Sprucing up your site

This week's session was all about Enabling Access and being connected. I was feeling really excited about this session as I know my site needs some serious reworking. 

Dorothy began by summarising the priorities of Manaiakalani during lockdown, which we know are top priorities at all times. 

1. Being connected. During lockdown we made sure we were checking in with our learners everyday. We were fostering well-being on a digital platform. We've had this point reiterated time and time again - maintaining positive relationships is, and always will be paramount! 

2. Ako. We were encouraged to back ourselves as teachers. We all know our learners. We already have those connections face to face, so connecting via hangout or whatever other digital means wasn't too far out of our comfort zone. Don't get flustered by all the other jazz in our inboxes (offers of other digital platforms). Know your plan forward and harness the tools we've worked with. 

In light of wave 2 up in Auckland, and the possibility of another out break down south (fingers crossed this doesn't happen!) we need to make sure kids know how to join a meeting, mute their mic etc...Would my tamariki remember how to do these things? 

Key taking from Dorothy's intro this morning - If you want to be connected with other people, you have to be willing to share. It needs to be a 2 way thing. 

Sites

Questions to pose when creating a site ~ How is this enabling accelerated learning for our tamariki? What is the role of the teacher, the nature of the assigned task (SAMR), the nature of the site that is accessed by the learner, wat is content, degree of student choice and collaboration. What is it that we are doing for kids, whānau, and for our own practice. How are we making sure the learners are empowered? Is the learning accessible when they're with us and when they're not?

What is the purpose of a learning site? It is one-stop hub for learning, and learning should be accessible everywhere, any time, any place.  Visual appeal is important - hook your audience! Use consistent colours, keep the layout simple. Only use 2 fonts! Again, make sure the kids can get to their learning in 3 clicks! 

Here's a recipe for success when it comes to creating a site... 

We were given the chance to take a good look at some sites within Manaiakalani and assess visual appeal and site functionality.  Then we were invited to analyse each others' sites in our bubbles. This was a very interesting activity and I wonder if it would be valuable to do within our staff. I actually think it would be very valuable, if we tread carefully and kia tūpare! 

Kelsey and Dorothy talked about the benefits of using Google Analytics to investigate people viewing our sites. We could look at where these views were coming from, and how often. Something to speak to Fusion about ...

Here is the feedback that came from my group ~ 

"I love that is in in te reo Māori. I liked seeing your planning on the site - Also how you were using it for notes etc so you don't have to go to different places. It would be great if your teacher place maybe had images to make it easier for students to follow. Adding the link to the cybersmart site as a link may also be worthwhile. I wonder if it could be a wee bit more personalised to the students eg photos of them or their drawings as buttons etc. "

Here were my goals from the day, based on the above, and from what I'd seen on other class sites.

1. Get rid of some of the backgrounds - far too busy! Keep it simple! 
2. Add in a teacher section - images of me, Raewyn, Christine... so whānau can put a face to the name and email addresses if suitable. 
3. Add images on the home page buttons so tamariki who struggle with reading know where they are going (why didn't I think of that 8 months ago??) 
4. Add in a Google Form - a check-in for tamariki to tell me how they're feeling - this would have been amazing during lockdown!  

Here is my Rūma 7 Site. There's lots of mahi still to be done, but getting there slowly nonetheless. Should be more than happy with it by December. 

Kupu Hou (new words) from today

Cybersmart - Ngā Tapuwae                Website Links - Kuputoro

Blogging Tips & Spam

We spent the last part of the afternoon talking about spam. There have always been procedures in place to deal with spam. Never, ever, ever click on a link. It might be something as simple as data numbers for their (who ever is leaving the messages) analytics, or it might be something more sinister. As soon as you click, they know your page is active and they've got you! Make sure you always mark spam, it trains Google to recognise spam in the future. Spambots tend to be aim towards older posts. Set moderation on posts older than 14 days. 

Today was another interesting day. It's nice to have time to put some of my new learning into practice. I'm looking forward to getting some feedback from my wee cherubs on Monday. 

Over and out.

A dry day at the office...

