Today was the fourth Digital Fluency Intensive session. We gained further insight into the aims of the Manaiakalani programme, with a focus on "share". Research showed that there was a significant boost in students' sharing via their blogs during lockdown. In 2005 there was a big change in sharing due to the introduction of social media, with there steadily becoming a wider range of platforms to share globally to a much wider audience. An aim of the Manaiakalani programme is to "work with learners to establish an authentic audience for their learning". Sharing in the digital age goes well beyond your local community (global). I gained an understanding of the purpose of using Blogger for sharing as this is a platform for being cybersmart. It is secure and does not require new sign in. Sharing is a vital part of the learning process as it gives a sense of finishing learning and can also be the starting point for new learning outcomes.
During the first part of the day we explored creating Google forms which was a lot of fun. I created this Google form on "Sports" including a variety of different question types. It was very beneficial having the support of our facilitator to guide us through this and to gain confidence with creating these. These Google forms could easily be incorporated into my teaching programme, such as follow-up tasks for reading groups to interpret and analyse information in texts. This would also be a useful way to gather information of students' understanding of a new topic (prior knowledge) as well as at the end of the topic to show new learning.
We then went on to explore Google My Maps. This was new to me and I enjoyed the chance to explore this in our "digital bubbles". Using information gathered from the members of this entire DFI group, I was able to create the map below which shows favourite holiday destinations:
I also explored creating another My Map of my own for the area in which I live, including places of interest in my community. This is something I would like to get my students to do, perhaps with a favourite holiday destination and marking things to do and places to go in that area.
Another focus of today's session was exploring Google sheets. This was an area that I wasn't all that familiar with so it was very useful to gain an understanding of how to create and manipulate data on a spreadsheet. We had the opportunity to analyse data on a student blog, from which I created the chart below showing the results of that data analysis. This chart shows the number of posts per month of a student in class from March 2019 through to May 2020. This would also be a great activity to do with my class as I am sure by analysing this they would then want to increase the number of posts they are making!
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
New Learning - DFI Session 3
Today was the third Digital Fluency Intensive session. We gained further insight into the aims of the Manaiakalani programme, with a focus on "create". This reinforced the need for students to have regular opportunities to be creative within my teaching programme as creative skills are essential in order to be effective problem solvers, communicators and collaborators. I particularly liked the quote "creativity is as natural and essential for children as fresh air and sunshine!" Opportunities to create will assist students with deepening their understanding as they apply their knowledge in creative ways. I also like the fact that creativity is something that everyone can be successful at as it is not necessarily about talent and skills. "Creativity is not about doing something better than others; it is about thinking, exploring, discovering and imagining". (Kohl, 2008).
It has been another successful day of new learning and reconnecting with our "digital bubble". Today's focus was "media". I gained an understanding of how to create You Tube playlists which is going to be useful as part of my teaching practice. During the session in our "digital bubble" I was able to begin creating a playlist for use in my teaching programme. On a Wednesday morning, first thing in the day, I do "Wow Wednesday" in my class which involves the students watching a video of something on You Tube which makes them go wow! This includes things such as singing, dancing, skateboard tricks, magic etc. I have begun putting together a playlist of video clips I can use for this rather than having to search something up each week. I can now do this in advance which will improve my organisation.
Today I developed a better understanding of how Google slides can be used in different ways and that these can easily be embedded into learning sites. I plan to explore the built in tools for publish and design.
A key focus for my learning today was gaining confidence with using Google drawings in different ways. In our "digital bubbles" we had the opportunity to create an "About Me" gadget which was then inserted onto my blog. In the last part of today's session, I had the chance to explore "Digital Art with Google Drawings" which was led by Gerhard. It was great having the chance to experiment with creating digital art whilst having an expert to call on for advice and support. I found this to be a lot of fun and is definitely something that I will be taking back to the classroom and implementing with my students. I feel this is something my students will really enjoy whilst allowing them an opportunity to be creative. Below is the digital portrait of myself that I created as part os today's session.
It has been another successful day of new learning and reconnecting with our "digital bubble". Today's focus was "media". I gained an understanding of how to create You Tube playlists which is going to be useful as part of my teaching practice. During the session in our "digital bubble" I was able to begin creating a playlist for use in my teaching programme. On a Wednesday morning, first thing in the day, I do "Wow Wednesday" in my class which involves the students watching a video of something on You Tube which makes them go wow! This includes things such as singing, dancing, skateboard tricks, magic etc. I have begun putting together a playlist of video clips I can use for this rather than having to search something up each week. I can now do this in advance which will improve my organisation.
Today I developed a better understanding of how Google slides can be used in different ways and that these can easily be embedded into learning sites. I plan to explore the built in tools for publish and design.
A key focus for my learning today was gaining confidence with using Google drawings in different ways. In our "digital bubbles" we had the opportunity to create an "About Me" gadget which was then inserted onto my blog. In the last part of today's session, I had the chance to explore "Digital Art with Google Drawings" which was led by Gerhard. It was great having the chance to experiment with creating digital art whilst having an expert to call on for advice and support. I found this to be a lot of fun and is definitely something that I will be taking back to the classroom and implementing with my students. I feel this is something my students will really enjoy whilst allowing them an opportunity to be creative. Below is the digital portrait of myself that I created as part os today's session.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
New Learning - DFI Session 2
Today was the second Digital Fluency Intensive session. We gained further insight into the aims of the Manaiakalani programme, with a focus on "learn". The goals of the programme are for teachers to acquire fluency using the basic tools for learning and understand how digital tools used effectively can have a significant impact on accelerating achievement outcomes.
