Reflection Week 9

Reflection 

Week 9

Cohort 2

Dorothy spoke this morning about ubiquitous learning - learning anywhere, anytime, anyway (on any device) and "learning from anyone". The availability of digital technologies and tools makes this possible. This is increasingly the way 21st-century learners engage with their learning and making sense of the world around them. We have a good percentage of students who use their Chromebooks responsibly at home for learning purposes. These students are usually self-directed, they have a good understanding of the implications of the Kawa of Care and they enjoy great parent support. Unfortunately, we have been struggling with a group of students who find it difficult to manage their own learning at home on devices and whose parents are uninvolved. 

Rewindable learning opportunities contribute to the process of ubiquitous learning.  It allows students to revisit learning content in their own time. We should not underestimate the power of rewindable knowledge for the individual. This is precisely what I will be doing with the content we covered during the DFI. 

Thank you very much to all the facilitators for their time and hard work during the DFI.  

Nga manaakitanga

Casper

Reflection Week 8

Reflection

Week 8

Cohort 2

I found the session with Dorothy on an empowered kaupapa interesting this morning. The Manaiakalani kaupapa is not only about empowering students, but also empowering teachers. The whole approach encourages reciprocal teaching and learning (ako) in a digital as well as bicultural environment. 

I like the statement that technology is not just a tool for learning and teaching. It needs to be used to empower our learners. 

Our own Kokatahu-Kowhitirangi School curriculum is a future-focused curriculum with the aim to empower our students for the future in all its different aspects. We focus on teaching the following learning behaviours needed for the future: reflectiveness, reciprocity (ako), resilience and resourcefulness. This aligns well with the Manaiakalani approach. 

Developing computational thinking forms part of this future-focused curriculum. We have only started on this journey with one Beebot and 13 Sphero robots. Our approach will be to integrate it as far as we possibly can with the other core and non-core curriculum areas. 

It is really important for teachers to develop their own digital fluency and capabilities and to adapt to teaching this new curriculum area. If we expect our students to be digitally fluent, we need to be digitally fluent teachers as well or at least resilient and resourceful problem solvers. 

A digitally fluent person can decide when and why to use specific digital technologies to achieve a specific task or solve problems. A digitally capable person can create their own digital technologies solution. Both of these are important as part of the digital technologies curriculum. 

Nga mihi

Casper

Reflection Week 7

Reflection Week 7
Cohort 2

Quite a frustrating start this morning with the grid view on Google Meet not working. It took me about half an hour to solve the problem and unfortunately I missed some of Dorothy's presentation on Hapara Dashboard. However, we all know that when we use digital technologies, we need to be problem solvers, we need to persevere and we need to be resilient - that is what we expect from our students and we need to set the example in that regard.
The session on "Explain Everything" was great. This tool can be used in many different ways for students to create digital learning objects. It can actually be used across the school for different age levels, but you do need an iPad for it. Trying to use it on a Chromebook doesn't work that well.
An emphasis on the Cyber Smart curriculum is really important, especially when you make ubiquitous learning possible by sending Chromebooks home. All the Manaikalani and outreach schools have their own core values, but these are linked or underpinned by the Smart Values. See video below:

Reflection

Reflection Week 6
Cohort 2
Today we again focused on developing our own Google Sites. I share a Google Site (Class Site) with my principal's release and we have developed the site over just more than three years. We redesigned it a few times for new groups and new levels of students but kept a lot of the previous planning and resources. One of my goals is to archive these resources and planning and to tidy up the site. We will also try to look at making it easier for the students to navigate their way around the site and maybe to personalised it more for the group we are currently teaching. One of the people in my group suggested that we use the students to design the icons we use as links instead of downloading clipart for this purpose. I think that is a great idea.
I will need to revisit Gerhard's session from this morning and make further adjustments to our site.
It was also great to look at examples of class sites from other schools. Also very beneficial to critique them and decide how I would like to adjust my own site. There are some great examples within the Manaiakalani cluster of schools as well as the Outreach schools.
Dorothy talked this morning about the (Manaiakalani) kaupapa of being "Connected". Manaiakalani and Manaiakalani Outreach schools are already well connected at so many different levels and this is especially the case for our students.
Dorothy also emphasised the fact that you can't "Connect" if you don't "Share". In fact, all 4 elements of the kaupapa (connected, empowered, visible, ubiquitous) are important. They are all interconnected and can't exist without each other. 
I'm looking forward to next week's session on using "Explain Everything" in the Junior classes (Years 1-3). At our school, this is an important area to develop further.
Nga mihi
Casper

Success at Kokatahi-Kowhitirangi School

Reflection

Reflection, Week 5

Cohort 2 

I again enjoyed the new learning and discussions during today's sessions. Below are some of the aspects I would like to reflect on. 

I realised how important it is to develop Google class sites that are inclusive, differentiated and personalised. The way the class sites are designed is a reflection of what is happening in the different classrooms. Google Sites is an important part of what we use in terms of teaching and learning at our school. These need to be up to date, visually attractive and differentiated in terms of teaching and learning activities. This will encourage student engagement. Two important aspects were discussed by Kerry in this regard; multimodal design for behavioural engagement and multi-textural design for cognitive engagement. Thank you for explaining the difference, Kerry. 

Also, visibility is a very important part of sharing student learning. It opens up the world as an audience (removing barriers), as well as celebrating and accelerating learning. Personal and private assessment information is not shared in this way. 

I've used Google Sites for quite a few years now, but I'm glad that the current version is simplified and much more user friendly. 

I now have a deeper understanding of the different categories of Multi-text resources, but would like to revisit the T-shaped Literacy skills slides from Rebecca Jesson and Aaron Wilson. This is a great time for it as we intensify our teaching of reading by using Multi-text resources.  

We also worked this afternoon on creating a Google Site based on a Multi-text reading activity. A very helpful session indeed. Below is a link to the Site. 

Nga Wero - Culturally Responsive Learning Spaces