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.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
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:
For next time:
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.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
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:
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
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
DFI- Week 6
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.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
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:
The increase in blogging over the lockdown period.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
DFI- Week 3
This was another week of learning new skills and ways to improve our digital fluency.
One application that I was really excited that we talked about today was Google Draw. Google Draw is a platform that a lot of my colleagues talk about but I was yet to use. I feel like I will use this tool when making buttons for my class site which I am very excited about.
It was cool to talk with other facilitators such as Cheryl and Gerhard. With Gerhard we talked through Google Draw. I was excited to see how this could be used in the classroom and I know that a lot of my students will enjoy some art based activities using this application. I liked the idea of using Google Draw to create self portraits and I think this is an art idea that I will use in the classroom.
Cheryl taught us about making a slideshow representing a song which I have embedded below. I feel a lot more confident embedding slideshows into the blog now which will help myself and my class.
I'm looking forward to week four of the DFI.
Tools that I think I will use:
- Word Art
- Londrina Font
- Google Draw
- Searching for images using png.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
DFI- Week 2
We learned about several different programmes that could help with our workflow.
I'm really enjoying the way that the DFI programme is set up where we click another link to join a smaller group of people. I wish that I had thought of this at the start of lock down because I feel as though this could have been a great way to set up group work.
Programmes that I enjoyed:
There were several programmes that I enjoyed learning about and believe will improve my workflow. One of those was One Tab. I often leave too many tabs open that I don't need, One Tab allows you to organise your tabs and come back to them later.
I also enjoyed Mark's rundown of Hapara in our group as I realised there were other capabilities of the site that I wasn't accessing. I think that I will find the 'Unshared' folder particularly useful when finding student work.
Google keep was also a very useful tool. Especially if i'm taking photos in class for blogs. I know that they will go straight to my laptop. The Grab Image text tool is so valuable as well and something that I wish I had known about at University!
To work on for next time:
There are still some skills I need to work on such as creating an email signature.
Connecting:
It was really nice to connect with Katie a new entrant teacher at St Francis of Assisi school. Together we discussed blogging and how we have been teaching during lockdown. I have included a screenshot of our learning together.
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
DFI -Week 1
Today marked the first day of professional development with DFI.
New Learnings:
On this first day of the program I learnt a lot of new skills that I believe will benefit my learners as we work
together online.After learning about the history of Manaiakalani we explored different online tools, with a particular
emphasis on Google Docs.
Something that might be quite basic to some but that I really needed to improve was the way that I create tables
on a Google Doc.I think that I will use the tool of voice typing in the classroom to help with children's punctuation.
The fact that you have to actively state what punctuation you want to use, I believe, will benefit children in my class.
I used my new found skills and knowledge to create this P.E challenge for my learners next week.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Learning Online
New Zealand was placed into Level four lockdown in late March. This event would have seemed completely unprecedented at the the beginning of the year. But as is the job of a teacher it was a time in which we had to be adaptable.
What we had
We were in a fortunate position to already have a class site. As a beginning teacher I felt fortunate to have this prior to lockdown. The first few weeks of Term One were spent learning how to make the site accessible to the students and how I could use it in day to day classroom life. This time has proven to be vital as the site is now our gateway to learning and part of every day classroom life. Having anticipated the possibility of online learning our students had been talked through the sites that they would need to access. This included our classroom site, the blog as well as additional online learning sites.
What we created
We were fortunate to have a great base to begin online learning and one that the students were familiar with. We became Youtubers within our own homes creating videos and Screencastifys to teach our children virtually. We adapted our practice to create online lessons that our students could access through the class site. Google Meet became our new way to touch base with students daily and the amount of professional learning that occurred in this time was immense. It was a time in which I gained a variety of skills that I believe will benefit my class in the future.
What we learnt
Never before has learning drastically shifted to an online format in this way. The first week was a time to establish what worked for our students and what did not. I was also able to establish the expectations that I had for my students and myself. I think that what I learnt was the importance of being realistic. The happiness of my students is the main priority and sometimes a bike ride and some baking will impact them more positively. Some students found the routine of online learning stimulating and familiar. I found myself receiving work left, right and centre. This was where the blog was highly beneficial. I was able to direct my students to one place where all of their learning would go. In a time where we might feel distant, it was also a wonderful way to share our learning together. Students have the opportunity to comment on each others work as well as whanau and support staff. The format for commenting of positive, thoughtful and helpful has meant that i'm able to give students next steps for their work. The blog has been a significant and highly useful tool as we learn online.
How we will move forward
People are life long learners and lockdown level four has been a true testament to that. As we continue online learning and as we progress down the levels it is undeniable that further learning curves will occur. I am feeling positive about the learning journey so far and looking forward to seeing the growth in my students and my professional learning over the coming months.
What we had
We were in a fortunate position to already have a class site. As a beginning teacher I felt fortunate to have this prior to lockdown. The first few weeks of Term One were spent learning how to make the site accessible to the students and how I could use it in day to day classroom life. This time has proven to be vital as the site is now our gateway to learning and part of every day classroom life. Having anticipated the possibility of online learning our students had been talked through the sites that they would need to access. This included our classroom site, the blog as well as additional online learning sites.
What we created
We were fortunate to have a great base to begin online learning and one that the students were familiar with. We became Youtubers within our own homes creating videos and Screencastifys to teach our children virtually. We adapted our practice to create online lessons that our students could access through the class site. Google Meet became our new way to touch base with students daily and the amount of professional learning that occurred in this time was immense. It was a time in which I gained a variety of skills that I believe will benefit my class in the future.
What we learnt
Never before has learning drastically shifted to an online format in this way. The first week was a time to establish what worked for our students and what did not. I was also able to establish the expectations that I had for my students and myself. I think that what I learnt was the importance of being realistic. The happiness of my students is the main priority and sometimes a bike ride and some baking will impact them more positively. Some students found the routine of online learning stimulating and familiar. I found myself receiving work left, right and centre. This was where the blog was highly beneficial. I was able to direct my students to one place where all of their learning would go. In a time where we might feel distant, it was also a wonderful way to share our learning together. Students have the opportunity to comment on each others work as well as whanau and support staff. The format for commenting of positive, thoughtful and helpful has meant that i'm able to give students next steps for their work. The blog has been a significant and highly useful tool as we learn online.
How we will move forward
People are life long learners and lockdown level four has been a true testament to that. As we continue online learning and as we progress down the levels it is undeniable that further learning curves will occur. I am feeling positive about the learning journey so far and looking forward to seeing the growth in my students and my professional learning over the coming months.
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