Digital Intensive Fluency (DFI) : Day 3

Another great day with lots of learning. This term all Manaiakalani schools are focussing on Create. The key message for me is that teachers need to embrace the digital learning environment and use it as a tool or a harness to capture students creativity which could be represented in various forms for example sport, dance, drama, arts food and craft. I particularly like this quote and visual presentation showing creativity.

Live Stream

I am really fortunate to had had multiple opportunities to watch a live stream video feed at Pt.England School. Kent shared many videos and all of them were great (took me back in time). We talked about how this could work at the junior levels and/or even capturing snapshots of our Matariki celebration day. This live stream video was taken using our first drone.

Creativity Motivation and Teamwork.

Google Draw:
An interesting session with Gerhard learning how to draw a self portrait on Google Draw. I got a lot out of this session and discovered how I could use the space around the canvas to hold images I could use and repurpose for my site. This method would save me a lot of time especially when creating buttons for my site. I can also use some ideas that came out of this session on iPads for example: children can take a photo of their reader. they can then use the broken lined shape tool within Explain Everything(Lasso) and cut out the characters to create an animation, retell the story by cropping characters and creating an animation, write/record their story to publish on their blog.

Google Slides:
I use Google slides all the time for learners to access their learning. It was really nice using google slides to create an animation with Dorothy. Some new skills that I got from this session:
select all the shapes and using the arrow keys on the keyboard to move shape to the left or right.
Here is an animation that I created in Google Slides. Lots of learning but also heaps of fun.

We ended the day with Lee-Ann and her colleague showing us how to create our own digital Pepeha.

My Digital Pepeha Thank-You Helen. S for your guidance and support

in helping me with this slideshow.

Digital Intensive Fluency (DFI) :Day 2

Talk about about intensive and information overload, today was full on. The morning started with Fiona talking about effective pedagogy and about "How learning looks different in every school." We have a pedagogy and practise to intentionally focus and harness the digital technologies. Fiona said "The Manaiakalani Programme is a silver bullet where effective teachers are raising achievement for learners through effective teacher practise." What she said meant a lot to me as I know from my teaching experience and working in a 1:1 iPad class, digital technologies are a powerful learning tool for our learners. Fiona also talked about the Wool Fisher research and data gathered in our cluster of schools. The data showing pockets of success and huge challenges in achievement. I find that this data informs my teaching practise and my colleague's and I in the junior department are always thinking of creating projects to help our children overcome these hinderances.

We worked on creating Google forms. I have filled them out at school on behalf of my children and had created one very quickly with support. I really enjoyed doing it from scratch and can see the benefits of using them as an additional resource with my children. I am thinking of using Google forms in practising Maths knowledge and facts. For example:

The interesting and most challenging part of the day for me was working in Google Spreadsheets. I use spreadsheets for planning and that's about it. However after today's learning I was amazed at how much more I needed to learn and practise. From conditional formatting to analysing data and inserting charts. As I completed set tasks I kept thinking of how I would use charts to measure or show progresss/shift in students learning.

Data Case Study:
One of our tasks was to study a student's blog post and statistically analyse the data using charts.
This is an analysis of Tara's blog post over the years.

This is an analysis of Tara's blog post during the year 2018.

Digital Intensive Fluency (DFI) : Day 1

Today was my first session at the DFI. As a CoL teacher I have been popping in and out of these sessions but actually being involved from day one is quite amazing.

My understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?
Dorothy's talk about the origins of Manaiakalani truely touched me. It took me back to the years to when we first started and how this journey has brought us to where we are today. Teachers sharing their knowledge, skills and working collaboratively to improve children's learning.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
We worked on using Google documents and how to set the norm and workflow for children using Google doc's on their device. I now understand how using headings can make learning specific, informative and it's so quick and easy to access information.

Some new tools that I discovered within Google Doc was the:
-Table of contents
-Show document outline
- The comment box that can give specific feedback and support-the idea of anywhere, anytime and anyplace.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?
For Year One children in a 1:1 iPad environment
Some of the learning/ideas that I got from today can be implemented to my learners for example:
Labelling your project with the date.
Saving your work as we do not have revision history.
When children save their work it needs to go to the correct folder in their drive.
Always saving as a video file or image.

Gerhard showed me how children can use voice text on their iPads to record their thinking making
learning rewindable.Susan and I discussed how we could use this idea for children to publishing their writing on their blog.This means they read their written story(in their books) to the voice text on their iPad, draw a picture on their iPad or take a photo of their picture, save it as an image to their drive ready to put onto their blog.

Although learners have Google doc's on their i Pads they are not yet capable of working on the document. I am hoping that some of my capable learners may towards the end of Term 3 start using Google Doc's.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
I will be using Google docs with headings and table of contents when I am planning for the term or making notes. When my children are capable of using Google documents I will revisit the site and ensure that I set up the necessary structures, norms and routines which will enable the children to be smart learners.

