Day 9 Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Programme - THE FINAL ONE

Looking back........

The past 8 weeks have been amazing, to hear from the Manaiakalani team leaders that I have grown a lot and are able to work with more confidence, is amazing. 

Thank you so much for this opportunity to work with you, Fiona - thank you for your constant help and guidance with so much patience. I hope that we will meet again in future and that I will have the opportunity to learn from you again.

It is sad to say goodbye next week, wish we could learn more..........

The day has arrived.... our last session

It was good to hear that how the teachers, that did the course with me, experienced it. We all feel the same, sad and wish we could just learn more and more. We need more time with our trainers.
This has been a life changing opportunity.

The Manaiakalani beliefs

This idea is that we can rewind the classes, is empowering. 

We had a quick review about Google classroom. Seen that we use Hapara in our school and it is already set up within the school's domain, this was interesting and useful to know how to create and share assignments with your class.

Thank you for reviewing it with us before we sat the Google Level 1 exam. this was helpful during the exam.

The dreaded exam!!!

This was so stressful. Time management was so important. I finished the test with only a few seconds to spare. What a relief! Thanks Gerhard, calming and encouraging me...... "You got this!" he said!!

3 hours of concentration and reading and re-reading, but..... it payed off.....

 
Yeah , I did it! So grateful!

My final words for the Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive team.

What an amazing, journey this was. Being part of this group makes me proud and I can say without reservation that these people I have met are truely met. I will miss the weekly get togethers and collaborating and learning. To all the teachers in the program. It was inspiring to meet all of you, I hope that I can visit you at your schools and learn from your expertise. 

To our trainers, Dorothy, Fiona and Gerhard. You are amazing people and always had a friendly smile and a kind word to say. Thank you for making my first 3 months in NZ memorable, having you guys by my side while I was busy adjusting, made it so much more bearable.

What's next for Tania

I will continue to learn anything that tickles my interest, I will create engaging assignments and activities for my students from all I learnt and I will share with whomever might be interested!!

Super psyched today.....

Day 8 Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Program

CYBERSMART

Teaching teachers and students how to stay safe and be empowered to make the right decisions when using devices.

Google - 

Google makes us aware of being cybersmart, be confident and smart in using the internet.

IMPORTANT - rather focus on anti-bullying - FOCUS on KINDNESS

TEACHER DASHBOARD

Having teacher dashboard made it so much easier to keep an eye on where the students are working at, all their digital work are on here and I can immediately see who is not at the right place at the right time. Also very useful to see who struggles to put there work in the right folders.

In the kid's shoes!!

Chromebooks and iPads

It was truely great to use an actual chromebook. A good teacher cannot teach any lesson if you do not know how the students will experience it. If you create a lesson on your device, you need to test run it on a device the students use. That way you can make sure that it is working the way you want it to.

Using Screencastify

I used my pepeha form a previous session to screencastify it.

I feel so much more confident in using technology! Thank you Manaiakalani.

Day 7 Manaiakalani Digital Intensive Fluency Program

Getting tech savvy and how to use some of this in the classrooms. 

I think, as I look at my own two children, kids these days are born being tech savvy from a very young age. They are extremely fortunate to grow up in this tech age. I am amazed at the diversity of programs available, some even free. How cool is that!! My kids just love to play on their tablets or they want to do educational games on mommy's macbook. 

We have a wonderful opportunity to learn how to be better being with technology. I f we as teachers have the passion and the know how of tech, then imagine what can happen in a classroom with fresh minds who are tech savvy and have the tools ready at hand. Some of the things my students create scares me sometimes. The world is their oyster!! And they are certainly ready to grab it with both hands. thank you Manaiakalani for making this possible. These kids are so lucky.

Today,  OMGTech spent the day with us. Inspired by so much that is available out there.
Firstly they shared this video with us. Get your tissues!!

Oh my goodness, this was an amazing video.

We played a couple of games just to get us going and thinking in the right direction. The first one was a bit on the dark side..... hehe.... was fun though!!
Why don't you try yourself? Here's the link: Moral Machine.

So what if I have the opportunity and the knowledge to lead my classroom to look like this. WOW! The possibilities are endless of how far these students might go!

Makerspace and another.............

We tried and succeeded. It was fun!! Beginning of programming. 