Developing Mathematical Inquiry ~ Session 3

Professional development certainly makes you appreciate what our children go through each day. Too much talking/death by slideshow can be painful and sends me straight to day-dream land. Today was certainly a full on day, with a lot to take in. I find this kaupapa really interesting, so there was no time for day dreaming! Keeping track of my thoughts here is a great way to stay focused. 

The jury is still out when it comes to DMIC at our kura. Here are my takings from the day...

Practise justification and argumentation 

88 / 4 = 44 / 2 + 44 / 2 

Look at the elements involved in solving the problem. In this case, there are 3. 

1. Understanding the meaning of the '='. Means, 'is the same as'.

2. BEDMAS - understanding the order of operations.

3. Knowing the divisor can not be halved, only the dividend can be divided.

When children are sharing their ideas, call a pause frequently and ask other groups to repeat, agree/disagree, ask a question...  

Justifying and Arguing Mathematically

What is the difference between an explanation and a justification? An explanation might be incorrect, there is room for error. A justification dives deeper and proves beyond doubt that the explanation is correct. 

Explicitly model ways to justify an explanation. Use 'because'.

Always call a pause after an explanation! 

Prepare students of justify and argue

Build the expectation that all children need to be able to prove with a why. Build resilience.  The whole group needs to function together.  Prepare collaborative responses. 

Stand back from groups - monitor. Ask yourself - if I have to go to that group, why am I? Ask a question that's going to stimulate thinking.

Pre-warning - make sure kids are clear with what they're going to share back to the group. "What will you say next? Then what? Then what?" Set them up for success! 

Encourage kids to unpack their thoughts. Can they use a visual representation? Can they explain it in another way? Can they number the steps in their process?

Strengthen students to respond the challenge

Explicitly use wait time. Encourage the use of so if, then, because.  Pre-warn, "I'm going to ask you to repeat just one idea." Know when the right time is to call on a child who might not usually contribute. If they're struggling with a response - "Do you want think time in order to revise your thinking?" Have a signal so a child knows when you're going to call on them.

What are the norms in the classroom? Have high expectations from the outset. "You will listen the first time so you don't need to ask for a repeat!"  

Good questions to ask 

• Can you convince us?
• How do you know it works?
• Why does it work like that?

Develop a generalisation

Big Idea - is like your Achievement Objective.

Generalisation - Success Criteria.  

Find your big idea, then look at what generalisations come out from that. 

Find teachable moments  - Know the difference between a misconception and a gap in foundations. Gaps can be parked and addressed as a group at a later time. I'm not going to use the words 'ability based groupings'...... but I just did. Misconceptions might be addressed at that moment.  

Think about the entry point of the task. Can each child enter at their own level? Low floor, high ceiling.  Is there a place for extension? Challenge more able learners to share in different way, eg. visual representation. If the task is solved too quickly, it's an issue with the task. 

Examples of questions - create a wall of questions. Add to one at a time, not all at once!

Developing Proficient Leaners

Attend to the culture

Choose high-level problematic tasks

Anticipate

Select and sequence

Allow student thinking to shape discussions

Plan for a connection

Intentionally lift the Status of the Tamariki

Point out the status of all kids, especially those who might not usually contribute. 

All kids need to see what 'smarts' they bring to their group.

Make the problems relevant to their lives (cultural context).

There are no passengers on the waka - everyone is paddling!

We make decisions about other people's ability on the basis of certain characteristics. Don't under estimate the impact of teacher body language/reaction to kids responses!

Conjecture ~ an opinion without sufficient proof. 

What does being smart mean? Ask the kids to tell you what they think!

- I'm good at asking questions?

- I never give up!

- I can explain my thinking?

My next steps

1. In planning - give more thought to relating the possible generalisations to the big idea

2. Refer to the framework more often.

3. Embed the norms - lift the status.

Fine-tuning

Our kaupapa this week is Collaborate ~ Sites

This week I'm onsite as we have a staff meeting on my usual day.  One thing is for sure - online sessions are definitely faster paced! It made a nice change to have more time to play, and explore a bit more thoroughly. It was funny to note how much more confident I am to ask questions when I'm in my safe bubble, rather than with 25 people I've never meet. I'm grateful I chose the online option. 

