DFI: Revision: Agenda Day 9, ONLINE Friday 8th May 2020

 Ubiquitous learning has always been a goal and dream of Manaiakalani.   This has been here all along.  The season of Covid-19 has brought about this concept more clearly for students and teachers across the world!  Teachers across the globe have had to think and deliver a lesson in the form of recorded teacher/student voices to support learning - Ubiquitous learning - all time any place!

This idea of ubiquity when we look back at our collective data over the years show when teachers are in front of students our learners show progress.  When they are away from us the learning level stops and sadly often drops back for our learners during our summer holidays.   Enter the 'Summer Learning Journey' to support ubiquitous learning.   This is where students choose to be part of the learning journey and have great support from a head teacher with helpers (often Uni students) giving daily feedback to support the learning journey.  The active student participants returned to school and showed continued progress in learning levels!  Woo hoo!

Now we prepare for the goolgle test - 3 hours whoop whoop!  I have finished and have no idea if I have passed but on with badging my blog!


Reflection I shared:
The range of backgrounds of members in our group was great to be part of.  A real life picture of what our school communities are made up of...the less experienced through to the experienced...those directly impacting whanau as coordinators/leaders through to the very young beginning teacher, mature teacher but new to the country etc.  Showing again how key this DFI course is in enabling the fundamentals of teaching and learning best way possible across schools.

DFI makes very clear how pedagogy links to the digital, the people, LCS - Manaiakalani, makes very clear the reason Manaiakalani is so important!   It enables communities of educators to get up to speed, refresh, renew and refine our practice in teaching and learning.   The whole package offered and delivered did this for me.  To be given time away from the class weekly a huge help for me...likely would not be able to do so otherwise if I had to book this time another way.   Thank you to all who enable this to happen.

Manaiakalani the journey:
Have been part of this from the beginning and to have the journey and it's details organised and presented as it has was humbling.  Humbling and so awesome to see that what was tried, kept or cast away lol - we have contributed to and is now used as a successful set of practices across NZ wow!! 
To have knowledge/practice that in the past often explained as 'The good teacher' does, NOW demystified.  This course is empowering to all who can join and the knock on will be the empowerment of the school communities they represent.  This takes away mentality of the one magic pill or one amazing teacher...DFI kits you up to be this and more! 

Thank you very much Dorothy, Gerhard and the Manaiakalani team - the Maniakalani Trust who enable this to happen!

Alo, alo, alo lou foe
Taunuu lou fa'amoemoe!
Stroke! Stroke! Stroke your paddle!
You will reach your destination!

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.

Collaborative teaching and learning. DFI day 5

Gratitude chain: what a great way to start today's session of DFI.  30 seconds to firstly acknowledge what person prior to us was grateful then into our grateful korero then onto the next person all in 30 seconds!

VISIBLE: can you see it?  This has been part of the Manaiakalani kawa since it's beginnings.  Our journey has see many of the locked away - kept to thyself practices diminish because it doesn't work!  No that's right we need to make what we do VISIBLE which does mean sharing of great ideas we all have.  Teachers experience that today in open learning spaces, the development of teacher around learning AND behaviour is so much quicker.  Students, teachers AND whanau are more a part of open spaces across schools and the community via our online hosting of all that we do.
Our default is visible.  Visible learning supports the Kawa of what you say is what you'll do - they'll be no surprises!

Hapara was specifically designed to support Manaiakalani.   This was designed so that the learning would be visible to the teacher.   It's a great tool to support our students and brings stability to our current situation of students carrying out distance learning.   Our whanau have access to Hapara also to support their children from home.
John Hattie supports - our feedback and feedforward makes a positive difference for our learners.  John Hattie is a Professor of Education first at the University of Auckland then later at the University of Melbourne in Australia.   He is very big on VISIBLE learning! 
Our researchers

We need to keep sharing the process of teaching and learning in a visible setting.  We must follow the process of limiting the links.  Remove the barriers of passwords and limiting the links.  It's the best way to go.  Thanks Dorothy for the korero here!

MULITMODAL....MULITTEXTUAL
How can we make our delivery inclusive?  Not just about uploading our worksheets, we actually need to move away from this and look at how we can include all our students.  How can our students take on more responsibility for their learning.  Self manage and self scaffold.
First key concepts is:
a. Engagement - the HOOK
Are our sites engaging, does it hook the attention of your audience?  Does your homepage have all your communication points present?

BUILDING TIME - time to build a google site from scratch with Gerhard.  When creating a new site, identify FIRST what is the purpose of your site.  Think - limiting links, limit the amount of clicks for your audience.  If you can't get to where you need to be in 2-3 clicks - you need to refine this process.  A flow-chart on paper can come in handy here.   Once this purpose and flow has been decided, next you think about the pages.  What's taking up the most real estate?  The least?  What is the best layout for this?

How do we hook in the behaviour and learning we're after.   The MULTIMODAL elements hooks in the behaviour we are after - being excited, interested - a desire to find more!   The MULTITEXT elements caters to the cognitive!

Multimodes to engage the learners.  This might mean writing, video, song, animation, graph.  We want people to understand information - this is our goal!

Our site should have multiple modes of presenting this important information.  Academically we want to be sure we are reading multiple texts.
1. Main text: the actual text we want them to be able to read
2. Complimentary texts - ideas can be accessed independently says the same thing but in different way
*Scaffolding texts - main ideas can be accessed independently, ideas are still on same wave length as main text.  Vocab list with links etc.    (referred here to matrix created by Angela Moala)
3. Challenging texts - not just challenging vocabulary but various points of views, conflicting information type of challenge
4. Student selected texts - an invite for students to build up mileage and knowledge by students

I was in team Kerry for building site from scratch on 'Fake News'.  It was a great experience working with our team of 5, great questions to help me along the way.   Please go here to see what I managed to create with the support of leader Kerry. 

