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.

#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!