Day 3 - Media

Once again I enjoyed the presentation by Dorothy about the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy. Some of the key points to me were:

• Creative skills help students become better problem solvers, communicators and collaborators - Apple
• Creativity is not to be confused with talent, skill or intelligence. Creativity is not about doing something better than others, it's about thinking, exploring, discovering and imagining. (Kohl, 2008)
• When it comes to learning, if the hands are involved the head really gets going - Stuart Middleton

The question being for me is where is the place of creativity within my own classes or student work. 

Delving into YouTube and setting up a channel with playlists will certainly improve my confidence in using videos and improve workflow. The extra details I learnt on google slides can certainly be used with my learners, especially the work done with Kerry creating a Mobile App. For my personal life I think the knowledge developed about YouTube will be the most useful. Overall it has been a busy, but interesting and useful day developing my understanding of Manaiakalani and a more in-depth knowledge of tools quite common to me. Thanks to the Manaiakalani team.

Day 2 - Work Flow

Sharing

Today we spent time delving deeper into many of Google's common apps which I use but not to their full potential. We were shown lots of tips within Mail, Calendar and Meets and one of the sharing activities we were required to complete was to record a google meet and embed in this blog, which is below. It's not that exciting - I forgot to share my screen at first, so many little things to think of but I guess as your confidence grows you will do it without thinking. The activity looking at the student blogs was inspiring to see what so many of our young learners are doing in a digital space          

My understanding of the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy is developing each session and today I found the RATE acronym simplistic but truly meaningful. The Manaiakalani journey has been so collaborative and the urgency to improve student achievement is always at the forefront. It was good to be reminded that effective practice using authentic texts, sharing ideas in discussion, learning by thinking critically and developing strategies and of course collaborating. Learning, creating and sharing. At our school we have been developing our vision and below is the graphic to portray this.

Two features I didn't know much about was G Keep and the various apps which can be used to organise your tabs. I believe that this second feature will be most useful for organising tabs in both my administration roles and teaching. I had set up Toby after working with my colleague who had done DFI in Term 1. We used it to do reports in Hero and it saved so much time without having to go through the steps when navigating into each student's profile.

I think the feature of a break out room in Meets could be very useful for my students especially in the online teaching environment. By having a tidier, easier accessible workspace will certainly assist my students learning.

GKeeps, Gmail and Calendar will certainly help my personal life - I've have added calendar to my phone today. Another full on day, with lots of learning and interaction with my other DFI colleagues. Thanks to Vicki and the other presenters - Makaore, Maria and Kerry.

DFI - Core Business - Term 4 2021

 

Core Business

Today was my first day doing the DFI - the first thing I learnt that the "I" in DFI stood for "intensive", I always thought it was "initiative"! And the day has been intensive, moving from one session to the next. It was great hearing the back story about Manaiakalani from Dorothy and the journey as we know it today. It was encouraging to hear the success of the Manaiakalani pedagogy. The short sessions were great. Even though google is reasonably familiar to me I learnt many new skills and the tips shared by Vicki and the other presenters have been great.

I think the voice tool could be used with my learners and I would like to give the "eyes on text" a go. The functions in docs like inserting footnotes and subheadings certainly will be useful to encourage my NCEA students to present their work to a higher standard. Chrome management, drive management should help me both personally and professionally. I have really enjoyed the day and look forward to our next session.