Visible learning

Again, Dorothy started us off with some words of wisdom and good reminders about best practice. So, visibility - can you see it or can you not? Visibility allows parents and whānau to be genuine partners in the learning process. We've kept so much of the learning journey hidden from children and whānau.  Break down those barriers to visibility! Dorothy talked about removing/limiting password barriers, share links, make files accessible!   If there's too many bubble wrap, barriers, steps etc... parents switch off, get locked out - more profoundly than in the past. Visibility also needs to be present between colleagues. Intentional use of technology to make learning visible is a game changer.

Dorothy explained to us that each kaiako in their kāhui ako had a professional blog. I wondered how this would go down at Hornby Primary! Maybe a goal for the future?

Multi-Modal Learning Tasks

Multi-modal always been a thing. Snail-mail, face book, you tube, phones, faxes, etc... As adults, we'd rather watch instructions than read them. The same can be said for our tamariki, surely? We have to compete with the bright lights and visual excitement from all the other digital exposure our kids get - gaming, tiktok etc.... so we need to make sure our hook is going to catch them and hold them for their learning!

There are 2 levels of engagement when using MM texts ~ Behavioural engagement and Cognitive engagement.  Behavioural engagement is the hook. It's getting the kids in the right mind-frame for learning.  The hook - it's all about window dressing! It needs to be a visual feast! Cognitive engagement is the deeper feature kinda stuff - the T shaped literacy, the cognitive demands. You can't have cognitive engagement until you have behavioural engagement! 

Some wise words from Chrissy Butler around Universal Design for Learning ~ Be careful we're not narrowing parameters. Create learning opportunities with lots of options for how to present. Otherwise we're doing the same thing we were doing pre-digital days, just with flasher equipment. Interesting point to note - when I'm planning activities, I set myself as the default. I plan activities in the way that I might like to do, or in a way I think the children might like. The teacher is not the default! There is no default! What engages one learning might not engage another. 

Something I'd like to try ~ scaffolded guides for kids to work through their MM tasks, eg colour in the circle when you've finished the task. This would be very cool if all my tamariki had email addresses!

Something that really excited me ~ in Slides - use the little blue camera on the top right side of the screen to record. The video is saved to your drive and automatically uploads to the page you are working on. Or use Online voice recorder (you will have to upload it to your drive to be able to insert it in to slides).

Click HERE  for some great MM learning programmes. Great time savers. I often forget (or maybe it's the anal retentiveness) that there's no need to reinvent the wheel.    

Google Sites

Some tips from Mark Maddren 

• Make sure kids can get where they need to go in 3 clicks or less!
• Create a new site each year so you have evidence of teaching practice.
• Buttons - get the kids to design their own!
• Use the immersive reader extension - tamariki can highlight text from a site, blow it up, highlight the nouns, verbs, etc...  

After morning tea we had the opportunity to play around with a new site. Mark suggested making a site rather than slides when creating a learning programme for tamariki. One benefit is that it's much easier to insert audio clips. I played around with my kaupapa plan on Tōku Tinana. I do prefer to use Slides when creating MM learning programmes, However I will definitely use Sites to link in new kaupapa from now on.   

Blogger Tips 

Our final part of the day was spent playing with our blog.

Make sure labels are used. It's a good way to link to your appraisal. Make sure you set the display to 'cloud' so that kaupapa you have written about more frequently are larger in size.  

Here's a game changer from Kelsey which was shared last week but I needed time to get my head around it.  Use this link to insert links into your blog post. 

<a href="insert URL here">Insert display text here</a>

Go to HTML view and past it in there. Add the link into the URL part, and the text in to the other section. So easy - Thanks Kelsey! 

Today was another full on day, but definitely got a bit more breathing space and time to reflect which was very handy. Looking forward to next sesison.

Ngā manaakitanga. 

It's all about making connections

Today's session was around tohatoha (share)

Once again, Dorothy had some wise words of wisdom to impart pretty early on in the session. Step aside from the teaching world for one moment and think about our own presence on social media. Social media is all about sharing. The digital world has made it normalised to share whatever we are doing, where ever we are! Instantly! Everywhere around us we're encouraged to connect with others, to broadcast ourselves, to share our lives. Our breakfast is not just for our viewing pleasure anymore. We, as individuals can't connect with someone if we can't share in some way with them. Think about that awkward conversation at dinner party with a person who just won't engage. We move away as quickly as we can and find someone else to make connections with. 

