DFI - Session Nine

DFI has come to an end, I can’t believe how much I have learnt over the last

nine weeks. 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the last session today but the great thing

about DFI is

that it is rewindable learning.

This is a great example of what I read about ubiquitous learning. What I took from

it was that

ubiquitous learning is available anytime,

anywhere at any pace and also from anyone. High-quality learning is available at

any time

not just between nice and three.

All learners should have the ability to experience rewindable learning! 

Due to not being able to complete the last DFI session I took my exam in the weekend.

While I was sitting the exam I was very proud of

all the new learning and skills I was able to do with confidence. I got my results back and

I passed. I was really proud of myself and thankful for

the support the DFI team had given me. 

I am still yet to explore the DFI slam and explore all the valuable resources. Watch this

space and I will do a blog post. I have really enjoyed

the last nine weeks of DFI and look forward to continuing using my new skills with

confidence in the classroom. 

Have you done DFI? If you get the chance, make sure you do it! 

DFI - Session Eight

Today we started with Pedagogy and Kaupapa around the word 'Empowered' and what this means within the Manaiakalani programme. Technology is not just a tool, it transforms the way we learn and offers learners new experiences and opportunities. Dorothy talked a little about her community cluster and how they ensured that the students were empowered and had equity to be able to learn with technology.

Computation thinking - what is it? Computation thinking means thinking or solving problems using technology. 'A digitally fluent person can decide when and why to use specific digital  technologies to achieve a specific task or solve problems' (MOE, 2018). The Manaiakalani programme helps teachers to become digitally fluent, to create digitally fluent students. This is a way forward for students to be successful 21st Century learners. I am still going to do more learning around computation thinking to ensure I have a sound understanding.

Coding - We were given the opportunity to give coding a go or to extend current knowledge this afternoon. Students in my hub that I have worked with seem to be interested in coding so I really enjoyed having the time to be able to explore and up skill myself with coding. Scratch Junior is a wonderful app and today I was also exposed to game.kodable.com. I am going to introduce this to my students through our challenge room. 

I was also exposed to gamefroot.com where I was creating with the Mihi maker. I found this really hard to use and navigate. I would like my students to be able to use this to present there MihiMihi so I am going to spend some more time figuring it out and create a video to help my students use it. 

I am off to study for the Google Exam! Do you have any advice for me? 

DFI - Session Six & Seven

Week 6 - DFI this week looked at changing and improving our sites. I was so involved and excited about this that I forgot to write my blog post! I am happy with the changes that have been made as I feel that now the site is more appealing for children and hopefully more accessible for them to use. I took the changes back to my team and they were happy with how it was looking. The biggest feedback I received from my team was how easy it was to now put our planning onto the site. There are still more changes and tweaking I would like to do. Here is a before and after photo of our blog.

Before 

After 

Week 7 - This week was all about devices. We started the day with unpacking Cybersmart. The main points I took away from this session were that Cybersmart is about empowering our learners as connected and confident decision makers. It's more than teaching our students how to be safe online. It is creating lifelong Cybersmart learners. Another point was the use of positive language inspires students. This means being very careful and selective with the language I use around my students teacher Cybersmart. 

Next we became the learners and explored using the Chromebooks. I really enjoyed being the learner and seeing how the students work on the Chrome books by completing the Digital Dig. I now have more knowledge about the shortcuts on Chromebooks and what digital tools can be used on them. 

Finally it was time to be an iPad learner. We looked at Explain Everything and what tools it has. I felt confident working with Explain Everything. One thing I had never used was the voice recorder. I played around with this and am going to put it on all my create tasks to ensure all learners are able to understand the create tasks. Here is a photo of one I created.  

Have you got any hot tips about being a Chromebook or iPad learner? 

DFI - Session Five

Today’s session started with unpacking Multi Modal. What does this mean? Multi Modal is an inclusive, differentiated approach to teaching in a digital learning environment. In a more simple term, it is how we receive and communicate in a digital world which has and is still changing. This made me think about all the different ways I communicate with people online, in fact it can be rather scary! With my teacher hat on this made me reflect on the platforms that our students use to communicate. This is something to be very mindful of at all times.
Manaiaklani have created four priority goals to support multi modal:

• Engagement 
• Personalised Learning 
• Acceleration 
• Empowerment 

Our hangout today with Dorothy was exploring the four words that help to define Manaiakalani which are, Visible,Connected,Ubiquitous and Empowered. Today we unpacked what it means to be visible. 

Here are a couple of things that stood out for me: 

• Making learning visible means removing barriers. Making all learning visible to students, teachers, colleagues and whanau. 
• Visible learning needs to be in advance, accessible and available. This creates a no surprise culture for students and whanau. 

We then explored Google Sites. I have experience with loading content onto sites but that is it. This afternoon I learnt how to create a site from scratch! This was very exciting learning all the ins and outs behind the site. An important thing to remember is making sure your homepage hooks students in. This means changing it up every term. This is something I am going to take back to my team to discuss. Dorothy also talked about the importance of never deleting content or your site as this is your planning and it needs to be kept for seven years. This means creating a new learning site each year. Here is my site I started creating. 

I am looking forward to learning about sites next week and going into more depth! Do you have any top tips about using sites?

DFI - Session Four

Today was all about working with data. I was a little apprehensive when I heard the word data, but I learnt so much that I am looking forward to trying in my hub. 

