Thursday, March 19, 2020

DFI Day Two

Kia ora! Today was Day Two of the Digital Fluency Intensive for cohort one. Our focus today was 'workflow'. We looked at a range of useful tools, websites and extensions that I can use to work more efficiently and connect/simplify platforms that I am already using.

We started our session today by joining a Google Hangout with Lenva Shearing who was up in Auckland. We talked about the 'Learn' part of the LCS pedagogy. A key message I took out of this Google Hangout was that TMP was built on two parallel lines. These are digital tools/infrastructure and the way we are doing things in the classroom (teaching and learning). It is essential that time is given to building the digital capabilities of staff so that they have the confidence to create and deliver authentic learning experiences.

There are a number of things from today that I can see myself trialing with my students. Within the next week, I would like to introduce my Year 7-9 wānanga group to Google Hangouts. I will run an introductory Google Hangouts session and as a class, we will have some sandpit time. I have created this slideshow which I will share with my wānanga group.



Kathleen (Gilerthorpe Primary), Jayne (Hornby High School) and I had a go at recording our Google Hangouts session. Our aim was to discuss Lydia's blog (a student at Tamaki Primary School). We had a few technical difficulties the first time around. The recording below shows our second successful attempt. We knew we were successful the second time around because we had successfully recorded the audio with the visual.



I will definitely be making use of Google Keep. I can see myself using this tool alongside Google Calendar. Currently, I am using Sticky Notes on my desktop but would like to convert to Google Keep. What I like about Google Keep is the huge range of features it has compared to Sticky Notes - you are able to set time/date reminders, photos can be added, 'grab image text' converts text within an image into text in a Keep note and you can add collaborators to Keep notes. There are so many useful features in Google Keep!

Today I learned some useful Google Calendar hacks as well. These are going to enable me to work more efficiently (in both my professional and personal life). Keyboard shortcuts shown below are going to be particularly useful.


I will also modified my email signature to include my class site and professional blog link.



I thoroughly enjoyed today's session and cannot wait to share my new learning with my students and colleagues. Thank you for taking the time to read my post, please leave me some feedback.

Ngā mihi, Katie.


Sunday, March 15, 2020

DFI Day One


Kia ora koutou,

Today was the first session of the Digital Fluency Intensive for Cohort One.

We started off our day by discussing the origins of Manaiakalani and reminding ourselves about the importance of
our underlying pedagogy 'Learn, Create, Share'. I now have a deeper understanding of how Manaiakalani came to
be and the journey from it's inception in 2007. Manaiakalani means 'A hook from heaven', I found it particularly
interesting to learn that Manaiakalani was the name of a constellation that could be seen from the skys above
New Zealand. Read more about the Manaiakalani story here.

Today I learnt several new tips and tricks around how I can better manage my google drive.
The 'chrome and drive' session was particularly useful and already I have been able to implement some of the things
that I have learnt. New learnings include:



There were a number of things that I plan to use in the classroom with my students. These include addons/extensions
such as Kaizena, Draftback and Easy Accents. I also plan to make better use of voice typing with my students. I also
plan on doing some explicit teaching around organising our google drives. I would benefit from spending some time
looking at how my google drive is organised and make a few changes to improve my workflow.

Look forward to receiving some feedback. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post.

Ngā mihi,
Katie.

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 dur...