Digital Fluency Intensive - Week 7 Reflection

Another great session of DFI this week, focusing on devices and how we manage them.

It was great to hear Fiona speak about Cybersmart during her presentation. It is a fantastic programme, and one which I think far more schools would benefit from having as part of digital learning in their schools. When I think about the amount of time and effort that I spent at my previous school working on teaching kids about responsible device use and ways in which we can keep ourselves safe online, using the Cybersmart curriculum would have been so much easier. I think one of the best parts of the programme is the consistency of terminology across all year levels. The terms and phrases that children are taught in primary school are still relevant once the child reaches College. As Dorothy said, “they’ve had 8 years of brainwashing by the time they reach College!” - what a perfect way of summing it up! Haha!

It was great to spend some time looking at Hapara today. I remember being introduced to it in my first year as a teacher and thinking how great a programme it was. Learning that it was created especially for Manaiakalani schools to use was very cool! Dorothy made a point of voicing her displeasure around the ‘Highlights’ function being added to the system for the benefit of overseas schooling cultures, and I tend to agree with her opinion of teachers being able to kick students off tabs being a negative thing and one which we shouldn’t be encouraging. Interestingly, we never had access to the Highlights function of Hapara at my previous school for whatever reason, so perhaps this is a setting that can be changed to stop this from being used? Regardless, I liked Dorothy’s principle of “get off your a$%e!” rather than “whacking students with a stick”.

A really helpful tip which I picked up today was learning how to embed content using HTML. This is something which I haven’t been able to do up until this point, and so it was great to see this during Kerry’s session on Blogger in the afternoon. With any luck, you should be able to see the Screencastify video I did around Cybersmart ‘Smart Money’!

Speaking of Screencastify, it was great to get this set up on my device today for the first time. I have seen it used a number of times by colleagues in the past, but have never looked at it for myself. After a few technical glitches as a result of the adblocker I was running my device, and with Gerhard’s help, I managed to get it sorted. I already have a lot of ideas of ways in which I can use this programme as part of my personal life. I quite often help older friends and family members with their devices and help them to increase their own digital confidence and understanding, and so Screencastify would be great for the purpose of making some ‘How to’ video tutorials. I have managed to teach myself a lot of new skills around using formulas and script editing on Sheets by watching YouTube tutorials during this lockdown period. I am definitely someone who learns best by watching others do, and I know that there are a lot of others who learn this way too. Screencastify is a great tool, and one which I look forward to using in the future.

We have only a couple of sessions left to go with DFI, and although that’s a bit sad, I am looking forward to sitting the Google educator exam along with putting the skills I have learnt into further use as part of my everyday teaching practice.

 

Digital Fluency Intensive - Week 6 Reflection

Another great session this week, and I definitely come away feeling empowered to improve the quality of my class learning site.

Dorothy’s session on the ‘Connected’ aspect of the Manaiakalani kaupapa was really beneficial in terms of bettering my understanding of the principles which the organisation was established upon. The idea that our learners are able to not only connect with others in different parts of the city, but also the country and even other parts of the world is amazing. It makes every task that much more purposeful and incentivised. Having said that, the key to 'Connected' is ensuring that our children are able to share their work. As Dorothy said, without sharing it is impossible for someone to be connected.

I was looking forward to this session as soon as I found out that it was going to be focusing on working on our class learning sites. My site has been getting increasingly better in quality week on week since the start of the year, largely due to the learning I have been engaging with during DFI. If I think back to last year and the first Google Site that I ever created, I can definitely say that I have come a long way. The school I was teaching at wasn’t as immersed in online learning as those within Manaiakalani, and there was no mandate to have a class learning site. My site consisted of a text box with headings and url links to the learning sites and apps that we used at the time. I did this for the convenience of my Yr 3&4 kids whose level of digital literacy wasn’t very high. If I compare that to where I am now, I can say confidently that I have come a long way, and will continue to progress.

I was quite encouraged by those who were willing to share their learning sites with the group. It’s quite a daunting experience, opening yourself up for critique from peers and colleagues, and it’s not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’. I know, for me, I found it a little confronting reading some of the feedback that had been left by people in my group who looked at my site. Some of the feedback was quite harsh, but I suppose that’s what can happen when people are afforded anonymity when leaving feedback. That aside, the process of having Gerhard open my site on his device was helpful for the purpose of checking to see if my content is visible to all. As it happened, there were a few files which had the wrong permissions and needed updating. So for that process I am grateful.

Looking forward to the next session. 

Link to my class site: https://sites.google.com/wesleyintermediate.school.nz/room-8s-learning-site/home 

Digital Fluency Intensive - Week 5 Reflection

I have to say that I think the participants of this cohort of DFI are probably receiving the most authentic experience of the course that we could have hoped for! Sure, we miss out on the person-to-person interaction that comes from being in a room with the other participants, but we are learning a whole new set of skills on the side as we go. Also, we are able to ‘iron out the kinks’ that come from an online learning experience in preparation for our own classes once the term recommences. It’s crazy to think that this was all very unfamiliar to us a few weeks ago! Such a lot of ground covered in such a short space of time.

Making learning visible is so important for the process of empowering and encouraging our children to be one of the stakeholders in the learning, not just being or seeing themselves as empty vessels to be filled by the teacher’s knowledge. With this approach, they know where they are and where they’re going with their learning. By doing this, we are encouraging whānau to be part of the learning, particularly for our Māori and Pasifika communities. Using Google Sites also allows all learning content to be put in one place, completely visible and open to anyone and everyone with the link.

For our Create time today, we spent time creating a multi-modal site. Here is a link below to the Site that I created;

I am excited about this prospect of creating and finding ways to improve my class site. I freely acknowledge that my site is very much on the basic side, especially compared to some of the exemplars I have seen today! Having said that, I have now the time, knowledge and motivation to work on it and make it better. The idea of ‘limiting the links’ is definitely an important one to have in mind when thinking about designing a site, though. I found that short clip we saw about the design of a shop front to be really helpful and insightful. We can and should be looking at our sites through a similar lens. Are our sites appealing visually? Is there too much going on? If so, this may well be a stumbling block for our learners. Lots to think about!

Once again, can’t wait for next week!

Jeremy