Digital Fluency Intensive #2

Kiaora koutou,

Looking back at the week that has been.

This past week I have done some work around the use of google docs with my Year 7 and 8 class. The students were all surprised to pick up at least two if not more tips that they did not know about google docs.  The real game changer for many students was the use of ctrl / shift / v when pasting particularly when copying from google docs to paste writing on their blogs.  These lessons certainly brought home to me the importance of explicitly teaching the google tools to all age groups.  No matter how long you have been using google tools or how tech savvy you are, there is always more you can learn or things  you are forgotten.   

Workflow Session

Today's session is focused on improving our workflow.  What do we as digital users need to be able to do well to enhance our practice?

The first session was based around the Ako/Learn part of the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy. Some of the key points I took from this session are:

• Learn / Create /Share  Ako /Hanga / Tohatoa - our pedagogy is explained in simple terms to make it accessible and inclusive for all learners.  Schools can  all teach by this pedagogy and still express their difference and utilise localised curriculum

• There are two main focus points of the Manaiakalani Programme: 
• Digital Infrastrucutre: support communities to move from the analogue world to the digital world.
• Teaching and Learning:  It is also focused on developing teacher effectiveness and accelerating learning outcomes within a digital environment.

What does effective practice look like in regards to the Learn /Ako part of learn, create and share?

Firstly the teacher actions that promote student learning should be as powerful and obvious in digital teaching as they were prior to this.

They key to the Learn phase is to Recognise, Amplify and Turbocharge effective practice in the digital world.  My next step is to go back and revisit the Learn staff meeting from Term 1.  What does learn look like in our school?  What are the high leverage programmes we are implementing?

The Woolf Fisher Research Centre have found that the high leverage practices that are worth investing in are:

- Learn by reading from authentic texts

- Learning by sharing ideas in discussion

- Learning by thinking critically and developing strategies

- Collaborating and making choices in learning, creating and sharing.

Google keep

Keep is a useful tool for jotting down ideas.  I already use this tool quite regularly at school to rip text from reading books, reminders and to do lists.  New ways I could use this are:

•  In staff meetings and syndicate meetings to jot down any notes. 
• Could be used for shared planning as you can share with as many people as you like. 
•  I have never used the labels function by going to the three dots at the bottom but this is fantastic as it will make it much easier to locate specific notes. 
• Use the reminders for example if you have a grocery list. I have also never used the reminder and location functions.  This is something I am defintiely going to start using particularly in my personal life to remind me to go to the supermarket when I drive past.You can set a location reminder so that if you go to the supermarket your phone will start buzzing with your grocery list or reminder.
• Fantastic way to keep comments to copy and paste over to kids work in google docs.  Such as writing goals and also having lins to share.
• Ripping the text and then get the text to read back to the learner for students who cannot perhaps read it themselves. Dyslexic learners.

Gmail

I appreciated the tame your gmail session today as it gave me time to clean out my inbox of the large number of unread emails. I also set up somelabels so that the emails go straight to those folders without going into my inbox. 

Blog Post Discussion

In our final session today we explored some of the Manaiakalani mailouts to find a blogpost to discuss.  We needed to think about and discuss:

• What was the teaching design behind this post?
• What was the learner’s response ie the post content?
• Who responded to the post and how did this support the learning experience or contribute more to the learning of the child?

Here is the video recording of my discussion with a buddy.

This was a really valuable activity as it made me reflect on the posts my own class do on their blogs.  How visible is the learning?  Are the students taking on board the feedback from comments? Are they replying to comments?  

What next?

After reflecting on today's session I have come up with some things I would like to focus on this week.  They are:

1. Go back and look at the learn staff meeting from term 1 and reflect on my current teaching practices. Am I amplifying and turbocharging learning for my students?
2. Explore new ways to use google keep in my personal and professional life
3. With my students I am going to look at organising their gmail and their bookmarks

Digital Fuency Intensive # 1

For the next nine weeks I will be participating in the Manaiakalani Digital Intensive online.  The DFI programme was developed as the teaching profesion is constantly changing and is designed to give the opportunity for all teachers to become digitally fluent.  Teachers need to be able to use the tools of the trade.

The course started today and is very fast paced but also very practical.  Today we focused on Google Drive and particularly the use of google docs. I picked up lots of tips and tricks today to help me use google docs more effectively.  I am looking forward to going back to my classroom and sharing the tips I learnt with my students. 

