Wānanga Reflection

Kia ora koutou,

Preparations for Term Two are well underway. As I sit here and plan, I am reflecting on wānanga and all that we achieved during Term One.

What is wānanga?

Wānanga is time spent with my Year 7-9 composite class. We have seven hours of wānanga time per week. This time is spent focussing on 'front-end of the curriculum' skills. A key part of my personal teaching philosophy is that relationships are key. I know that I share this philosophy with a number of my colleagues. We use this wānanga time to build and strengthen relationships, creating a safe, open and supportive environment for our learners.

What did I do during wānanga Term One?

I spent a good chunk of time at the start of the term playing fun get-to-know-you games and focussing on establishing connections. Circle time was also a big part of wānanga time and really helped to build a sense of community and belonging.

Why did I do this and what was the impact?

It was important for this to happen early on as the class I have this year is composite Year 7-9 class and not all students knew each other. We had lots of students from outside of our Uru Mānuka cluster starting with us in 2021 and new year 7 students transiting into high school.

What were the highlights of wānanga?

What would I like to change for next term?

We love to laugh and have fun in Tz Wānanga!

Recently we had our school photos and it has become a tradition

to pose for a silly photo after we have had our serious one.

DFI Day Nine

Today was our final DFI session of the course. What an amazing nine weeks we have had. Starting in the classroom and transitioning into online learning, just as our students have had to. It has been so great to connect with so many different teachers across the country. We have had teachers from Uru Mānuka, Ōtaki, Te Ara Tūhura and the West Coast. I have thoroughly enjoyed following everyone's learning journeys.

Some highlights of the last nine weeks for me include...

• Understanding how I can work more efficiently and manage my workflow through the use of google apps. Google calendar has become my go-to planning tool. Linking in resources needed for each lesson, getting reminders in advance and sharing an event with teachers that I am collaborating with are what I really enjoy about google calendar.
• Using google keep and google tasks to manage all of those 'bitsy' tasks that need doing - it is a much better way of organising and prioritising. I also love that I can add subtasks under each main task if I need to.
• Google sheets have made my life so much easier. I have changed the way that I am using these. Before DFI I mainly used them to store data/assessment information. Now I am using google sheets to analyse assessment data, sort student information, monitor attendance and track students' blogging to name a few.
• Spending time making a new site and modifying current sites to make them more user friendly and visually appealing.
• Explore the new digital technologies curriculum.
• Developing a multimodel site from scratch.

Some of the things I would like to explore more include...

• Coding - I thoroughly enjoyed learning about coding and experimenting with different coding apps such as Toxicode and Scratch.
• YouTube - this is still quite new for me, but I can see the value in utilising this. Little hacks like how to create a channel, adding to a playlist, ensuring videos are unlisted etc have been really useful.

I cannot wait to get back to school next week and continue to implement the exciting new things I have learnt with my students. It is nice to be able to say that I have finished the DFI course a Level One Google Certified Educator. Such a good feeling!! I will definitely be going for Level 2 in the very near future. It feels like such a long time ago since we started DFI - we have come so far and learnt so much!

Below is a picture from Day One.

DFI Day Eight

Kia ora!

The focus for the DFI Day Eight was Computational Thinking.

We began by delving deeper into the 'empowered' aspect of the Manaiakalani kaupapa. It is really important that we are very selective about the vocabulary that we choose to use. I hadn't really thought about it before, but the word 'agency' can have negative connotations for students and their whānau. We want students to have the confidence to take charge of their own learning and approach new learning opportunities with a growth mindset.

I love the Pat Sneddon quote that was shared with us today:

Before our session today, I was not very confident in discussing computational thinking. I have a much better understanding of it now.

A question that was posed to us was, what makes a digitally fluent person?

A digitally fluent person is someone that can decide when, how and where how to use certain technologies. Computational thinking is not about learning to think like a computer, but learning to think like a computer scientist.

We had some explore time after Kerry's 'Chalk 'n' Talk' to look through slides 19-22 on this slideshow. Here are some of the cool things that I discovered:

• I had already registered my school google account on the kia takatū ā-Matihiko website, I just need to spend some more time exploring this site.
• On the TKI site, I found a glossary of terms. Definitely, a good idea to familiarise myself with these - some of them I have not heard of before. Here is the glossary.
• I had not seen this doc before, so I spent some time reading through this.

