Lockdown PD- PB4L Restorative Practice Workshop

Reflection:

Today I attended professional development about Connectedness - Whakawhanaungatanga. This was run by the University of Waikato. Connectedness is particularly important while we are all learning from home in lockdown level 4. 

I appreciated how interactive and engaging this zoom session was- it provided a lot of practical examples to use with Tamariki. 

Some of the ideas were specific to zoom but there were lots that are also applicable to Google Meet. 

New Learnings: 

One tool that we were introduced to that I believe will be useful is 'We Connect Cards' 

The cards display different movements and you can pop them up onto your online call for students to quickly brain break during your class calls. 

Here is an example of one: 

You can also create connectedness on your class calls by having students try to high-five one another or connect hands with the students in the square next to them. 

We were also introduced to the idea of creating a 'chat storm'. This is where students type their answers to questions in the chat bar but wait until the teacher says 'go' before they submit their idea. This engages the students and helps to ensure they are all participating. 

When asking students about their wellbeing on class calls- different layers of questioning (soft/heavy questions mixed together) helps students to open up and feel comfortable. 

Adaptations/tools to use in my practice: 

One of the ideas that I learned about that I will be using in my upcoming class calls is 'State of Play'. This is where students cover their screens and then when the teacher says go, they show on their face how they are feeling/what state they are in. 

I had been using a wellbeing document but I feel as though this is a great, more interactive, activity. 

The second idea that I will be using is sending students on a treasure hunt around their homes to find different objects. I think that this is a great way to connect with students and keep them engaged. 

Finally, an important message that I gained from this PD was designing our learning for contribution as opposed to consumption of knowledge while students are learning from home. 

DFI- Week 9

This was the final week of DFI and I feel as though this course has allowed me to expand my digital fluency in various areas. It has been a time of great growth. Today we had the Google Exam which was a real test but also an opportunity to see what we've learned. I know that I would not have been able to answer a lot of those questions if it wasn't for DFI.

The DFI has impacted me positively in a variety of ways. I feel a lot more connected to Manaiakalani and have a far deeper understanding of the program and its benefits. I am teaching using learn, create, share pedagogy, and can see the positive impacts on my students.

There have been many highlights of this course. These highlights have impacted my practice in a positive way. One highlight was the Google Sites lesson because my site was something that really needed improvements. I appreciated the support that I received for this and feel a lot more confident in creating sites now.

I also enjoyed the exposure to new tools that I can use for my students. I liked the way that you could pick and choose and take away what you thought would work best for you and your learners.

I'm proud of myself for passing the Google Exam and becoming a lot more digitally fluent.

Overall this experience has been so beneficial. I am incredibly grateful to the facilitators for making this course such a positive and engaging experience.

DFI- Week 8

I found this week of the DFI program both interesting and challenging. A highlight for me from this week's session was being able to explore different coding sites. I have students in my class that would really enjoy this style of learning. I also have a group of boys in my class that are obsessed with Minecraft. The coding/Minecraft videos and activities were particularly engaging and fun. The way that these coding platforms were set out was clear and enjoyable for the user. I think that I would love to try these out in the classroom.





I found the create session tricky to fully understand. We were using Gamefruit to create a Mihi. I loved the idea of this and the visuals were bright and engaging. I can see how this could be fantastic in a classroom setting. I struggled with the logistics of the site and the code. I think this would have to be something that I continue to work on.

In the next week, I will prepare myself for the upcoming exam. I will spend my time reviewing the slides and ensuring that I am as ready as I can be.

Highlights:

• Exploring the Minecraft coding site 

For next time: 

• Try and understand using Gamefruit better. 
• Prepare myself for next week's exam. 

DFI- Week 7

This was week seven of DFI.
The beginning of our session allowed us to go for a digital dig and see Chromebooks from the perspectives of our learners. I learnt a lot of short cut keys that I believe will be useful to teach my students.

We also gained insight into the juniors world using Ipads. This is useful to know how other devices other than Chromebooks can be used in the classroom.