The Beginning: Dorothy Burt 

The first part of the day took us back to the beginning of Manaiakalani in 2006 to now.  We looked at the  development of the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy. Some of the interesting points I took from this presentation were:

• Innovation - is think and make something happen even if it doesn't exist yet.  
• Learn, create, share was started and initially implemented with limited resourcing.  Equity came later.  For four years Manaaiakalani was implemented with little to no technology.  What did they do? Focused on literacy and set up literacy cycles.  There was a component of create and share. It became clear that students wanted to share outside the classroom wall. 
• We need to keep looking at the data as it challenges us to continually rethink and reshape what we are doing.
• What is important is the innovative thinking not the device as the device is just the pencil we are using.
• Google was collaborative and free which is why it was chosen.
• Visible learning - Teacher perspective - we can see everything students do on hapara.  Learners - learners have visibility of the teaching through the class learning site.  

Two words that stuck with me from this presentation were equity and innovation. Equity from the point of view that although all my students have equal access to a chromebook device I need to reflect on if I am using the device to its potential particularly in regards to learners who have specific learning difficults so that they have equal access to the curriculum?  Innovation was the other word that stuck with me because it reminded me that the innovation comes from the thinking and and then finding a way to make it happen. 

Deep Dive: Google Groups

Google groups is a tool I have not really utilised and explored before however after this presentation I reflected that there could be some ways this could be used to help me manage some of professional responsibilities imparticularly the PB4L team. Key points were

• Creating google groups - You will be an owner if you create it, you can then add people as managers or members.   It is a really great place to access all of the emails sent from the group so people can access past content.  
• Could be a good way to run our PB4L team? Equity - noone is left out and is able to easily access all things Groups is a fantastic way to collaborate and it also protects the privacy of everybody in it.  Perhaps a way of sending emails to whanau next term.  
• Unable to create groups in the Grey Main domain as only admin has access to this so will need to follow this up.  
• Review the slide deck and video clips.

Chalk in Talk: Google Drive 

When organising your digital life the key points to think about are Names / Permissions / Order.

• Set permissions at folder level so that all files and subfolders within them will have the same permission.  Good idea to do this for all planning and teaching resources so then when placed on site etc you know they will be visible.
• Shortcut for add to drive: Use shift + Z to Add to drive
• You can disable options for downloading, printing or copying of shared docs for viewers and commentors

Ideas to Explore With My Students

As a teacher am I explicitly teaching students how to use the google tools efficiently? I think I often assume that they know how to use the basic google tools well however after today I now think I will go back and review these skills with my class.  I also will be making sure that I teach this to my students in my class every year in week 1.  Some ideas to cover are listed below.

Get the students to open the folder you want them to create the doc in before starting to make the document you want. Use Hapara to monitor that everyone does it correctly by having that folder open and cast to the the tv.

Make a doc and then this is like your exercise book. When you make a doc you always put your initials first then name the document as I set it.

Copy and paste. Copy the text by control c but do not paste go back to the original doc and use the edit tool to select paste without formatting. Each time you copy and paste this is what you need to do.

Do not use the underline tools for any type of heading as this is solely for hyperlinks.

Use the power of the word processor to create the title. Use select format then title.

Put in titles for your paragraphs by selecting heading type (find under paragraph styles in format toolbar) option for all headings in the doc e.g. heading 1. Then you can change one of them to how you want them to look then go back to heading one and select apply heading 1 to all.

Another tool to teach is how to insert a table of contents which is in the insert tool bar. This will then create a table of contents at the top of the doc with a hyperlink to each paragraph heading.

Teach them to use the explore tool for finding and inserting pictures and text as they are free to use

Teach them to use voice typing. - could make sound proof boxes for kids to use where they put their chromebook in the box and then lean forward to talk.

Google Docs Practical Activity for Reading: Voice typing eyes on text reading mileage activity here. Multi purpose task as students practice reading fluency, enunciation, decoding and then of course it is a spelling, grammar practice activity as once they have read they then need to check their work against the text. We really don't know what children are doing when we do SSR. WOLF Fisher says children are reading less and less. This is actually going to help get every child reading.

Google Docs Practical Activity for Inquiry: Scavenger hunt type activity around text this is a great activity that creates digital engagement for exploring reading texts. Could use this as part of t shaped literacy to perhaps explore the focus text.

Creating in Google Docs: When creating infographics in google docs use a table then change the line colours to match the background. Use remove background site to improve look of inserted pictures. You can also create boomerang videos where you remove the background from a video.