DFI Day 7 - Enabling Access - Sites

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

One thing that stuck in my mind from today's session was that 'connected learners share'. For students to gain the most of the share component they need to be able to connect with the people reading their content, and vice versa. When children blog their work they are making it accessible to the public which allows anyone from around the world to read and comment on their learning.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I am becoming more and more fluent with the technology that I am using, especially when creating buttons on Google Drawing for my class site. I learnt that you have to download the Google Drawing as a PNG so that I can attach a link to the image on Google Sites. I have made my class site a lot more user friendly by having less tabs, updated buttons and groupings of the students in reading, writing and math. 

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

We explored other schools class sites and I found an excellent planning example for inquiry where the students have a range of inquiry topics to explore with step by step instructions. Throughout the term each student selects an inquiry topic and has the week to complete the task. 

Manaiakalani has a Twitter account that pushes all Blogger posts to their Twitter page.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Version History - Life saver for deleted work. (Click: File, version history, click the version  you want to restore, click restore at top of page). 

You can also see who has contributed to the page. See below. 

DFI Day 3

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Today I learnt about some new ways of sharing students learning and creativity with whanau. We listened to Kent who shared how his school uses drones and student videos to live stream events such as cross country, rugby games and netball games for families around New Zealand and the world to watch live. This was a great look at just what is capable in this forever changing digital world and outlined just how important sharing is.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I feel as tough I have a huge bank of creative ideas to go and explore which is developing my confidence and really empowering me as a professional to develop and implement these ideas in my classroom. I can see that through engaging in today's activities just how powerful they really are. I have been so engaged and focused in the digital tasks which has really shown me the importance of this digital technology. 

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

I used Google Drawing to create an image including text to welcome people to my blog. I used Bitmoji to add a animated picture of myself and learnt how to add this to the sidebar on my blog. This is a great site that I will use in the future with my students when creating digital drawings. 

I also used Google Slides to create an animation of a shark eating a fish. This activity was very engaging and I could see this being a very effective activity that I am going to try and implement into my teaching next week. I added this slide to my class learning hub and will use our animations as part of our writing!

I also learnt how to add a a slide to blog by going into; File, publish to web, embed, publish, ctrl copy https;//. Next you have to open blogger, hit new, click into http and ctrl paste. 

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I can see that I am becoming a lot more confident at using all of Google Suite and I am coming away from these sessions with a brain overload of how I can use all of this content. I can use some of the skills learnt today for my own personal blog which has helped develop my confidence with using Blogger.