Sharing in the classroom is really no different. However, it is the purpose of sharing now has a bit more clarity. I always thought the sole purpose of sharing was to show parents and whānau (maybe a grandparent, or some stranger from the other side of the world) the amazing learning their tamaiti had been a part of.

The purpose is not for tamariki to connect with parents and whānau. It's a great side benefit, but there's way more to it. The purpose is to teach tamariki to to be confident and informed digital citizens. We want them to be cyber-smart, and we want their comments towards others to be positive, thoughtful, and helpful. I am curious about this ideology. I think about the keyboard warriors, the over-shares, the quite frightening and naive way we've become so flippant about sharing our lives with the world.  I wonder whether this focus on digital citizenship, cyber safety, and just plain ol' be-kind-or-keep-scrolling attitude will shine through in the near future. I hope so.

Dorothy also touched on the definition of an 'authentic' audience. These are people who CHOOSE to listen to you. That doesn't include the 250 tamariki sitting in assembly on Friday. Interesting. I see value in putting time aside for blog commenting in class. Tamariki are making a choice to visit their peers' posts. They are interested, not forced. We're currently in the middle of a blog commenting competition across our school. It's been absolutely wonderful to see the dramatic increase in whanāu choosing to comment on their child's blog, but on the other hand it's bitterly disheartening to know that those comments have only appeared due to lots of nagging from tamariki and promises of spot prizes.      

A nice reminder for me, and I think all classes in our kura was that traditional ways to share are still extremely valid. They are hugely important. This reminder really appealed to me, as it's easy to forget that there's still value in using a pen and a book. Digital learning is an addition not a complete replacement. 

Dorothy's final reminder was that Learn ~ Create ~ Share needn't be linear. Tamariki can share to finish their learning,  or they can share to start new learning. I thought this was an easy way to look at it.  

Todays focus...

Google Forms. 

I had fun playing round with this, but to be honest, it's not something I would use with my tamariki.

              

Google Maps 

The number 1 piece of information I took from this deep dive was that it's not going to be in the exam. I don't think this section was particularly relevant to my practice, however I would like to try and map out Marae around Aotearoa my tamariki mihi to, and I can see it would be very helpful mapping out an upcoming family holidays to Auckland if we're ever allowed back up there. 

A trick - Set 'default view' using 3 dots on the left rather than zooming in and out all the time. 

Google Sheets

This was the major focus for the day and was very helpful. I learned abit more about conditional formatting, which is exactly what I'd been needing to work on. Our task was to analyse our children's blog posts which I have shared below. I think my more confident tamariki could definitely do this themselves. It would make for a great pāngarau activity. 

Tips and tricks ...  

Use the thicker bars in the top left corner to lock in columns and/or rows when viewing lots of data

Resizing rows - Selecting all rows you need by clicking on the letter and moving across. Allows you to resize all rows in one hot. Click on first row, hold shift, hit last row and resize.  

Adding numbers - go to the box you want the total to go into. Go to signa key and click sum. Highlight the data you want to tally and hit enter.  

Increase or decrease decimal places for tidier numbers.

Drag handle (plus sign that appears when you hover on the small box at the bottom right of the cell) works downwards and across. 

Changing formats - 123 format and drop down arrow will change the format if you have mixed letters and numbers you want to tidy up. 

Use the filter function (looks like a funnel) to sort and filter by age, score, gender etc...

Conditional formatting was lots of fun! Use alternating colours to make it easier on the eye! The explore tool is down the bottom!

Once again, my brain was fried at the end of the day. However there was lots to take away, and I'm enjoying being a part of it all. 

Until next week!

Let the Creative Juices Flow

Today's session delved into Hanga (Create) and how we can use different media to do so. It was a very full on day and I definitely felt I needed some more bubble time before we went our seperate ways. I've learnt something about myself these last 3 sessions - I'm fast becoming the girl in everyones fifth form history class who won't stop asking annoying questions. Yep, and I'm fine with that!   

