Maniakalani DFI: Day 5 Collaborate - Sites

During the term I have found that I am learning lots of great tips on how to make myself more efficient when using digital tools. Over the last week I practised a lot with Sheets and used quite a few of the things I learnt last week. My planning is now all on sheets and I really found things like freezing a column so it’s always in view, pulling cells across to duplicate them and creating new tabs by duplicating them for the next week's planning.

Maths Planning Literacy/Reading Planning

I also showed some of my students the functions on My Maps that could help them create a presentation on early settler migration to NZ.

This week's session is all about Collaborative Teaching and Learning

The first part was as always checking in with each other and seeing how we are progressing. By the sounds of it everyone is giving it a go and using their new digital tools. A great idea I heard from another teacher was using google forms as a way of finding out where in the world our families are from. This would tie in really well with our 'Belonging' theme.

We then looked at the Maniakalani Pedagogy Visible Kaupapa.

Dorothy spoke about how everything we do should be visible to all (students, teacher, schools, whanau, caregivers). She feels, and I agree with, that the lack of transparency with what we taught the kids back in the day led to a decline in achievement levels. Making everything visible means the students and whānau don't have to read our minds

What it used to be...

...and now!

It is important that we show the students and whānau the entire learning process from planning to assessment process. The use of Digital tools such as sites has meant we can 'Turbocharge the Classroom' and we all can access our learning at anytime and anywhere. Barriers can be removed so that everything is:

Accessible > Available > Advance

If I have learnt anything from today it is:

Be Visible

The next part on Multi Modal. I feel is where as a school we have progressed a lot over the last few years with all of us reworking our sites to make them as accessible as possible to all learners and learner types. 

What I took out of this session:

• Allows for increased engagement.
• It allows different ways to pass on the same message depending on the learner types.
• Sites create "An exciting shop window for learning" that 'HOOKS' the leaner in and makes it interesting and relevant.
• Our job is to create an 'Inspirational Window to Learning'
• I really enjoyed the video from CORE Education's Chrissie Butler where she talks about Universal Design for Learning. I liked where she said that "Should every student have to use the same digital tool to show their learning when they may prefer and feel more comfortable using another?

"Different Hooks to Engage Different Learners"

This all links in well with our focus of implementing T-Shaped literacy this year. We have been mindful of catering with the different learning styles within our students. We have used a range of texts, video and audio to support the students. This is an example of where we are at:

I liked this video which really enforces what we are doing.

 

 Things I'm happy with:

• Hapara Hot Tips was about looking at the Sharing Tab. Once again I found it a good reminder, especially looking at the unshared tabs as a reminder for them to file their docs in the correct folders.
• The session where we looked at other school sites made me realise that we are doing a great job with our studio site as well as getting good ideas to implement.
• How to set up a site with Vicky was also an opportunity for me to learn a couple of simple things that will make life easier. Finding out about the preview function, anchor image and the copy published site link button are wonderful.
• Remembering about the Multi Text Database that was created by Angela Moala and added to by other teachers. It is a great resource especially with our focus on T-Shaped literacy. I was interested in reading the slideshows by Dr Aaron Wilson & Dr Rebecca Jesson about T-Shaped literacy (Show 1. Show 2.)

I was happy with the quick website on financial literacy I created using Google Sites as I was able to insert docs, pdf's, video, audio books etc and practise what I will be doing with T-Shaped literacy.

https://sites.google.com/rawhiti.school.nz/how-to-be-good-with-your-money/home

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

• After looking at our own site I found a couple of things that I want to change up. I really liked the idea of having a dedicated site to one topic (ie Waitangi Day) and plan on creating these.
• How can I make the learning more visible to whānau?
• Start using the Multi Text Database as a way to save time when planning.

Overall reflection of the day.

Another great day, especially the words from Dorothy. I have really changed my opinions on how much we share with the students and their family. With how we use digital tools it has become increasingly easy to accommodate the families and the students having their own blog has allowed them to share lots with the world.

Thanks for the excellent day Vicky, Emily and Sharon.