DFI Day 4: Data day!

Today's focus was all about sharing (tohatoha) and making connections. As we heard from Dorothy today, it is human nature to want to share. The only thing that’s changed over time is the mode. In 2005 the world changed, when sharing via the internet was born. Facebook, twitter, youtube, bebo all started in 2005. Traditional modes of sharing are still great! But are constrained by time, place and people. Sharing via the internet allows students to share to an authentic audience on a global scale.

There are lots of different social platforms to share now - so why choose Blogger? The answer lies in the ability to use Blogger to teach digital citizenship. There will be a point where students are sharing on their own in the digital world in their own chosen method, and they need to know how to keep themselves safe in this space. We can use Blogger to teach these skills. It's also good for teaching kids to FINISH work. This used to be the bane of my classroom existence. Getting a whole class of learners to complete a task!! An exercise book doesn't teach students the need to finish, but a blog post does. You don’t publish a half written blog post. This is such an important life skill, and it’s great to have a tool like Blogger that can help to teach this.

Google Forms

Jeremy shared some great ideas for how to use forms to save valuable teacher time! I particularly liked the idea of using a form to mark spelling tests. This would have saved me countless hours of repetitive marking! Also has the added bonus of not having to decipher spidery handwriting or student corrections.

Hāpara

Being able to see and access student blog posts and comments at a glance without having to go into each student's individual blog is another great time saver.

Google My Maps

I really enjoyed having a go at using Google My Maps to import data from a google form. What a neat way to display responses!

Experimenting in Google Sheets

I've enjoyed finding out a bit more about Google Sheets today. I particularly loved learning more about conditional formatting. Endless possibilities for colour coding planning, identifying critical test scores and making your sheets look super fancy :)

DFI Day Three

Today we heard from Dorothy about why it is so important for CREATE to be at the centre of students' learning. And this doesn’t just mean creating a google doc! Digital technologies have enabled teachers to share learning more efficiently so that there is more time to create - not only with digital devices, but with hands, mouth, feet, our whole being. These devices also give us the ability to capture this creativity and share it in different ways. I really enjoyed this session, being a creative person myself. It would be amazing to see creativity creeping back into classrooms across Aotearoa!

I really enjoyed exploring google draw and slides today. I haven’t spent much time on google draw before, so it was a good chance to have a play and find out about some of the capabilities. It was especially relevant for me, since one of the teachers we are working with expressed an interest in finding out more about how to use google draw for student presentations just this past week. 

Even though I have worked with google slides quite a lot, it was good to be introduced to some of the additional functions that I hadn’t yet discovered for myself, and to have a chance to play (create) with these. I can definitely see the benefit of using screencastify to add audio for rewindable learning. It would also be a great tool for students' presentations, especially in oral language.

DFI Day 2

 Dorothoy shared with us about RATE: Recognose, Amplify, Turbocharge, Effective Practice. A great acronym to remind us of the purpose of using digital devices in the classroom, and its ability to enhance learning and allow students to access and share learning in ways that are just not possible without the technology. 

Keep is going to be a new favourite, I can tell. I was blown away by the ability to take a photo and change to text. What a fantastic tool to use rather than furiously note taking in a conference, or to share and manipulate a text with a class. This app is going to be a game changer for remembering to pick up the milk on the way home too. I can’t wait to use the place function for this!

I was really looking forward to today’s session on using Calendar more efficiently. It is great to have a few more tricks up my sleeve for how to manage multiple calendars to help me organise my personal and professional life. This will definitely help me to improve my workflow, especially as I try to navigate meeting up with teachers of different schools who all have different break times and availability. 

It was great to have a chance to experiment with some of the Google Meet functions, including recording. Another handy tool for the kete!

DFI day one

I really enjoyed hearing the Manaiakalani origin story. I now have a clearer understanding of the motivations behind the project. I love the Learn, create, share philosophy. It was so evident in the way the whole DFI ran. A super simple principle and easy to replicate the format in classrooms. It was great to experience it first hand!

I found the Marie Kondo session really helpful. It was great to get some tips about how to organise my Drive effectively. Getting systems set up properly right from the beginning will help me work more efficiently and save me so much time in future! 

It was great to find out about some of the extra google doc functions. I was especially excited about being introduced to Explore as a way of sourcing copyright free images. This is something that I think will be very useful with students. I also loved the use of the remove.bg website to help remove backgrounds from images and videos! This would be a really user friendly alternative to green screens.

I’ve already put my new learning into practice to create a manual for our nanny to help share information about the kid’s routines and timetables so that my transition to work goes as smoothly as possible!