Deep Dive: Future of Tech

Following the deep dive, we had some coding and computational thinking explore time.

Things of the interesting things I explored were:

Minecraft: Voyage Aquatic

Flappy Code

Toxicode

For our create time, we had some time to make meaning of the content we had been given and had a go at making our own code. I have not really done any coding before, so I choose to start with a few Scratch challenges and then had a go at creating my own Scratch project. Check them out!

10 Block Challenge

My own Scratch project

There are still a few things I need to figure out including how to save a project and how to share a project, I had a few issues with this when I was trying to create my own Scratch project.

Once I am a confident user of Scratch, I would like to explore this more with my learners. This was a really useful session and I certainly felt challenged at times.

DFI Day Seven

DFI Day Seven was fantastic!!

To start the day we explored what it means to be cybersmart. Fiona Grant led a very interesting session and further unpacked for us how we and our learners can be cybersmart. We want our learners to be at home in a digital world, therefore we need to teach them how to be safe, responsible users of the internet and their devices. As teachers, we want to empower our rangatahi to build online connections and ensure their learning is visible and ubiquitous. There are several different cybersmart categories, these include:

• Smart Learners
• Smart Footprints
• Smart Relationships
• Smart Media
• Smart Surfing
• Smart Legal
• Smart Money
• Smart Value
• Smart Teachers
• Smart Parents

The Be Internet Awesome site is definitely one that I would like to explore further and can see myself using in the classroom.

I really enjoyed the Digital Dig session that we had in our regional DFI groups. This session was designed to familiarise ourselves with how to use a chromebook. I really enjoyed this session and learnt several new tip and tricks which I can pass on to my students. Keyboard shortcuts including taking a screenshot, searching all apps, selecting the content in the address bar and seeing all keyboard shortcuts were particularly useful. Here is the digital dig that I worked through:



During the create part of our day, we choose one of the cybersmart categories to delve deeper into. I choose to explore Smart Media. We looked into the key learning objectives and explored supporting resources. Check out this screencastify video that I made about Smart Media:



Moving forward I would like to spend some more time exploring Explain Everything - I can see myself using this in the classroom. I would also like to spend some time making my blog more exciting. I will do this by adding gadgets, changing the theme and considering the layout.

I am continuing to use google calendar, google keep, google sheets and a number of other tools/programmes we have explored, to improve my workflow. Taking part in the DFI remotely whilst working from home has proved hugely beneficial. I am thoroughly enjoying the Digital Fluency Intensive!

DFI Day Six

Mālō e lelei!

Today was day six of the digital fluency intensive.

We began our day today exploring another aspect of the Manaiakalani kaupapa - connected. I loved exploring the powerful networks connection visuals. This showed which high schools, catholic schools, special schools, kura kaupapa and primary schools each cluster is made up of. It was really interesting to see how clusters have evolved and connected over time. For me, the key takeaway from this session was that the Manaiakalani kaupapa can not work if we are not effectively implementing the four aspects - connected, ubiquitous, empowered and visible.

The sessions with Kelsey and Gerhard where we explored visual appeal ('shop window') and user experience (how accessible/easy to find things are) was really useful. It was a great chance to compare and contrast several different sites. I found it particularly useful getting feedback on the readability and user-friendliness of the Working From Home google site that we are using during the lockdown period.

Feedback about Working From Home site:

• I should try and include more multimodal resources.
• The overall site appearance is not particularly engaging.
• The site does not function that smoothly.
• Evidence of visible teaching and learning.
• Evidence of rewindable learning.

Looking at this site 'through the eyes of a learner' it just isn't that exciting or engaging. I am working on creating some multimodal content for Week 3 that will make this site more appealing to our learners (this site is a work in progress).

Site improvement goals that I set and achieved today were:

• Remove unnecessary buttons from the homepage and relocate existing buttons.
• Create subpages for literacy and maths etc instead of linking to subpages.
• Create a weekly overview guide for the homepage.

