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.