DMiC lessons

Over the last two weeks I decided to video my children working in their groups just to see the progress they have made since my first DMiC lesson.
I think what I am doing is working but will take a long time before we get everyone on board.

DMiC Lesson with Don

This week I had my second session with Don supporting me.I had about 6 children in my group.
The problem launched: I have 8 stickers on my sticker chart. My teacher gives me 5 more. How many stickers do I have altogether?
Firstly I read the problem to the group and then we read it together. We then discussed what the story is asking us to do? At this point one of the children gave the answer and said 13. Don suggested I make the problem challenging so instead of 8 stickers I changed it to 28 stickers.

The children went with their partners to discuss what strategy they would use to solve the problem. Don and I walked around listening to their conversations and they explained to us what strategy they were going to use to solve the problem. A few children could confidently explain that they were going to put the biggest number in their head and count on. The others sort of understood but had difficulty verbalising their thinking or were not very confident to talk. I handed each group a paper and 1 pencil. All three groups solved the problem by counting on from the biggest number. I was not surprised as we have been working on ways to solve a problem(one to one counting using materials, drawing, counting on or counting back). I was really happy that finally got it, but then Don asked some children who seemed quite confident to solve it another way. He prompted for them to use a number line and with Don supporting them they gave it a go.

We came together as a group to share and the pair talked about how they solved the problem using a number line. We did not have much time to do the connect part of the lesson.

The valuable feedback that I got given was to work on:

Responding prompts that I can use.
Revoicing what others have said
Encourage children to ask questions.
Whether they agree or disagree.

Here are some prompts that Don has shared for me to use in my teaching.

Term 2 DMiC Week 1

We are back from the holidays and I feel that the children settled and are ready to learn. They can follow
classroom routines and most of them can work independently and support the others long enough
for me to do a DMiC lesson. I can split my class into 2 groups and successfully complete a DMiC
lesson on some days. I feel that the children are beginning to follow the norms that have been set up in
my group teaching.

Towards the end of Term 1 a few colleagues that shared the same inquiry focus and decided to
work together to create a rubric for the children to measure their learning.
It was great working together, watching the ideas flow as we shared ideas and some concerns.
We hope that this rubric will be beneficial to the learners and we will be able to see some changes,
improvement or progress compared to our first DMiC lesson.

Our focus is on speaking, talking, listening and responding. We have decided to use a colours
(traffic lights: red, orange, green and the medals: silver and gold) as a visual for our juniors to
track their progress.

 We had a classroom discussion and talked about the rubric and our goals. It is displayed on the classroom wall and we refer too it all the time.

DMiC lesson with my mentor

Last week my DMiC mentor Don, came to my classroom for an hour to support me with my group of learners. It was a really good session and Don was patient, very helpful.

 Problem that I launched: 

 There were 18 children in a bus. At the bus stop 4 children hopped on. How many children in the bus now? I had a group of 6 children and they were paired with a partner. Each pair was given a blank paper. 

Don suggested I give them counters and a pencil to show/write down their thinking. I read the word problem and talked about it making it a real life story (picture this in your head, imagine). Don asked to me ask the children ”Do we know what we are trying to find out?” One child said “How many children in the bus.” Other children in the group had to repeat ” We are finding out how many children in the bus altogether?” Children had to work with their partners and then share back to the group. Findings: It was interesting to observe and notice behaviours of the children in that group (social interaction with each other). Some worked together as a team, made certain that they took turns. Another pair worked on the problem by themselves whilst the other two children just played with the counters. It was really difficult to sit back and watch without talking as much. Don said to praise children who are taking turns, talking to each other, telling one another what they doing, telling someone that they cannot hear him/her or to repeat what they said. We also worked on unpacking the vocabulary in the word problem. One child made 18 children using counters and took away 4 counters. We talked about what hoped on meant. They made 18 children and 4 children but then did not understand what altogether meant.

 My focus over the next few weeks is: 

 Conversation. 

 I need to create opportunities in my class where children can have these conversations. Children need to start talking to each other about their learning, thinking, problem solving. I also need to work on selecting problems that are of interest to the children for example: instead of using bus stop I could say for example: How many children at church, or in the pool, on the field. I need to find out what about my pupils likes and interests which will then lead to engagement. I also need to ensure that they understand the word problem, the language, unpack and scaffold mathematical terms and language and words for example: altogether, hopped in, left over, share evenly/equally.
 Don suggested:
 -We do our planning as a team and work collaboratively.
-When working on an activity on the iPad-work in pairs- increase confidence to talk and have --conversations with each other. Record children’s learning making it re-windable. Share on Apple T.V. and blog.

 My next steps:
 -Encourage children to have conversations, they can work in pairs, groups to complete tasks, read your PM reader to a friend, retell them the story in your own words.
-Continue to work on scaffolding mathematical language.
-Continue to talk to my colleagues, get some ideas of what they doing with their children and do some research.