It has been another successful day of new learning and reconnecting with our "digital bubble". Today's focus was helpful tips for using Google Meet. I have gained confidence with this over the last few weeks with our remote learning programme with attending and setting up daily Google meets with students and colleagues. It was useful to gain an understanding of how to use this more effectively, such as using "chrome tab" when presenting something that requires sound. I can now see the benefit of using "whole screen" for moving between tabs etc.
Google Keep was also another useful tool that was introduced to me for the first time today and is something that I feel will be very useful both in my personal and professional life. I am looking forward to the chance to become more familiar with using this tool.
It was great to have the opportunity as part of this session to organise my gmail setup, to add a signature and to also gain some tips such as dragging emails into tasks and/or calendar to act as further reminders. This was something I have already used today! It was also very useful to gain the tip of scheduling the day or time that you wish a composed email to be sent and to also be able to undo send.
It was also useful gaining tips on how to organise your tabs and I have now installed OneTab which I have been using today. I will find this particularly useful in my day to day teaching when I need to jump between different tabs as part of my teaching programme.
I found it very beneficial to have time in our "digital bubbles" to explore these further and to be able to ask questions and have things clarified.
It was useful at the end of today's session to pair up in our "digital bubbles" to organise a Google meet, record this, and answer questions relating to a blog post (which we also presented during the Google meet). Below is the recording from this Google meeting discussing the blog post that I had read and analysed, focusing on the content and the feedback to the post. It was great to have time to practice this whilst learning alongside a "buddy".
It has been another successful day of new learning and reconnecting with our "digital bubble". Today's focus was helpful tips for using Google Meet. I have gained confidence with this over the last few weeks with our remote learning programme with attending and setting up daily Google meets with students and colleagues. It was useful to gain an understanding of how to use this more effectively, such as using "chrome tab" when presenting something that requires sound. I can now see the benefit of using "whole screen" for moving between tabs etc.
Google Keep was also another useful tool that was introduced to me for the first time today and is something that I feel will be very useful both in my personal and professional life. I am looking forward to the chance to become more familiar with using this tool.
It was great to have the opportunity as part of this session to organise my gmail setup, to add a signature and to also gain some tips such as dragging emails into tasks and/or calendar to act as further reminders. This was something I have already used today! It was also very useful to gain the tip of scheduling the day or time that you wish a composed email to be sent and to also be able to undo send.
It was also useful gaining tips on how to organise your tabs and I have now installed OneTab which I have been using today. I will find this particularly useful in my day to day teaching when I need to jump between different tabs as part of my teaching programme.
I found it very beneficial to have time in our "digital bubbles" to explore these further and to be able to ask questions and have things clarified.
It was useful at the end of today's session to pair up in our "digital bubbles" to organise a Google meet, record this, and answer questions relating to a blog post (which we also presented during the Google meet). Below is the recording from this Google meeting discussing the blog post that I had read and analysed, focusing on the content and the feedback to the post. It was great to have time to practice this whilst learning alongside a "buddy".
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
New Learning - DFI Session 1
Today was the first Digital Fluency Intensive session. It was great to meet and connect with colleagues as we commence this learning journey together. Breaking into "digital bubbles" facilitated our gaining a better understanding and confidence with the content included in today's session. I felt reassured by this and knowing that we are all in this together and can support one another with gaining our confidence in digital technologies. I had been feeling a bit apprehensive about undertaking this as an online course but thoroughly enjoyed today's session and am already looking forward to our session next week.
I gained a lot of new understanding from this session and a lot of useful tips that I will be able to take back to the classroom for both myself and for my students. Today reinforced for me the need to take it slow and provide support for students when introducing new learning.
It was great to gain some tips on how to organise my Google Drive such as prioritising folders and colour coding folders. This is another thing that I will be able to take back into the classroom and assist my students with in order to assist their organisation. I will also be utitlising the tip of getting my students into the habit of putting their initials first on documents that they create and/or share with me as this will assist me a great deal with locating students' work.
I developed my confidence with using the "voice type" tool and the "explore" tool when working on a Google doc. This will definitely be something that I will work through with my students on our return to school in order to build their confidence with using these tools in their learning also.
Below is a document that I created using Google docs where I explored the use of inserting a table to create an informative poster. I also utilised the website removebg.com to remove the background from the images I inserted. This has helped me to gain more confidence with using Google docs to create a wider range of document types.
I gained a lot of new understanding from this session and a lot of useful tips that I will be able to take back to the classroom for both myself and for my students. Today reinforced for me the need to take it slow and provide support for students when introducing new learning.
It was great to gain some tips on how to organise my Google Drive such as prioritising folders and colour coding folders. This is another thing that I will be able to take back into the classroom and assist my students with in order to assist their organisation. I will also be utitlising the tip of getting my students into the habit of putting their initials first on documents that they create and/or share with me as this will assist me a great deal with locating students' work.
I developed my confidence with using the "voice type" tool and the "explore" tool when working on a Google doc. This will definitely be something that I will work through with my students on our return to school in order to build their confidence with using these tools in their learning also.
Below is a document that I created using Google docs where I explored the use of inserting a table to create an informative poster. I also utilised the website removebg.com to remove the background from the images I inserted. This has helped me to gain more confidence with using Google docs to create a wider range of document types.
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