Weekly Reflection 9

 DFI Week 9

Reflection 9

The last day of DFI, I can't believe we have being doing this for a whole term.  I am still needing to sit my exam which I have registered for and am hoping to do in a few days time. I'm still quite nervous but I'm trying to remember that the most important things have been what we have learned in this DFI course and how much fun it is going to be to be able to take these things back to the akomanga for our tamariki. 

 

The whole opportunity has impacted me in a positive way because it gave me the confidence and understanding of how our digital learning is such an asset not only to our teaching but to the the future of our tamariki. To be able to empower myself is going to empower my students.

I can't even pinpoint just one highlight, I really liked having our bubble groups to reflect in and be able to ask our awesome bubble group leader Jacob anything we were unsure of. I found many of the things we covered very useful and I would have loved to have put some into practice in the classroom had we not been in lockdown. The biggest thing for me was confidence, being given the chance to become more confident digitally has impacted all areas of my life. The other thing was learning about the Manaiakalani Programme and what all the kaupapa means and stands for. It was a true enlightening and educational experience. We teach to give our tamariki the world and to do that there has to be equity and ubiquity, this DFI has given us that to take away.

I thank all of the wonderful facilitators who have given us the opportunity to to be a part of such an awesome meaningful kaupapa.

Weekly Reflection 8

 DFI WEEK  8

Reflection 8

I really liked listening to Vicki talking about the last kaupapa we covered today of "Empowered".  I myself had always thought of the word empowered as a feeling I guess until delving into this manaiakalani kaupapa, and then you realise there is so much more to being empowered than a feeling.  Yes, you could say it is still a feeling but it only comes from being given the right tools, it's something we do more than feel.  It's about ways of working and supporting someone to become empowered.  Giving equity is empowerment.  Opportunities for someone to create change;  change that gives personal value, control and responsibiity for themselves.  This is what giving our tamariki access to digital technology does.  When you alter your mind to the meaning of empowered, it really does makes sense.

Jacob's deep dive about the future of tech and what it means to our tamariki was quite mind-blowing!  It was a great reminder of how far we have come and how far we may go in the future.  It even made me think about how much things have evolved in our farming life over the last 20 years since we started milking cows.  There are actually too many things to start listing but just to mention one, we didn't get texts on our phone 20 years ago to tell us the milk in the vat is too warm, now we do, not to mention those halters you were showing us Jacob, where you can move cows and check their health from home!  It was all an eye-opener and lots of fun!  Also lets not forget how cool it is to be able to show our tamariki these things and open up a whole world of possibilities for them in the future.

Talking about digitally fluent students, teaching them to be empowered and confident to learn digitally, not only applies to our tamariki, it also applies to all individuals, young and older.  I know that there are people just like me, a kaiako that is also learning to become digitally fluent, becoming empowered and confident to learn digitally so I can empower and give confidence to my students through my teaching.  I am exploring my own computational thinking.  My learning is their learning, it starts with me and ends with them being empowered.

Exploring coding today was a first for me, and something I can now take back to the classroom.  Our session with Cheryl learning about "Scratch" was great.  What a fantastic place to start with my tamariki.  I can really see my tamariki getting excited about this.

The greatest joy comes from Empowering students to recognise they can feel confident, included and have a voice in their learning by providing them with the opportunities to do so.  

Create with Cheryl

Using Scratch  

DFI Week 8

Some snippets of the work we were learning to create in Scratch with the wonderful Cheryl.  You can get the embed code and embed your work but I ended up using the snip tool because I  couldn't figure out where the share button was. After some digging I found that you have to accept the confirmation email for the share button to be available to be able to share, I don't seem to have received that email so am asking for it to be sent again.  In the meantime to be able to share my work to my blog, I thought this would do.

We created a square, a triangle and a spirograph using the coding instructions we put together.  This is my first time doing any coding like this.

I can really see my tamariki getting into these types of projects and I'm really keen as beginners to start them off using Cheryl's slides for guidance, this was really cool to learn about.

