Revision

Today was a great day for our Tairawhiti Group. We all sat the Google Exam together and it was a great experience. We found we were quite tight for time and in reflection we needed to work faster. We also had not covered Google Classroom, Seesaw which gobbled up some of our time learning how to use it. We all got a lot out of sitting the exam and now feel more confident going into the resit session together. Despite feeling a little deflated I still really appreciate the DFI programme. I have learnt so much and would not have been as well equipped for online learning through Covid lockdown if I hadn't attended this programme.

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?
• Using the Class blog to share completed learning has been so powerful for my learners. They really enjoy sharing what they have done and thinking positively and reflectively about completed tasks. Through sharing learning with each other during lockdown we have been able to continue our Learn, Create, Share journey. The learn, create, share pedagogy has permanently shaped my style of teaching. It is so powerful and makes logical sense. I ams so excited creating tasks that are engaging for my learners. The enthusiasm rubs off and my class get so excited to share their learning. Love multimodal learning. It really makes sense to deliver information in different ways, multiple times, rewindable learning and so on.
• Enabling access was so helpful!
• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
• What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  
• I really enjoyed looking at Google forms again today. I think it could be really interesting to gather student voice after we return from lockdown in that first week. It will be great to use Forms to gather information to support learners transitioning back into school life.
• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
• Through sitting the Google Exam I have become more aware what is involved through working through the Google education programme. I am also open to extending my knowledge through the next level of DFI if there is further study. I feel like the lockdown gave us an intense time to learn, create and share ourselves. We have built such a momentum with our learning. I would like to keep firing along on my DFI journey.

Close ... but not yet!

Our DFI topic today was based around "Computational thinking". There was a lot of new learning in this session for me. I am not naturally drawn to the tech world of gadgets, future inventions and I was unaware of many of the technology that is already in place. Needless to say, I already felt excited that there was so much to learn and a little nervous and out of my depth too.

We started the day discussing Empowered Learners. We looked at how low income earners are affected by not being able to access technology. Dorothy also showed examples of poor housing conditions, and financial pit falls like "The Good Guys" can affect low income earners and their families learning.  We went on to learn how Maniakilani's pedagogy is designed to reach all students through being connected, ubiquitous (found anywhere), empowered, and visible. We went on to unpack these and discuss examples of how we show this in our own learning programme.
In my class we are:
connected- Google hangouts/meets, classroom blog, sharing completed learning on the class site, the class site shares learning tasks and access information to other sites for the students. Parents are connected through eTap, text, messenger, phone calls, emails (whatever works). Parents are sent screencastify's so they can help their children.

ubiquitous (found anywhere)- I have made all sites, slides, learning, online reading, online maths all accessible to students. We had a DFI session about limiting the links and that really hit home. If we make it too hard for them to get to the learning,  they just won't do it.

empowered- My class love sharing their learning, they love talking about their learning, they recently discovered they love blogging about their learning and they have the power to comment, encourage, feedforward ideas to their peers. Empowering the learners to take charge of their learning and drive it is a very meaningful way of teaching. I can't imagine going back to the old style of teaching of the children being empty and the teacher filling them with knowledge. It is just not going to work anymore. Children have lifted the lid on possibilities through learning and the teacher is working in the background now bringing the students what they need to continue growing and learning.

visible- We looked at "Embedding" a couple of weeks ago and a part of that session touched on how powerful it is to get your teaching and learning out there into the world. I often talk to my students about how they are famous and are teaching other kids just like them amazing things by sharing on their blog. They enjoy receiving comments about their learning and it adds to their understanding that they are visually out there for the world to see. I use recorded lessons to share with my students, reading stories, screencasts and so on to add to the multi-modal way of teaching. I noticed today Pt England school use OnAir sessions and have these on their sites. These are videos of teachers teaching in the classroom. I thought this was very brave and helpful, especially to parents and students.

Today we also looked at the latest Maniakalani mailout . There has been a great spike in blogging through lock down. It had doubled in the past four weeks. I thought this was really powerful and supported our latest feedback from our parents at our school. Student engagement has remained desipe online distance learning.

This week I was lucky to attend a Tui Mai, tuhi Atu meeting again. I really enjoy listening to the experts share what is working well for them. This week they did a blog shout out to students, classes, professional who were working well using their blogs. I was especially proud that two classes from our school was mentioned as well as a beginning teacher. It resonated how much of an impact online a digital presence can have.

One of my favourite parts of the day was looking at "Future tech". I especially enjoyed learning about the robot development, artificial intelligence, coding and ethics within tech development.  We had to complete an online activity called the Moral Machine. It looked at coding cars to driverless and how the car would be programmed to assess situations like a child running out on the road at the same time as an old person. How do you programme which being would die. It was really challenging but just opened my mind to a whole world of ethical decisions that are made by programmers.

This lead on to the topic of Computational thinking, hangarau mitihiko and the digital curriculum. Through the slide show different videos explained computational thinking. Once I got my head around a few basic words I understood a lot more.  Kia Takatu a matihiko looked like a very helpful resource to help teachers review, assess, add to tool kits for digital fluency and set up a pathway for the future.

Today we spent part of the day exploring code. We went on a range of sites to play with coding. It was so much fun! Two of my favourite sites were toxic code and minecraft. I will definitely use these in my planning next week. It was very engaging, challenging and addictive!

Towards the end of the day by registering for our exam, preparing for our exam and looking at what will be included.

We went over what needs to be included in our professional blog to graduated for our DFI course. I will ask my peers to double check that I have completed everything.

Below are links to my coding game - it did not go well but I did learn a lot and it helped me practice my mindfulness when facing tech issues.

My Gamefroot

Agenda for Computational thinking