CODING - my oldest son just loves this!

Day 6 Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Program

CLASS SITES!!!

I have been waiting for this. I have my class site all set up but, it still needs perfection. Super psyched about this week's training. Room 10, watch out. Your new site is coming! 

I joined Google plus and learnt that is such a good tool to use. You can join so many different communities to fit your need. Awesome stuff!

Wow, these teachers who created these site are awesome. It was wonderful to have a look at what they have. How easy it is to access. colourful and engaging. I got heaps of ideas to make my own to better my class site. Thank you.

I have worked hard on the class site and although it is not perfect yet. I think it is a great start-off.
If you want to check it out, here's the link......

Glen Taylor Room 10

Day 5 Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Program

Our class sites - is it visible to our students?

Today's session was all about being visible. When using one-on-one devices in the classroom takes a lot of responsibility from the teachers, students as well as their parents.

As a teacher, we can monitor where the students are currently working on and if they are using their time on the device for learning through the teacher's dashboard or google classroom. With this you can control which programs or links they use.

For parents, their should be a very good understanding why and for what the devices are used, not game playing......

This slide sums up the whole idea of the digital program and having engaging fully functional classroom sites. We as teachers should be able to share our work and ideas with our students anywhere anytime.

Google sites

This is the part I was waiting for..... learning to create an awesome site which will be engaging and easy to use by my students.

First of all I learnt the importance of making your Google documents visible to see. Hence the photo above. Planning your site on old school pen and paper is crucial. 

Adding pictures and creating the buttons was so much fun. With the use of Google drawings and google search the options are endless. 

I was amazed how easy it actually was to insert videos, pictures and of course hyperlinks and subpages.

I always admired the sites which was multi-model and now I can create my own.

This was my first attempt building a site. We got the theme : Garden with Science.

No, I can go and design my class site with absolute confidence. Hope the students will like it.

Day 4 Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Program

Todays session focussed mainly on Sharing

As a teacher new in New Zealand it was wonderful to see how well literate the students are with their chromebooks. To be able to blog and connect to students from, not only New Zealand, but all over the world is such an amazing advantage they have on a daily basis. I m thinking back to the pen-pals we had back in the day. 

Dealing with data

For being a Microsoft girl for nearly 20 years, today was the challenge I have been waiting for. I could still use my prior knowledge but the Google forms and My maps were by far my favourite new learning for today.

Google Forms

I always admired how people have created these cool looking forms you can fill in online and now I have created one by myself.

Please have a crack at it and let me know where I can better myself. I will definitely try again and make it more glamourous.   

Tania's form

Google maps

This was an awesome experience. It is amazing to connect the world. There are so many possibilities to use google maps. This is a wonderful tool to use in the class to learn, create and share within your inquiry about the world. My version is so basic and I can't wait to explore this more. My class will love this. 

Google sheets

Wow, this was the most challenging task we explored thus far. I am used to Microsoft Excel and rarely used it, only the basics. This will make the life of a teacher so much easier. To be able to have all the student's information readily at your fingertips will save an immense amount of time. I need a lot of practice with google sheets.  

Day 3 - Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Program

Today we focussed on  Learn - CREATE - Share.
How wonderful this was to see what could be done within Google docs and slides.

This is truely an opportunity for students as well as teachers to become creative and to think out of the box. As we get older it becomes more and more difficult to be creative. We have excuses like: I'm too busy, no time, I am not good at art. While we are thinking of excuses not to be creative we are stealing our students' time to be creative. They are not scared to try something new. If we as teachers do not take time to push ourselves to think out of the box we can't expect the students to produce awesome projects.

Kent Sommerville, one of the deputy Principals of Point England School, shared all about being creative with Live Streaming using a video camera or, nowadays with the newer technology, a drone.
With so much we have at our fingertips the creativity is endless. What an amazing advantage are we giving our students.

Next we looked at how to use Google draw and slides in a creative way. Animations in Google draw, I think my boys in class will love this, creating something fun.

During our Create and Share time, we had to design our pepeha on slides. This was a wonderful experience for me being in this country for such a short time. I had to do a lot of research and made contact with a few Maori people. I also had to ask for some advise regarding the proper way to prepare. Thank you that I could experience this.