Our final task was to create a screencastify using one of the cybersmart areas. I chose to talk about blog comments as it is something that I want my class to focus on. We are starting Tuhi Mai Tuhi so I believe that the students remembering to be positive, thoughtful and helpful will be vital.
I also learnt how to embed a video onto my blog which is an awesome new skill.

Highlights:

• Video embedding 
• Chromebook knowledge 

For next time:

• Start Tuhi Mai Tuhi with Mark

DFI- Week 6

This week I was able to spend time on something that I really needed to focus on which was my class site. I really benefitted from this week's session because it was something that I really needed to work on. It was excellent to have the support of the facilitators and scaffolding to create a site that is much more inviting than my site was before. 

One thing I really took away from this session was representing my students on the site. I want to have their images on the site and make it be a real reflection of them. I got started with this idea as soon as I got back to school and had one of my students use Google Draw to create new site images.
This is going to be something that we work on as a class this week to make the site our own. Here are before and afters of the images on my site.

Before:

After:






I also learned how to make buttons on Google Draw which will make my site far more aesthetically pleasing.

A good before and after is my home page which drastically changed and is now far more accessible to the students. I'm excited to continue developing my site. I am full of ideas and inspiration to make it multimodal as well.

Before: 

After:

Considering I didn't know what Google Sites was at the start of this year, I'm feeling pretty happy with the progress so far. I'm really appreciating the benefits of the DFI program and I'm looking forward to the weeks to come.

DFI- Week 5

It is already week 5 in the DFI program and I feel as though what I did today will be very relevant in my teaching practice. 

The focal point of today was Google Sites. I use Google Sites in my classroom currently and this platform was the gateway for online learning during the lockdown. 
Over the lockdown period, I became a lot more comfortable using Google Sites but there are still lots of areas of development. 
We started by making a sandpit site, pictured below: 

This site will be beneficial when testing out buttons and other tools that I want to use on my Classroom site. 

We then moved into our groups to plan and brainstorm what our new sites would look like. I wanted to create a resource that would support the extension of my higher readers. This site would offer multimodal texts around the theme of Environmental Change and Future Survival. This is a work in progress but I was really happy with the progress that I made in a short period of time. Here is a link to the site along with a screenshot of how it looks so far. 

I will continue to work on this resource and then share it with my team, I am excited that this is a resource my colleagues can use as well.


Highlights:

• Being able to create a resource that a few of my students already needed that is engaging. 
• Working with multimodal texts. 
• Learning about the carousel feature on sites which could be useful for Camp photos and other site sharing. 
• The MultiText document 

To work on:

• I don't really have an 'eye for design'. I need to work on my site and what will make it attractive and appealing to the students visually. This means focusing on what colours will work together and fonts to use.
  
  
  I am looking forward to Week 6 of DFI. 

DFI- Week 4

This week there was a lot to take in for the DFI program. We learned about several different programs that will assist us in our teaching practice. This included Google Forms, Maps, Google sheets, and Blogger Stats. 

Challenges: 

• Google sheets is one of the tools that I am less experienced with. This was a learning curve for me however I feel a lot more confident using this tool. I use it for assessment normally but it's great to see other ways that it can be used. 
• Google Maps was a new concept for me. I think that I am going to need to practice Maps a little bit more. I did see the positive benefits of this program and how it could be used for our inquiry topic of 'Culture'. 

Highlights: 

• Latham took us through using Google sheets and how to insert graphs. I feel as though this tool would be incredibly useful for a statistical inquiry unit at school. It is great to find news tools that my learners will enjoy. 
• It was fantastic to have a visual representation of student blog posting in graph form using Google Sheets. I was surprised how quick and easy it was to create so many different styles of graphs. I analysed the data from a girl in my class and I was interested to see the drastic increase in blog posts and sharing over the lockdown period. I have attached the graph below in the results. 
• Google Forms is an excellent skill to have mastered and something that I can see myself using in my year 5/6 class to gain student voice and ideas. 

Results: 

My Google Form

The increase in blogging over the lockdown period.

                                         The dream holiday destinations of the DFI cohort.