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.