Day 8 Computational thiking. Beep beep boo bop

It is inspirational that the adults that conceived the Manaiakalani concept. They saw the need in the community and did not step aside to how things are but rather worked towards how things could be. Empowering students and teachers “...take back control of their lives.” Information technology shouldn’t just be a took to do their learning but rather creating new ways of learning, and that is definitely something I have learned in class. It is a privilege to be part of this kaupapa and have a hand in empowering the students. The activities today opened me to world of coding, the computational thinking behind the buttons and actions we see on screen and definitely take for granted. I attempted using Scratch and Minecraft and its so simple to use and so simple to understand, why was I avoiding this? I am definitely going to include this in my programme for the students to have a clear, logical process of doing things. Plus they get to create something digitally just like their computer games. We had an opportunity to look at the Technology curriculum as well, which truth be told I haven’t included much of in my planning but now that I have a better understanding of it I am way more confident. Transferable skills is something I love. Applying learned skills to other situations and contexts and seeing as by the time our students are ready for work the jobs they will be doing have not yet been created. Mind blown!! So as teachers we are trying our hardest to anticipate it, which by the way is impossible. But equipping the students with transferable skills, which they can adapt to their circumstances is a gift that will keep on giving. Look a teacher selfie, hard at work. Haha

Day 6: Enabling Access

This weeks pedagogy topic is connected. This new phase the world went through at the end of February showed
us how important connecting is and the many different ways to connect with the students. Just being available and
touching base with the students on a daily basis strengthened the relationships already made and connected them
to their learning and classmates. For a connection to happen both parties need to share, this is an important
distinguishment between just sharing what you have learnt. 

Therefore for all those that have given me feedback and comments, thank you!

The four elements of the kaupapa visible, ubiquitous, connected and empowered do not stand alone but
complement each other. This is how I want to set up my class site. 

Today we focused on our class learning sites, which was great as it was time carved out of our busy schedules
to do much needed tweaks. I focused on the “shop window” of my class site, ensuring that the learning is visible
and easy to get to. Ensuring there is connection as well; connection with the teacher and what I am about;
connection to the tasks and assignments and connection to the school site and learners blogs. Also incorporating
the multi-modal learning we looked at last week.

My fellow DFI participants had the opportunity to look at my site and give me much valued feedback which I will
take on board and continue to work and improve on my class site.

https://sites.google.com/ruapotaka.school.nz/mrscardozaroom72020t1/home

Day 3: Digital Fluency Intensive - Workflow

Creativity empowers learning, that is what we learnt about the Manaiakalani Create Kaupapa. And this is true at
any stage of your life, being able to invent new possibilities. Then why not use the digital tools to our disposal for
our students to create. 

Today we had a look at Media, I have my own Youtube channel, can you believe it and this will be used to create
purposeful playlists for my students as Youtube can pose a lot of distractions to learning.Google Draw is another
tool we had a look at today, I will be using this with my students to create whatever they can think of but I suspect
this will need practice. 

I spent some time learning about how to create a digital Pepeha, this is such a beautiful way to make connections
with people. I am very new to this cultural way of connecting and feel very privileged to be able to share in this way.

Please have a look at my pepeha below. 

Also note the About me image I made using Google Draw, TOP RIGHT.

Until next time

Day 2 of Digital Fluency Intensive: Workflow

At times I have found myself saying if only there was an easier way of doing that. Well I wasn’t the only one thinking that. Today’s topic is Workflow, and as the title suggests it is about creating procedures and using the appropriate digital tools to create that flow in our work day. We looked at Google Keep for creating notes, drawings, taking pictures and creating lists. I had been using Keep for my shopping lists as I can check and uncheck an item depending on the week but what I learnt today is how I can use keep to connect with the other Google applications which will streamline that flow. We looked at our Google Calendars and some of the features which I wasn’t aware of like creating Google meets and RSVPing to events. Colour coding is also something I will get into to prioritise appointments and making it more visible at a single glance. Tabs was another topic we looked at, and I do find myself with many tabs open, but I could group them together depending on their relation to eachother so that when I need to look at a certain topic for instance, reading, they all can be saved together. What I have done already is look at changing my bookmarks on the bar to only show the icons and no text. I initiated a Google meet for the first time today, I experienced some technical difficulties, where my computer froze; probably because I had so many tabs open, but powered through and with the help of my Facilitator I was successful. The recording shows the meet we had to discuss the learner blog I had reviewed, and I must say the student really impressed me with his creativity.Take a look at my response below.





This is definitive something I would open up to my learners, that it doesn’t have to be basic typing or static images, but they can be creative and use the digital tools available to them. All these tips and tricks I will be using to make my day flow better and especially streamline my gmail account so that I do not feel so overwhelmed with the amount of emails I get. Thank you for reading my blog.

Day 1 of Digital Fluency Intensive course

Kia Ora

Today the first day of the Digital fluency course started, and it couldn't have come sooner. As you may or may not know with the Covid-19 Pandemic the emphasis for education has been Distance learning.
As a first year teacher, whose first term was abruptly cut short I can tell you it has been no easy feat. So after day 1, I am feeling much more confident in the possibilities of my new teaching environment.

The Manaiakalani programme has greatly influenced how important it is to prepare the your people for the future and how to approach it.14 years ago, the forward thinking individuals who started the Manaiakalani programme had great intentions but could not have imagined how important it would've been due to recent events.

We learnt about how to use the chrome browser and organize our drives to our advantage and create a workflow using bookmarks; we looked at why creating google groups may suit organisations better than just relying on your contact list, and then explore what google docs can do other than just creating texts.

In light of our nation progressing to Alert Level 2 and having the students return to the classroom I created a poster using Google docs.

The learning I will be taking with to class, is to definitely review the skills I may assume my students have when it comes to docs and teach them the new tricks that I learnt today. Voice typing, is definitely a technique I will be practicing with my students too.

I can't wait for the next session, watch this space to see more of what I am learning.

Until next time. Bye!