I would like to have a go at adding in a sidebar onto our class blog so that students and myself can see who is actively blogging. Editing the layout of my blog and making it more visually appealing is another goal that I have set for myself.

Again, I feel very empowered to review what I have done and ensure that I am doing the best I possibly can to uphold the four aspects of the Manaiakalani kaupapa - connected, ubiquitous, empowered and visible.

DFI Day Five

Day Five of the Digital Fluency Intensive was a great day! It was our first session back for Term Two. Today we had an opportunity to connect with our learners between 9:00am-10:00am. I used this time to run Google Meetings with my learners and found it particularly useful. I learnt a lot today and came away with so many new things I want to try.

We started our session today exploring the 'visible' aspect of the Manaiakalani kaupapa. This was really interesting and emphasised to me the importance of the whole journey being transparent, not just the teaching. All aspects of our professional practice should be transparent - we want visibility for our learners, our colleagues and whānau. Some files genuinely do need to be private, but the large majority of stuff doesn't need to be.

The session around how to ensure our task design is multi-modal was really useful. It certainly got me thinking about how I am planning currently and gave me a lot of ideas. I now have a better understanding of what the term 'multi-modal' means in a variety of different learning contexts. The site exemplars that we had shared with us were really useful. I loved creating a multimodal site from scratch! It was a really useful exercise and certainly made me reflect on my current site design.

Click on the link above to see my multimodal site (work in progress!!)

New learning also includes the reaction buttons on blogger. I had no idea about these, so it was useful to see how to access this feature and set them up. Jamboards are also going to be a really useful tool and I can see myself using these with my colleagues and students. Here is an example of one that we collaborated on during this session:

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1-L-KNOXsaGp8GU7nDyzMbMlg_ri5sCpXghuJwtlw-dM/viewer?f=1

My workflow is continuing to improve and I feel that the use of tools such as google calendar, google keep and google sheets are the reason why. My learners are becoming confident users of google calendar and we are connecting more as a wānanga group online. During our first DFI session, I started creating a google slideshow to share with my learners introducing them to Google Meet. I used the slideshow below after session five as I was able to incorporate JamBoard into this.

Really looking forward to our next session. Ka kite!

DFI Day Four

Kia ora! Today was day four of the Digital Fluency Intensive and our focus today was 'Dealing with Data'.

We started off by spending some time exploring the ‘share’ part of our Learn Create Share pedagogy in greater detail. I really enjoyed listening to Dorothy talk about how ‘sharing’ has changed over time and about some of the constraints our learners have had to deal with when sharing their learning. I think of what sharing meant to me when I was at school and how drastically different it is to sharing in my classroom now. Technological advancements and teachers’ growing capabilities have removed constraints that were around for such a long time. Students are creating with a particular audience in mind (potentially a worldwide audience) and understand WHY they are creating something. They are creating with a purpose!

There were several things that we discussed throughout the day that I can see myself using day-to-day. I have been using google forms, but perhaps not as efficiently as I could have been. I loved the session around mymaps.google.com! I can see this tool being used in so many different ways in the classroom. The deep dive into google sheets was very helpful. I was introduced to some functions that I was completely unfamiliar with and had a chance to consolidate some of my existing skills. I also found the ‘Making meaning of content’ session really useful and was able to practise making some graphs based on a student's blogging statistics.

After today’s session, there are several things that I would like to try with my learners over the next few weeks. These include:

• Using google forms to create exciting quizzes.
• Using google forms as a means of checking in as we continue with online learning.
• Explore www.googlelittrips.org and how this could be used to make my literacy activities more exciting.
• Look at how mymaps.google.com can be used across different curriculum areas.
• Getting the students to analyse their blog post statistics for the last few years.

I would like to spend some more time exploring google sheets. I already had a basic understanding of and was reasonably confident using sheets, but during today’s session there were several elements of google sheets that we explored that were completely new to me. These included filtering data on a spreadsheet, inserting different charts and using the ‘functions’ tool to create different formulas. I can see myself using google sheets quite frequently over the coming terms and would like to ensure the I am doing this as efficiently as possible.

I am loving being able to connect with so many different people from outside of the Uru Mānuka cluster and am really looking forward to our next online session.