What will I take from today?

• Limit the links on our sites!  Keep thinking of ways to refine this feature for our learners, not simply for this time of distance learning but into the future schooling that follows.
• Multimodal and Multitextual - an oldie BUT GOODIE!  A must!  Are we empowering learners with the resources we are providing?   Are we allowing our students to contribute to these resources?  We should be
• VISIBLE: if it ain't visible it ain't useful to no one

Kia Ora to Dorothy and national team of Manaiakalani facilitators.  

Have a blessed Easter Break.

Agenda Day 2, Auckland Cohort 1, 2020

This morning's focus was around the use of google hangouts or google meet as some call them.  In light of the Coronavirus and students around the world being made to stay home from school - this has been a very useful day.  Ubiquitous learning a theme of the day!

Back to hangouts - do not copy what we've done here...as good practice - etiquette, it's important to be in hangout on your own laptop.   Don't worry Sally and I had our own laptops to watch and share through.  Having your own laptop means you are there to participate and also shows an appreciation for the lead speaker in hangout who's prepped for you and the team!

The ability to speak with a group of learners, receive information from a teacher AND give feedback is one which Maniakalani children have - right now!   Should our children be asked to stay home - learning CAN still happen!

In our hands on session using hangouts we were taken through a great presentation that walked us through RATE.
Recognise
Amplify
Turbocharge
Effective Practice
I especially appreciated the review of the 'Amplify' part of our practice. 
"We amplify our effective practice by using technology to share our professional learning and experiences" Dorothy Burt.  There are two parts to Amplifying - Getting and Giving.  We get - research...find resources.   We give - share our own practice online through our sites, professional blogging etc.

Google Keep - it's a keeper!
Ability to make lists/notes and share with collaborators - like colleagues or whanau.  The grocery list etc that is live and can be checked off.  A keep safe space for quick little notes and links...capture image of text and have it stripped off and presented as plain text.   Great tool to use to support the learner focus closer on selected text.

Gmail: settings is the place to go.  Archiving of emails rather than deleting is a better option to clear inbox.   Having inbox emails as individual or collection of email conversations is something to consider when setting up gmail.  Labelling is a good way to organise work flow according to a group of people or individuals.  Emails will still come through inbox OR you can send directly to label file.

Google Calendar
Handles multiple accounts.  You do not have to share you calendar when inviting individuals to events. 
One Tab app - for those who have issues with having wayyyy to many tabs open.   You can use this to have all the tabs
Bookmarks bar - click on lock and drag onto bookmark bar...delete?  Double finger tap then delete!

Hapara: using dashboard for quick check-ins re 'Is your doc in the right folder' have this on screen acknowledging students as they post in correct folder.

Hangout - put it into practice. 
We made a first attempt to run our own hangouts.  Some learnings from this :)  The default on quicktime screen recording is to have the mic turned off...turn this on or sound won't be captured!  Be ready with what you want to say...do the thinking away from camera if the purpose of hangout is to reflect.  Mute your own mic when you are not sharing - however NOT if you are the person doing screen recording.  Thanks to Sally, Jan and Marie who shared beautifully today via hangouts.
Thanks Dorothy and Gerhard

#DFI25 - Digital Fluency Intensive group no.25

#DFI25.  Today we've started round 25 of DFI
Manaiakalani Kaupapa and Pedagogy
Background of Manaiakalani - where it all started.  In 2006 the journey began...well not really.
Prior to this there were two programmes running involving a cluster of schools.  One of these was the ICT PD.   As programmes do they come to an end.  A movement began to keep this cluster work going, it was more than ICT.   The cluster gatherings of teachers empowered more than individual schools - it reached our community.  We had to keep this going! 

A core set of principals decided to work together to continue these cluster gatherings that were opening doors between schools and whanau in Tamaki.  This rolled into a core group of lead teachers, whanau and students.   A core group that would trial and work through the choices to be made to set up a model for schools to use.

What's really neat for Sally and I - we were part of the journey from the beginning which is pretty special!   Here we are finally with Dorothy in DFI #25!  Choo hoo hoo!

To assist in improving my capability and workflow it's great to have had sessions today that lead us through some deep diving. Today our first deep dive was around google groups.  Tip - don't invite people to group ADD!
Tools to try out:

• bookmarks
• omnibox
• tab skipping - command 1, 2 = tab 1, 2 etc
• filing - shift + z adds doesn't move folders

What to use with my own google drive AND setting up students for success for the year:
Google Docs 101!
This was a huge help for me.  Time to tidy up, refresh and renew the skill set.  Boy have I developed some sloppy habits!

• First - using initials FIRST when naming a doc.  
• Copy & Paste NOT!  You are actually copying all the formatting, we need to strip it out before pasting so here we go.  Shift command V - pastes WITHOUT formatting will happen.  
• Voice typing: go to tools 
• One doc for the month?  This is where you can use heading to mark in the date, students starting out in google docs for the first time find this useful.  Students add date as they add to the writing folder.  
• EXPLORE - yes that image that sits bottom right of your docs.   Click on it - it enables referencing of any text/images you add through this link...acknowledges in your footer the host of image/text.  Wow that would have taken up to being an A+ student.

Extensions and Addons
Scavenger hunt that checks out the digital skills of your students.
A great number of extensions and Addons were shared today.  Remember to contact your key person in school to have selected addons available to your students. 
Removebg - removing background from images - is soooo choice!

All that I've been exposed today is very useful for my classroom practice and my own personal workflow.  Thanks Gerhard and Dorothy.  Looking forward to week 2 DFI#25.
Kia Ora!