Digital Fluency Intensive - Week 2 Reflection

This week has been another great session, filled with a number of tricks and tips to make not only my teaching but also my day-to-day life easier with the help of clever technology.

I have been reflecting on the Learn - Create - Share pedagogy this week and trying to think of ways in which I can change my practice to match up with it’s principles. An example of this is taking the step into sharing planning and files on my class site. I have come from a teaching background where class files and planning was stored on Drive, with only specific people given access to see and contribute. There are pros and cons to this approach, but I do believe that having it readily accessible to those with a link is the best way to go. Not only is it easier, logistically, but it also builds accountability and encourages me to ensure that I am preparing quality planning for the sake of quality teaching and learning.

Tricks and tips when it comes to Gmail and Calendar will definitely make things easier for my day-to-day life. There have been times in recent weeks where I’ve needed to be at home looking after my family where I have missed meetings or been unable to catch up with my students. Hangouts/Meet has solved this issue for me, and I am excited about being able to use this in the future to solve this issue.

I think the biggest take away for me, in light of current events around us, is the way in which we can use Hangouts/Meet in order to allow teaching and learning to happen, even if we end up not being able to be at school together. A lot of what I do in the classroom already would be able to still continue with the help of these features. I think, too that this is great for when in the event that students are unable to be at school for whatever reason. I had a student in my class this week who emailed me asking for work to do at home and saying she wasn’t able to make it to school in the morning due to a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day. Hangouts/Meet would have meant that she was able to participate in class anyway. I will definitely look to make this part of my practice wherever I can.

I’m very much looking forward to being able to use Keep for the purpose of grocery shopping! Often, my wife sends me a long list of items to buy via text, which often makes the process stressful! The process of having to copy and paste the list from the text message to a new note on my phone is an arduous task, and one which is no longer needed with the help of a shared shopping list on Keep. I have set up the location function with my local Countdown too, which I’m sure will help me to stop “Dad brain” letting me forget to get the shopping!

For our Create session this afternoon, we had to get into groups of 2-3 on a Google Meet and record ourselves speaking about a student's blog post which we chose. We had planned on using the 'record Meet' function on Google Meet, but this wasn't working. So as a work around, we used Quick Time player to record ourselves instead. Sadly, we also forgot to enable to the microphone on the device before hitting record! Oh well, you still get an idea of the task from the recording here;

Already looking forward to what next week will cover!

Jeremy