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.