Manaiakalani DFI: Day 4 Dealing With Data

This week we were back as a group face to face, which I prefer. In our sharing session it is obvious that everyone are giving things a go and are extremely positive about implementing new things. Over the last week I  I showed the students the easier way of inserting a Google Drawing onto their blog by downloading it as an image first. I also shared the slideshow on Solar Energy that was created by a student. I thought this was a very effective use of animations. I also kept emphasising to the students that school should be fun! I tried with Google Keep but have realised that at the moment it is not for me.

This session is all about Dealing With Data

The session with Dorothy was all about Maniakalani's pedagogy in relation to Share. This has been a huge focus for us , especially since all of the home learning we did last year and noticing the power of students sharing their creations on their blogs or through Hapara. The students feel really empowered when the know that someone is looking at their work.

"Connected Learner's Share"

As Dorothy stated, sharing has always been around whether it's art on the walls, productions, newsletters etc and as such we don't need to shove digital tools down the students throat for them to be able to share. Once again we need to use them as one of the tools that allow students to share in real time.with not only the school community but to the greater world audience. 

It's all about sharing with purpose

Why we use Blogger.

At our school we have been using Blogger for 4 years and our students have become very proficient in using their blogs to share their learning with a wider audience. I love the fact that it gives more purpose to their learning as well as connecting with friends/family across the world. One father who lives in England is so happy that he is able to access what his daughter is doing in real time. I liked it when Dorothy said: 

"Sharing can be the start of new learning, not just the finish"

We have really embraced the idea of sharing throughout our school across all curriculum areas, whether it's during DMIC maths sessions, writing they have completed, or things they find out during inquiry cycles.

I was really interested in the session on Google Forms as we have used them recently in Maths for our statistics unit. The students really enjoyed using this and loved the way it created the graphs. Here is an example of what they created.

We then got to create our own Google Form Survey and then I inserted this onto my site, which I didn't realise I could do.

Things I'm happy about:

• Hapara Hot Tips once again was a good refresher to various aspects of using Dashboard. I learnt what the green pencil means (unpublished)
• Google My Maps: I learnt quite a few new things about maps such as:

Changing map types

Linking from Google Forms results

Adding images to markers

It is a lot like using Tour Builder

• Using Blogger with our students.

My Map

 

Things to look at during this week that I'm not clear about:

• Before this session I had mentioned quite often that I find  Google Sheets difficult and I needed to upskill myself due to the fact that we are now using them more and more for lanning etc. I liked the way we went step by step while creating our own sheet. I learnt these things:

How to highlight a whole column/graph

Using the Grab Hand 

Freezing A column so that is always visible even when scrolling

How to use the calculations tool to get totals, averages etc

Create a chart using the data I have entered and insert it on the sheet

I really liked the session where we were able to split into groups to focus on to our individual needs. I decided to go right back to the start as I'm not confident with using Sheets. I went through the Sheets on Speed slideshow, which is what the Google exam is about and I feel confident that I can pass.

During the coming week I plan on exploring sheets a lot more as well as introducing the things we could create using MyMaps.

Overall reflection of the day.

I really liked today's session as I learnt so much about using Google Sheets. Once again it was great listening to Dorothy about the pedagogy behind sharing. Emily, Sharon, Vicky and Dorothy did another great job and I can't wait for next week.