DAY 2 Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive training

WALT - Digital content introduction

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Learn
Create
Share

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I am getting more confident using technology to teach. If I am Cybersmart my students will be too.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

The students could create and share their work with Hangout. I think they will enjoy working together on this.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I was one of those people who had a million tabs open because I was scared I will forget them. Now with the OneTab and Toby Mini I can organise my life and be more effective at planning. I also had a lot of pages bookmarked but now they are organised and easily accessible.

This is a photo of our group currently working with Dorothy , Gerhard and Fiona. This is the recording we made through Hangout and Quicktime recording.

DAY 1 Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive

Last week Friday I started my intense training with the Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Program. I thought that I was quite computer literate until I started using and learning about all that Google has to offer. I am so excited to learn more and to implement the tools in my classroom. What a wonderful way to learn. You have the whole world at your fingertips.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

I had no idea coming here 4 weeks ago what the word Manaiakalani meant and what it stoods for. Now I am part of this wonderful community and I will be one of the educators who will be able to live by the four goals namely :

1. Have the support to provide the basic tools to the students to become digital fluent.

2. Have the support to be fluent in my planning, teaching, assessment as well as my professional development.

3. Acceleration of achievement outcomes.

4. Understand the structure and where we are headed with Manaiakalani.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

This first session was such an eye opener and I was excited to go out and explore more. We had a lot of fun this week in the class exploring all the tools I was taught. Many of my students are awesome and we created awesome work together.

Some examples:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EsJxDsFOewlGI1E766PrY0cma3It0p2h4RBmqGV4DsA/edit

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1r7zoOQH1XmavIBkuL2A3dqVeHwIMnmdtF_dgvt-lm8Y/edit

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

We played around with colours, putting a title(as Title) not normal text using the explore tool.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I am able to create more inviting teaching materials to keep the students engaged.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19lRm_ETWenywnAsqrM7_1pck0cnYoyfLieKdjVWi2Kc/edit?ts=5b8c9c8e

I am still learning and will be forever a learner because there is so much I can still do. 

Thank you for the opportunity to be part of this.

My first blog post

This is my 24th day in New Zealand and my first blog. It's been an emotional rollercoaster. But let me tell you about my journey so far.....

I started teaching in South Africa in 1998. I gained heaps of experiences working with multi cultural classes. In 2000, I met my wonderful husband, also a teacher, and we have worked alongside each other since 2002.

In 2005, we decided that we needed a change in our lives. Something more, challenging. We moved to Taiwan and taught English as a second language at a private school. We missed our family and went back to South Africa in 2008. We bought a doggy Parlour and worked for another 4 years at the same school.
We have two sons, 8 and 4 years old. As all parents, we wanted to give our kids everything and the best opportunities there might be. Knowing how the system works in Taiwan, we decided to uproot our family and moved back to Taiwan. Our kids are fluent in Mandarin Chinese and had the awesome opportunity the experience and be submerged in a another culture.

Now to further our journey, we explored the idea of moving to either Australia, Canada or New Zealand. After months of research and finding the best fit for our family, we started the process immigrating permanently to New Zealand.

My husband and oldest son will arrive on Sunday September 2nd. It's been the most challenging month of my entire life. I don't think I have ever cried so much. Without my husband and my oldest son, was heartbreaking. Setting up a new life from scratch without the support of family was daunting. But looking back this has made me stronger on so many levels. I strongly feel that my Saviour will never put something in my way that I can not handle.

I have met amazing people who have helped, supported, offered a glass of wine, hugged and wiped my tears. With that I have found my "family" in New Zealand.

Regarding my experience as a teacher, after 20 years of working in multi cultural classes and in two different countries, I thought before I started working: "I got this! I'm a good, caring teacher. What could go wrong?" Now this was an eye opener.
New curriculum, new teachers, new class, new set up, new way of teaching, freedom to do whatever. What a shock to my system.
With the knowledge of 20 years of teaching, I felt like an incompetent teacher.
My school has been awesome. there is no lack of support, freedom to find myself in this new system. I looked at myself in thousands of new ways. Exploring what can I do to better myself in this new, weird and scary environment. Slowly I gained confidence to be me and the rest will follow. With the help of my wonderful team and my mentor, our deputy principal I can say with confidence: "I can do this!"

When my husband and son arrive, everything will fall into place.......