, need to be very clear about what teaching points I will cover with students
Teacher 4: Getting students to present their work, student showing a bar graph...taking turns. More than talking heads. Today was a reading in literacy, student googled and presented it. Giving children the opportunity to lead learning using the presentation tool. Making a good example of those completing tasks, they get to lead too!


Overview:
As a teaching team we have these key points to work on to maximise our live time with students
a. Plan what teaching points you want to deliver in this window of time, including feedback from students
b. Create opportunities for students to lead different parts of the google meet by korero/presentation etc
c. Be clear with our instructions on slide show - ensure they marry with our talking heads :)
d. Pastoral care of teacher to student is an important part of our google meets so far.
e. Where numbers are growing towards full class of students, we will need to look at booking 2 - 3 different times for google meet to cater for different needs. Teacher 3's example of having many students for maths - 25. To deliver best it'll be ideal to seperate the google meet groups.


As a team leader I am so very proud of our team. A very short turn around from last Friday where we sat and planned our 'Limiting the links' approach to our site. When Monday's announcement was made our team felt prepared. Farewelling students on Monday 23rd March 3pm, greeting them via google meets  the next day Tuesday 24th 9am. Very thankful!!

Day 2 Distance Learning @ PES

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Talofa lava i tou paia ma mamalu! 
Day 2 of distance learning brought about new ideas and practices for both the students and teachers.

We found our numbers increased, possibly due to student to student prompting overnight.  Possibly parents feeling more comfortable in their homes and directing children towards school now that they understand isolation in the home.   Whatever the reason we were delighted as a team to have more children connect live with us via our 2 set google meet times. 

My maths class was smaller today, only 3 students actually but it was a productive session in that the 3 students are close in learning levels and so the competition began! 

One of our teachers had 25 out of 28 students tune in for maths!! Was an exciting but challenging time to work out how to best cater for the range of 28 learners present.  You are reminded of how the google meet is whole class situation so you're thinking on your feet the whole time.

A highlight for my learning today was the noted difference in students.  Yesterday - day 1 of distance learning they were so very keen to simply connect.  Today - day 2, students were ready with matters they wanted to discuss related to their learning.  I also as the teacher was prepared with 2-3 learning points that I wanted to be sure to deliver before ending the google meet.  At present we are meeting for up to 30 minutes.  Any longer and I'm finding that the students are challenged with background noise and whanau needing to share the space they're in.


Learning from today: be well prepared for the 20 - 30 minute google meet with specific points to teach.   Write it down and stick to it alongside any pastoral/housekeeping notices and encouragement you need to give your tamariki.

Day 1 Distance Learning @ PES

Talofa lava to our teachers!    We farewelled our children yesterday afternoon hastily due to the late but important announcement that we were moving very quickly into level 3 then 4 mode to stop Covid-19 from spreading.

During our final korero, I shared with the children that they were heading home no for a normal holiday but rather to go home AND actually STAY in their homes.  The idea of hanging out with neighbours...picking up a mate to go bike riding, hang at the beach, for a feed of fish'n chips etc was not going to happen.  The Prime Minister has instructed us 4 weeks of isolation in our whare's!

We had prepared our children with a few changes made to our team learning site which followed the Kawa of care for the learner from Manaiakalani of 'Limiting the Links'.   So all connections for students were from our front page to their ONE page that hosted daily/weekly learning.  Thankful too that team leader of our year 5 and 6 students - Matt Goodwin let me sit in and observe a google meet with students last Friday along with limit the links site set up.  All helped us arrive at today!

I'm stoked to share here that while some children did not attend the days we shared this new set up - they got online still - Day 1 of distance learning and got to the 2 hangouts - meets we set up across our team of 6 classes.

I must say seeing them pop up to join meet and then hearing student voices across the block of classes was a choice moment!   So good!   A style of learning children are accustomed to BUT this time no teacher body with to them - instead live on screen woo hoo!

Here's a screen capture of one google meet we - for maths.   Had 8 at this very moment on live.  Our team focus for these early days to simply connect with our learners, check in that they're doing ok, chat about how they were coping with the change AND then a bit of maths and literacy.  I know it'll shift into more academic content soon but priority right now is support our children with this sudden shift in life.  I'm pretty proud of our children, whanau and teachers right now!

DFI - cohort 1 of Auckland, I got to put into practice our learning around google meets, even turned the captions on AND fortunately had Dorothy Burt walk through to give me 1-1 guidance on some things I needed at that very moment!   Yes - bit mā...things Dorothy and Gerard had already told us lol - hand on face emoji right here eek!

Hows that??  3 weeks of DFI then immediately into distance learning putting into practice what we've just learned - phewww!

Looking forward to connecting with my learners today.  9am with our literacy groups then 12.30pm with our maths groups.