My Week Without DFI

My Week without a DFI...

Well, no DFI last Friday and I certainly have FOMO! And a substantial dread of what I now have to catch-up with in my (haha) spare time! Regardless, it shall be done... somehow!

I spent some time this week playing with my class ipads and the Explain Everything app. I am trying to sort out in my brain (and this is NO MEAN FEAT!) how to better utilise them while at the same time having the learning on them differentiated.

 Differentiated seems to be the buzz word in my staff room right now!

A few of my whanau are asking how they are being utilised within the learning and I am confident in addressing their queries at this stage, however I do need to be more proactive and to be making resources that fit the needs of my learners. 

The other issue I have just now is that it is not one or two clicks for the students to get to their work. Seems to be an entire pathway (slight exaggeration!) before they get to it and saving it in their drive...well that is a whole new blog post! 

DFI  - Day Two of New Learning...

The focus on the LEARN component of the Manaiakalani pedagogy.
The aim is to 

Recognise

Amplify

Turbo charge

Effective Practice

The learning is transformed through redefinition and enhanced modification and through augmentation and substitution. 

Perhaps the most important function of the Manaiakalani programme is the aspect of REWINDABLE Learning..students are directing and able to control their learning to a far greater degree and in greater detail than in learning environments that do not have the use of the technologies.

In my professional learning the use of hangouts will be a great tool! Joining professional learning hangouts and knowing the etiquette of this platform is going to aid me both in growing my capabilities and confidence. Using the Google keep is going to streamline my note-taking and ability to share information with my team. Also being able to manage multiple open tabs will be really helpful and time saving. 

The learning from today in terms of being used by my learners is limited. I have a class of 19 N.E who are somewhat limited in terms of their literacy abilities at this stage. 

The new learning will definitely impact my personal life, especially using multiple google calendars to keep track of both professional and personal commitments. 

I am going to spend a bit of time investigating the Toby Mini and see how I can use this extension to share online resources and readings with my team.

As part of our day we did a combined hangout and had to record our sharing of a child's blog post, the learning behind it and how the comments enhanced the learning. Unfortunately Robbie and I had a few technical hitches with first the audio recording...which didn't work and then it failed to record the video on the second attempt! Doing a trial run is imperative so you know that all the correct boxes are ticked. We had to use an apple computer which neither one of us had driven before!
We thought that the hangout could be used to help lessen the number of meetings, to connect with others from the same departments across the country and share learning. The Manaiakalani toolkits are a good example of using the hangouts to increase teacher capability and confidence.

DFI Session 1 Term 3 2019

My First Day

My understanding of the Manaiakalani initiative and where it all started was enhanced from the slide show presentation. I hadn't realised that the initiative was begun over 13 years ago and that the four principles of the project remain the same to this day. The pedagogy of learn-create-share is used in most of our classrooms across New Zealand, without having to have the digital tools at our disposal. We encourage and support the students in their learning, we ask them to create new knowledge and understandings from this and then to share this knowledge and learning with others. Using the digital tools helps to better engage the learners with this process but, I feel, are not an imperative to the pedagogy.

Today I learnt a few tips that I wish I had known a fair few months ago!! Removing backgrounds from pics so inserted pics don't look trashy was one particular piece of information and skill-set that I will definately be utilising! Also using the headings, indenting and inputting the contents table were also all great new learning!

I have also set up a google group so emailing and sharing information with the team at school will be as quick as pressing one button, and not loading the emails in one by one. I know archaic practice right??

For use with my learners, who are 5 years old and just starting on their learning journey I think what I may try using would be the talk to text function. This could prove challenging with the noise in the class and I need to find out if that function is available with the ipads!

As part of the create and share focus for the day we had to use a google doc and create something. So I attempted to make a template to use with the students as we are about to begin learning how to write reports with a focus on bees. Here is my creation...needs more work!