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".