Reflecting on the Kaupapa of the Manaiakalani Programme in light of COVID 19

 

Reflecting on Lockdown and Learning

When I think back on the last few weeks about lockdown and learning I am most proud of the fact that I stepped out of my comfort zone and participated in this DFI course.  The insight and understanding I have gained from this course is priceless.  I only regret that I am not more digital savvy already going into these lockdowns and that myself and my tamariki are just at the start of our journey and not fully immersed yet.  I do however take with me a wealth of knowledge about the different tools and platforms digital learning opens up for teaching and learning.  I also will take forward that there are many wonderful people out there that are very helpful and knowledgeable and always willing to share their learning with you or give you a hand to learn something new.  I feel having a better understanding of the Manaiakalani pedagogy has made me look through a window where I see many wonderful things and grasp a better concept of the importance and impact certain things have on our tamariki through the learning process, academically, socially, mentally and emotionally.  I want more interaction with them at home in these times.  I really want to be prepared so much better for any future lockdowns we may have, fingers crossed we don't. 

I felt I didn't know that I did much rewindable learning but the more we talked about it the more I realised I have provided rewindable learning at times in my akomanga.  Video's the tamariki can watch and go back to, modelling books, availability of instructions to refer to for a task.  Using screencastify to record thoughts on a book that has been read to some tamariki that struggle to write down their ideas.

I supported my learners by only leaving mahi they are familiar with and that we have already done in class, so they know what is expected from them in that particular learning task.  It may be with different math's problems or reading books but the tasks attached are familiar and diverse.

I could have made more rewindable learning for them by making short screencastfy videos or set work on their chrome books, made slides for them to work through etc.

I will be using many of the digital tools as I become better at using them, but to be honest my tamariki and I are pretty good at learning these things together and we enjoy accomplishing new fun things in our akomanga together.  My tamariki are absolutely pumped about their digital learning and I feel I may be able to feel that way now as well.  I want to empower my tamariki, just like we have been learning on this DFI course.  My motto for my tamrariki has always been the sky's the limit, I always want them to know they are amazing and they can achieve anything.  I can't wait to get back to kura, I miss them terribly. 

So for our akomanga, lockdowns could be so much better in the future for our teaching and learning, but just as important, digital learning in class is going to make this easier to achieve.  Ubiquitous learning in full swing.     

Weekly Reflection 7

 DFI Week 7

Reflection 7

Todays hot topic was an extremely exotic sounding word, that truth be told, I had heard before but didn't know what it meant;  Ubiquitous.  When you lookup the word ubiquitous, it says, existing or being everywhere at the same time.  This is where the clogs start turning and the realization that ubiquitous is well suited to this pedagogy of the Manaiakalani Programme, the "Keyword" if you will, to digital learning, Any time, Any where, Any pace, Anyone.

Ubiquitous ties in with the rewindable learning tool we have at our fingertips through the many platforms in our learning and teaching.  It really does all make sense when you pull all the words from this kaupapa together from the Manaiakalani programme and I am understanding this kaupapa more and more each week that goes by.  

I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to be taught a more in-depth view of this programme, especially for the benefit of the tamariki I teach.  I am extremely nervous about the exam for various reasons, but the exam is not as important to me as the knowledge and understanding I have gained through this DFI course.  I am only a third year kaiako and this course to me is a turning point in my learning and in turn for the learning of the tamariki I teach. 

Few little things I'm taking away with me today for my learners (&myself)

-  Look into the Summer Learning Journey.

-  Run google meets in the class when we are back at school so if we go into another lockdown, we are all familiar with it, (using headphones of course!).

-  Saving the class site as an icon on your phone for easy access (Thanks Jacob!), I have done this already.

-  The importance of having class and individual blogs, Fiona stressed this in her talk.

-  Getting acquainted with screencastify, I can see this being used quite frequently in our akomanga.

-  Being introduced to Explain Everything as another digital tool to use.

Weekly Reflections 6

 DFI Week 6

Reflection 6

This weeks learning centered around our class sites, picking up from last week about visible learning and talking about being connected.  This aligns with the Manaiakalani approach for effective teaching, accelerated learning.  The reminder that the Learn, Create, Share framework is an important part of our visible learning and teaching.  Scaffolding and rewindable learning are a big factor in the learning process for our tamariki and we can use our class sites to our learning and teaching advantage with a focus for our class sites to have functionality and access to our learning.

