Creating with ipads ~ PLD with Emma Planicka

Today could have been the first day of my holiday break.... but I decided instead to spend the day with a pretty awesome individual who's certainly given me a major skill boost in all things Seesaw and Apple over the past 4 years ~ The lovely Emma Planicka.

The importance of creativity in the classroom was our focus for the day. We began with a really cool warm up activity using Quickdraw with Google. You get 20 seconds to draw an object assigned to you. Very cool. I know some of my tamariki would really struggle with this, but what a novel way to shift thought patterns and shake up the ol' hinengaro.

Once again, as covered in our DFI course, Digital fluency is key! Tamariki need to know how to do the basics (take photos, unlock their ipad, hold the ipad correctly etc) before they can develop digital competency. Little and often from the very beginning of the year is the way to go and makes up-skilling so much easier later in the year.

Emma made reference to some of Sir Ken Robinson's ideas around creativity. In one of his most famous TED Talks, he shares the idea (among many fabulous thoughts) that creativity is as important as literacy and should be treated with the same respect. Also, that schools educate children away from creativity. Food for thought. After 17 years on the classroom, I've certainly seen a shift in the importance placed on creativity, particularly working within a Learn, Create, Share kura. I really like that these ideas were expressed long before the digitally savvy classrooms of todays schools. These ideas are just as relevant now as they were in an unplugged era. Emma then made a link to the SAMR model. When planning, she suggested we ask ourselves, "Where does my planning sit within this model?" Is there room for creativity? 

A quote that really appealed to me this morning linked both to Sir Ken's kōrero, and the SAMR model, "To learn is not to consume ideas, but to create, and re-create them." Paulo Freire, Brazilian Educator. 

We explored and created with some very cool apps.  

Cool tips and ideas...

• Build a digital kete on the wall. Fill it as the term goes by with apps we have learned how to use. Give students opportunity to decide which app they think best to use for a task! 
• Use Markup to play with photos. it's an easy way to get in some digital fluency skills. It's in the camera.
• Sketches School - 2 finger tap to undo, 2 finger tap and slide to redo! Use the scalpel to copy and paste (drag with 2 fingers to the right).
• In any app, if you want to open another smaller side app (for example, camera roll) - gently scroll up from the bottom, the select the app, hold, and drag to the side.  
• Share arrow = 'sharrow!'
• Make use of Accessibility features in Settings - use assistive touch to enable modelling on the Apple TV. Go to Settings, Control Centre, Accessibility Shortcuts (under More Controls). This puts it in the right corner drag down menu.
• Use 5 finger pinch to close down apps!
• Opening the search bar from the home page - swipe down form the middle. Will also show you the most recently used apps. 
• Chrome Music Lab - a fun and free app to create sounds. Can you save sounds?
• When tamariki accidentally split the keyboard, just use 2 fingers to slide it back together!
• Sharing from Garageband - Left hand menu, hold finger on your creation until menu drops down. Select share

Drawing using Markup

Playing with Sketches School & Keynote

Creating using Clips and Garageband

That's a wrap, folks!

We began the our final day with Dorothy and another insight into the Manaiakalani pedagogy. Today ~ Ubiquitous Learning. The word 'Ubiquitous' has certainly been a new word for me in these last few years. What does it mean? Put very simply - "present, appearing, or found everywhere." So then, what is ubiquitous learning? It's learning anywhere, anytime, anyplace, from anyone. Distance learning certainly fast tracked us on that journey! 

Ubiquitous learning goes hand in hand with Rewindable Learning. Another new-ish term for me. We talk a lot about this concept and the importance of it through a Learn, Create, Share lens. Again this is something I struggle to get my head around and I've chatted to a few colleagues over the years about it; particularly in the junior school. To be completely honest, I'm not sure I have a clear grasp on what rewindable learning should/could ideally look like in a junior setting... YET. I employ multi-modal learning opportunities (only in reading at present), 75% of our learning is accessible via our class site... is there more to it than that? 

We discussed the following points with Kelsey in our small bubbles - "Reflecting on the kaupapa of the Manaiakalani programme in light of Covid-19, and your readiness for rewindable learning... What are you most proud of? What do you regret? What have you taken forward into the 'new' era of learning?" 

My reflections on those questions and my own burning questions...

• I'm grateful to Covid-19 for throwing me head first into the deep end and pushing me to step outside of my digital-comfort zone. But what am I proud of...?
• If there was to be Lockdown: Season 2, I'd enjoy the opportunity to put my new skills into action. But otherwise, I have 'no regerts' at all around what we did in Season 1.  
• How much, and what aspects of learning should be rewindable? 
• What is the purpose of making it visible/rewindable if my Year 2 tamariki don't require access to that particular material on more than 1-2 occasions? 
• Even if they are accessing material on multiple occasions, why does it need to be all be through our site? 
• Unless we go in to Season 2, why does a junior child need to access learning from home? I would hate to think my cherubs were sitting in front of a device doing more mahi after school hours - although they are sitting in front of a device for far too long after school, and it's spent playing Fortnight or watching Tiktok. 
• Everything on my site is visible to whānau at home - How many would look at this at home with their tamaiti?  

