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.