It was great to have the chance to look at some cool class sites in our session and see what kinds of things make a great class site, this in itself gave me inspiration for the future of my own class site down the track.  I know that my own class site is lacking in many areas, mostly because my class is only just learning about digital learning and our class sites were developed for the need of distance learning in these lockdowns due to covid19 and the rest is my lack of knowledge and confidence around this platform.  As I move further into the digital world of learning and teaching though I can see that these sessions have given me the advantage of learning some valuable tools and knowledge in this area to help me out.

I wasn't very comfortable critiquing others sites in my group as we all have different circumstances surrounding our knowledge of class sites and in no way am I qualified to pass judgment on someone else when my own site feels so inadequate. I don't have a problem with constructive criticism of myself and for the most part could feel the understanding of the circumstances surrounding our class sites from the others & welcomed their feedback.

I found this session great for giving us time to play around with our sites and add some different things from our learning such as buttons to link in our pages and as always our bubble leader Jacob is an awesome help.

I've spent some time this week reflecting back on our learning from Friday about class sites and the value of visible learning, as this is what my class site lacks at the moment.  It is purely at the moment a platform for whānau and tamariki to be able to access mahi in this lockdown.  I guess though, even if it does not state the actual learning and success criteria in words, whānau are able to see the type of learning their tamariki are doing.  To be fair though, I only put mahi up that we have already done in class and the tamariki are already very clear on WALTS and success criteria surrounding this mahi.

With that said, I am very keen to learn to display visible learning and teaching through my class site in the future. 

My goal on Friday was to set up 3 pages for curriculum areas, I have these but they are hidden as our Kura has instructed us to only have certain pages displayed at the moment for distance learning, intending to not overwhelm whānau.  My other personal goal was to have another go at creating buttons for my site this past week.  With some help from watching some video's ( that rewindable learning!) I managed to create some buttons which has already made access easier for my whānau, especially if they are using their phones to access the mahi (according to positive feedback). 
I'm really stoked about this and although the site is a work in progress, that was definitely a good start.

Weekly Reflections 5

DFI Weeks 5

Reflection 5

This weeks topic through the DFI Manaiakalani Programme was rather relevant not only in general but also with our education system facing the challenges of lockdown due to the covid 19 virus. 

We were given a very interesting and informative  talk about "visible learning".  I can see how this could be something that at times isn't given much thought, but the realization after being reminded of it's importance makes this something we should always be aware of.

Visible teaching and learning is something we actually have been concentrating more on in our kura this term.  We have been busy making sure we are using our modelling books and bringing them to hui's to show the learning that has been happening in some of our groups.  I can now put the connections together of how this ties in with visible teaching and learning, along with other platforms such as learning sites.

I have been able to reflect on my own practices as a kaiako and now embrace with more understanding how I do my part to ensure visible learning for my learners, whānau, my colleagues and myself.  

My students really like the routine in our akomanga because they like knowing what we are doing and when (although they are okay with being flexible at times).  So I can relate that same need for routine when it comes to their actual learning.  I liked the statement that was said to make a point  about "wandering in the maze or learning", how true is this!  I know I don't like it when I'm not understanding how or why I'm doing something and I'm an adult, this would definitely be a learning obstacle for our tamariki.  

 "When the teaching is visible the student knows what to do and how to do it. When the learning is visible the teacher knows if learning is occurring or not" - John Hatty

Multi Modul with Kerry was great.  She used the perfect example with her video "Dressing window challenge, Mary queen of shops" to show a reflection of what your class site should be.  I can see the point she was making, having a site that is visually engaging will promote motivation to engage in the learning opportunities presented to the tamariki.

I have been on my own akomanga site this past week or two putting up mahi for my tamariki to access while at home.  Although I have a class site, I had help putting it up and yes, I can put things on it but it was always with a bit of apprehension.  Being taken through the wonders of our class sites again has been a good refresher and made it all seem less daunting. So this week I am thankful for that as we are all educating from our homes; it has had a positive impact on personal and professional life.

Creating Class Sites

It was really awesome in our little group with Donna, she was amazing at helping navigate putting a site together.  I have so much more to do, as by the time you just get the hang of it the time is over.  There is actually a bit more than this screen shot shows but for me, even what I did do was helpful to myself over this past week.