I recall our staff sat down together and shared ideas around how our teaching would change post-lockdown back in May. I don't believe my teaching has changed at all as a result. Although I'm certainly ready for the next wave, should it hit. Everything was visible beforehand. What we did during lockdown was certainly not what I'd ideally do in the classroom, or outside of a pandemic, by any means. But that begs the question - am I missing something? To be continued I think....

So, the real fun began at 10am when I logged into the Google Level 1 Certification exam. For 3 hours straight I furiously clicked, copied, and pasted, and wracked my brain for any memories of how to use the plethora of Google apps that we'd spent 9 weeks prior learning about. I look forward to getting my results - which I was a bit disappointed to learn will take 14 days to process. Must say, it was an amazing feeling to click 'submit' at the end of it all. 

After lunch we had a 30 minute Slam presented by all the facilitators. This was to load us up with some last minute tips, tricks, and apps that hadn't been included during the previous weeks. Some good stuff in here! 

My goals going forward are...

• Use ScratchJR for pepeha - this looks like a really fun way to display pepeha and whakapapa. 
• Play round with a Google Forms - lost track of how long I've been saying that.
• Meet with the Learn, Create, Share team to discuss a plan forward for blog commenting.
• Take a moment to reflect, and look back over the past 9 posts. 
• Can I implement 1 new learning each week? Each fortnight? 

Ngā mihi nunui ki te whānau Manaiakalani! Special thanks to Kelsey for all your support! I look forward to moving forward with a bursting kete matauranga! 

Ngā manaakitanga. 

Nearly there!

Todays session was on Computational Thinking. 

Dorothy kicked off with some discussion around the word 'empower'. Manaiakalani is all about empowering learners and teachers. She discussed the idea of rangatiratanga, which means people taking back control of their world around them, in this case, the digital world. 

We need to check our understanding and that of our students and whānau of why we use digital learning tools. They're not 'just a tool.' If we see ipads and chromebooks as 'just a tool', then we may as well revert back to the trusty pencil. Digital tools transform the way we learn. "They enables students to enter and explore new learning opportunities, overcoming barriers of distance and time." (NZC, 2007).

We also discussed that which can dis-empower our learners in low decile schools. Access to money and resources, prior life and learning experiences, conversations with parents all contribute to empowerment. So if we look at tamariki who miss out on large chunks of that, we know that equity becomes an issue. Digital devices owned by the child allow for empowerment, not only for the child in terms of learning, but access to resources, empowerment for parents (getting a credit rating, bringing connectivity to the home etc). 

I always enjoy listening to Dorothy's morning kōrero and today was no exception. It was so uplifting to hear her addressing the ways we can help empower our students and whānau and get them taking back that control.

Next was a Chalk and Talk with Kerry on the new Hangarau Matihiko ~ Digitial Technologies Curriculum.

This new addition to our curriculum allows tamariki to tell their story. Their own voice can be heard. They can be directors and producers of their learning. We talk about being 'Digitally fluent' all the time, this means being able to decide when and why we would choose to use specific digital technologies. We can create our own digital technologies solutions. It underpins everything that follows.

The curriculum is broken down into 2 sections. 

I have struggled to get my head around what computational thinking really means, however found this helpful definition ~  It’s the process of breaking down a problem into simple enough steps. When children develop computational skills they are able to articulate a problem and think logically. It helps them to break down the issues and predict what may happen in the future. It’s helping them to explore cause and effect. Kerry broke it down even further and explained that teaching a child to cross the road is a really good example of an unplugged computational thinking activity. Eg, stop, look left, look right, look left again, make a decision...

After morning tea we had a Chalk 'n Talk from Vicki about prepping and registering for the exam next week. This will be Level 1 Google Certification (following an American exam system). Sounds like there is an exam just to get in to the exam! This is our opportunity to get a piece of paper that's recognised on an international level. It's not a reflection of our understandings of Manaiakalani pedagogy. It sounds extremely full on and I can't say I'm looking forward to it!     

We had the opportunity to play round with some coding activities after lunch. I tried to do a mihi maker using gamefroot however the wheel of death spinning round and around stopped me from entering the page. I will definitely try again as this looked like a really attractive and fun way to share pepeha and develop coding skills at the same time. EDIT: After chatting to a colleague, I found that Gamefroot would not be the best user-friendly app for my tamariki.