First we explored SHARE with Dorothy. Sharing has been around since time began and it is a human instinct to share! In 2005 the world was introduced to social media, this is when the way we share changed and has continually changed over time. The biggest take away for me was that sharing has the potential for changing outcomes for my students. Manaiakalani strongly believes that sharing is about making connections with one another. The main sharing platform for our students in Blogger. This is not the latest sharing app but is a wonderful safe place for students to share their learning. Blogger is multi purposed and can be used by leaners and teachers. 

Hāpara is a programme that allows teachers to keep students safe and keep track of students' work. This is used in year 3-8 currently at my school. I have never used Hāpara but I like the idea of being able to monitor my students. I am going to explore more and see if this can be used with iPads. 

Google Forms is something I have used to fill out information but I had never made one myself. I created a form to get to know my students more and find out what they like/dislike about school. I am wondering if my students will be able to access and fill out Google Forms on the iPads? If so I will be creating Google Forms to support my teaching. 

My Maps are new to me. I can see how this can be used in the classroom for measurement, places around school, and creating connections with students Mihi. I am going to explore more with My Maps and see what else it has to offer. 

Google Sheets - My favourite takeaway was learning how to freeze columns so they don't move when you are scrolling around the sheet. I also learnt how to import data, sort data with filters, how to use formulas and functions. Auto fill is also life changing! One of our tasks was to analyse data from a blog. Here is the data from the Kākano blog. 

DFI - Session Three

We started today with looking at create. The main points I took away from Dorothy were that for creativity to be successful you need to hook the learners in. This means giving them something to do rather than something to learn as this is where most learning naturally happens.

 "Creators of content, not merely consumers" (Pt England School) 

Next, we explored YouTube and how to set up a channel and playlist. I use YouTube as a tool to support my teaching. I am really looking forward to saving the videos we watch daily to a playlist that I can share with my students. 

Google Drawing is something I have never really explored. I can now see that it is going to be very beneficial for making my class site easy to use. I loved all the features that it has to offer and I will defiantly be exploring Google Drawings more. Here is a drawing I made today.   

Finally we looked at Google Slides. One thing to remember when making a presentation is use consistent formatting, this then won't take the audience away from what you are saying. I am going to explore more with Google Slides and see how this can help my planning. A tip from Mark was using audio recordings within my learn, create, shares. I have year 1 students so this will be really helpful for them. I am going to try this out next week! 

Here is my Digital Pepeha that I made on Google Slides. 

What have you read that you might want to learn more about from me? 

DFI - Session Two

After todays DFI session it is fair to say that my brain is fried. There was a-lot new learning today! 

Who knew that Google had so many useful apps to help manage workflow. 

First we explored Google Meet. I feel pretty confident with Google Meet as I have been using this to teach my students online with distance learning. One of the features I learnt was to share a video with sound. You need to share the tab not the entire screen. If you play the video through sharing your entire screen there will be no sound. Another thing I learnt was how to record a Google Meet. You can only record the meet if you are the organiser and it asks everyone for permission. Once the Google Meet was finished it uploaded to my drive and I was able to share it with others. Here is a screenshot of the video I made with Helena from my Digital Bubble Group. 

Google Keep is an online checklist that can be shared with other people. This is something I am going to explore more and see what it has to offer. I currently use the app Stickies. I like that with Google Keep I can also have the checklist on my phone and update in both places. You can also import tasks from Google Keep into your calendar! 




My Gmail has never looked so pretty or been so organised!
 I use Gmail everyday but I wasn't using it to its full potential. I learnt that on the right hand side you can quickly access your calendar and Google Keep. Snoozing emails, this is a life saver to ensuring you reply to all emails and don't forget about them. I also never knew all the different settings Gmail has like filters and schedule send for example. 

The only time I ever used Google Calendar was to check the school calendar. Since distance learning I have used Google Calendar to create Google Meets. This has been great to plan out my days and lessons. My biggest take away from learning about Google Calendar was the shortcuts. Who doesn't love shortcuts! 
All you do is simply push one letter to see your calendar in different views. 

• w = week view 
• t = view today
• m = month view
• c = create a new event or task

Mark finished the day off with reminding us on how to comment on blogs. 'Positive, Thoughtful, Helpful'. I have been using the prompts when I have been commenting on my hub blog. This is something I want to work more on with the students when we are commenting on a blog. 

I am very thankful for being able to take part in DFI. I know that all of these Google apps are really going to help organise my workflow in a positive way. 

Have you learnt something new from reading my blog? 

DFI - Day One

Today was the first day of the DFI course. DFI stands for Digital Fluency Intensive. I was asked if I would like to complete the DFI course online due to Covid-19. I was a little apprehensive as it was going to be totally online. One thing I had more confidence in due to distance learning at home was navigating my way around Google Meets, this was very helpful as DFI uses Google Meets.
I learnt about the Manaiakalani Kaupapa and pedagogy. Little did I know that MK actually started many years ago beginning with 13 schools all with close proximity to each other. Manaiakalani has been designed to motivate learners to engage with the curriculum and become 21 C Learners. 

A few things that stood out for me today:
Voice typing in Google docs - this is a life changer not only for myself but also my learners who have trouble typing things quickly. It will allow them to focus on their writing and ideas rather than the typing side. 
Another top tip was (Shift Z) this makes a copy of the document but also moves it into your drive. This is a great way to get documents without making a copy as the document will still continue to be updated with any changes. 
The website remove.bg is also a life changer in making documents look more professional as it removes the white background from an image. 



Inserting a table in Google docs - In the past I have spent ages arranging images on the page and getting them to stay there. Using tables allows you to do this so quickly and nothing moves, bonus! Check out my learn, create, share that I made on docs! I usually make them in Google drawings. Bring on DFI week 2.