Prior to jumping on board the Manaiakalani waka I'd always kind of viewed my role as a Year 9 teacher as the one who imparts the knowledge. This is not to say I thought I was the 'expert' by any means, but I definitely thought it was my job to 'fill' my 29 wee 'vessels' with as much knowledge as I could in 1 year. Enough that could set them up nicely for secondary programmes and NCEA. Tick those boxes, Miss Jackson, and if you ignite some creativity and passion, then bonus point I suppose. I remember watching Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk - "Do Schools kill Creativity?" and thinking I got it. I thought I understood the importance and place of creativity in the classroom. Not really. Today's intro got me thinking about that clip once more, and how much deeper now my understanding is. I know that creators are not merely consumers and my role is to support creative thinking. I really like this statement Dorothy shared with us ~ creating is a purpose for learning. Not a by-product, not a 'if we have time' kinda deal.

Early in the morning Dorothy also shared with us a blog post by Robin Sutton (Principal of Hornby High School) and his reference to Alan November and the $1000 pencil. This means applying new tools to old ways of doing things. What a fantastic analogy. It's a little bit cringe-worthy to admit that 10 years ago I employed many $1000 pencils in my own classroom! I remember being really excited about the 2 ipads and mac-book that suddenly appeared in my room. What did we do with them? Typed stories and looked at augmented reality sites on rainy day lunch times. How engaging. Face palm.

The rest of the Day 3 was an absolute brain-frying experience. It was a little overwhelming as there was a lot of content that really appealed to me. 

Here are my key takings from the day...

Youtube

Make sure what I upload is Unlisted, and make sure the commenting is turned off.

Head to 'Studio Youtube' to change settings/content and comments/listing etc...

To make it a kids channel ~ Go to 'Channel' then 'Advanced Settings'.

To turn off commenting and make videos unlisted ~ 'Upload defaults'

One thing I never understood - The Channel is where you are uploading content to!

If I want to share a playlist - click in to the playlist, click on the 3 dots, then 'Playlist settings', 'Allow embedding', close the box, 'Share' playlist, grab the code. Easy.

One of our Deep Dives today was on Media

Satchi & Satchi advertising came up with SiSiMo - sight, sound, and motion. This concept is just as reevant in learning as it is in advertising. You have the be entertained at the same time as you're being informed!

By the way... When videoing - footage should aways be landscape.

Google Draw ~ Tanga Kūkara

To set page size ~ 'File', then 'Page set up' or 'customise'.

Use 'View' ~ Guides to add lines, quadrants etc for spacing.

You can crop to a shape! Use the drop down arrow next to crop tool.

Shift+click and drag - will ensure the shape stays perfect - use this in Slides too!

Download as a 'png'. This allows the background to be transparent!

Always stick to size small when embedding/publishing to the web.

Ata Kūkara ~ Google Slides

Use tweet length talk

A picture really is worth 1000 words! Use pictures!

Ditch the defaults, stop using the fancy formats and themes. K.I.S.S!

Keep fonts to a minimum

My WOW moment today was using Google Slides to make awesome animations/DLO's for kids to share. 

Slides

When we want to publish to the Web, Click on 'Embed', change slide size to small, auto-advance every 1 second, publish, ctrl+c, embed to site!   

From Seesaw you have to click on 'View Google Doc'. Then click 'Present'. This is a bit of a pain and won't look as cool as on blogger.

Using the 'Explore' function gives other template options!

Use the + on the left hand side to add slides instead of going to 'Slide'

For transitions - Click on the text box so that it is a 4 point arrow. Use left/right arrows to move in a straight line. I'll need to investigate how this looks on an ipad. 

If I want tamariki to watch a portion of a video I've inserted  - 'Insert', 'Video', choose where you will inset from. On the right hand side - select when you want the clip to begin and end. If the box disappears, click on 'Format option'

We had 30 minutes to 'Level up' and hone in on one of the areas we had looked at up until this point. I choose Slides, and got to play round with creating an animation. This will fit perfectly with our Kaupapa Māori at the moment - Ko Maui me te Rā ~ Maui and the Sun. I know the boys particularly will be really excited and I can't wait to show them some of the work from other tamariki in the cluster.

After lunch we carried on with Slides. We looked at how to use Slides to create numeracy DLO's. Our task was to create a town following set guidelines. We've been investigating 2D shapes at kura, so I can't wait to try this with them too - I know they will love it! 

Here's my play-time creation.