I also need to add in some functions here on my site to make sure I hit the requirements for this course. EDIT: preeeeeetty sure that's done!

I will be back to tidy up this page and add my coding creation later! Edit: Nope, that's it folks.

iPads, and Chromebooks, and Blogger, oh my!

 The focus today was all about using devices and being CyberSmart. 

We began with Fiona Grant who talked about being CyberSmart and how this looks within Manaiakalani. The term Cybersmart is all about empowering people. It's about creating successful digital citizens through intentional programmes that support that kaupapa. It's all about keeping our tamariki safe, and being smart and secure. It was a good reminder to check out the CyberSmart programme on the Manaiakalani site. There are term by term units of mahi to implement with the tamariki. Term 1: Smart Learners, Term 2: Smart Footprints, Term 3: Smart Relationships. I always begin the year with a strong focus, but have never looked beyond Term 2.  I also really liked the look of this programme by Google for another attractive option to share with the tamariki.  

Some interesting points to note/thoughts I have at this stage: 

•  For children to develop as digital citizens, they need to be making choices about what they want to share. What they are creating and sharing has value and can make an impact. So then, what are they proud of? What will their whānau be proud of? Our tamariki are posting what we tell them to post, there's little room for empowerment in this respect. 
• We used to tell tamariki - don't share anything personal. But actually, we want to empower them to make their own decisions. They can decide, "Is this information I'm happy and proud to say/share? What does it say about me and my digital footprint?" 
• How are we supporting our whānau to connect with their child's online learning and how to be CyberSmart? This is very timely for us at kura. At the moment we're running a blog commenting competition across the school for parents and whānau. On the whole it's failing horribly due to a number of factors. Poor visibility after the initial sales pitch, staff not pushing it with their children, parents just not wanting to comment! It's extremely frustrating. So many factors... where to begin? 
• The meaning of an 'authentic' audience - which we covered a few weeks back. This is an audience that CHOOSES to view/comment on what you are sharing. So here we are currently trying to beg parents to comment on their child's blog (and the majority still can't do that) for a period of 10 weeks. What happens after that? 
• Manaiakalani push the blog commenting format - Is it Positive, is it thoughtful, is it helpful? This is great however very intimidating for our parents and whānau. We just want them connecting, so we're encouraging them to give feedback as simple as, "Ka pai my boy!"  
• Do my tamariki need individual bogs? We're implementing a lot of the learn, create, share kaupapa I've picked up over the past 7 weeks, but 1 email address for the whole class is not cutting the mustard. This would mean I'd need more ipads so we could be 1:1 (smiling sweetly at you here, Gary). 

Manaiakalani have aligned the Principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi ~ Partnership, Participation and Protection ~  to their kaupapa. These principles transcend time and generations and are relevant to a child developing their digital footprint. It's all about engagement through 1:1 ownership. Dorothy also touched on the BYOD kaupapa. Bring Your Own...Disaster?? Had a wee chuckle here. Different devices do not allow for equity and access.  

After this wee chalk 'n Talk we had 30minutes to play with a Chromebook. This was really helpful as we've been using our TA's Chromebook to allow us 1 more device to use in the classroom. Some really helpful shortcuts can be found HERE.

After second break we had a chance to focus on ipads which is very relevant to me. Lot's of discussion today was around tamariki having their own devices. This is something we're hopefully working on in my akomanga. We're currently on 15 ipads and 1 mac for 19 tamariki. Not too far off. Dorothy mentioned that a stylus is essential for fine motor coordination! We had time to pay around with Explain Everything after this chalk 'n talk session. It's been sometime since I've used it and I know my previous experience hasn't been overly user-friendly. Perhaps now I've had time to explore I'll feel more confident. As you'll hear in my kirata below, it's tricky juggling Seesaw and apps pushed by Manaiakalani. 

We also created a rauemi that would help us introduce the Kawa of Care kaupapa we implement with the tamariki. I really struggled with this... again due to our use of Seesaw in the junior school. I'd really love to hear from other junior teachers who feel that pull between Manaikalani and Seesaw! Here's a wee rauemi I made anyway. 

Goals for the week 

• Trial Google Forms. I've been saying that for 2 weeks.
• Re-introduce Explain Everything with the tamariki. Keep a positive attitude.
• Hassle the powers that be for 4 more ipads. 

Today was another full on day, and I certainly wasn't expecting anything less. Kelsey also taught us some great tip for Blogger which I'm definitely starting to get the hang of a little more. At this point I'm really struggling with some of the thoughts I shared earlier. Where to even begin? Am I over thinking it? Lots of discussion to be had, me thinks. Right now I'm off to enjoy the sun. 

Ngā mihi nunui ki a koutou, kua pānuitia āku whakaaro.