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