Coding in the dark!

If ever I’ve felt like a dinosaur, today is the day.  What is coding?  Imagine I would have given a fairly tragic description prior to today, as we plunged into some challenging learning with Tōnui Collab.  We explored the revamped Digital Technologies Curriculum, which includes examples in action such as coding Makey makey to make sounds from bottle caps, encryption, decryption, video analysis, computer simulation, program robots, using presentation software or creating QR codes...  augmented or virtual reality.  Strewth, it sounds like I’m using another language.  Feeling rather green, to put it kindly.  Coding using Cospaces?  For now I will stick to my neighbour's Sega master-system I used approximately twice when I was eight... or batdown cricket.  I don’t think I’ll be developing or coding the next fandangled video game to go viral, or any grand exciting animation.  What I don’t know about this area of the curriculum, and the tools we used today could fill a warehouse.  So the hunches of inadequacy will be popped to the side, and I’ll come back to all of this another day when my brain is fresh, and try to reduce how much I don’t know, don’t get, don’t understand.

Enjoyed Dave’s piece of visible, a key component on the Manaiakalani kaupapa.  Putting more learning into a visible place, so that learners know where they’re going.  The interactive whiteboards are now in the hands of the learners.

A highlight from today was a collaborative Tangram activity which saw us competing against other teams, and leaning on our computational thinking.  Shannon suggested perhaps our local Menzshed may be able to make some tangrams for us to use in class.   Ooh, also, coding with Briar and Cheryl.  We designed the code to get the blindfolded person to the finish spot.  Well done Briar on your brilliant instructions.  Specific language made it possible to reach the destination with minimum debugging required.  A round of Kahoot helped us to think really carefully about e-Learning, ICT capabilities and Digital Technologies.

Friday 23rd August DFI 5 - Enabling Access

Sharing… from a cup of coffee, to tears.  Sharing is an important part of connecting which has been around since the dawn of time.  How social media impacted the way we share is huge. Many of which were established in 2005.  Youtube followed this… their tag line is BROADCAST YOURSELF. Yet another option for sharing, which may quench that compulsion to share that many of us have.  Manaiakalani work throughout the country to create more opportunities for learners to share with a wider, authentic audience… one of Manaiakalani’s original goals.  Connected learners share. Positive thoughtful Helpful. Traditional modes of sharing are limited. In the digital age, it is unlimited and can been seen and shared anytime, anywhere, any place however with this freedom comes responsibility.  Compulsory audience vs authentic audience… ‘people who choose to listen to you’.

Reasons Manaiakalani have stuck with Blogger:  Blogger is functionally similar and visually
resembles the kinds of social/sharing spaces that young learners badly want to be part of. 
Blogger is a safe, toyota corolla style of online platform.

Something else Gerhard presented about which made plenty of sense was having sharing
as a motivation for task completion… and that’s the hook.  Share, to encourage the
completion of the learning process. Sharing what they’ve finished is exciting!
The prospect of receiving meaningful, thoughtful, helpful feedback is exciting, too.  

Sharing to LEARN!  Sharing the process is very important, rather than just sharing the
finished product.  Encourage learners to share along the way.

I learnt about blog gadgets and analytics which inform you about your audience and who
is visiting your blog.  Gaining a greater audience takes mahi, you can’t ‘sit back on the
beach and wait for them to come’ Gerhard explained during our Google Meet today. 
I watched the 1Direction parody about Cyber Smart sharing - funny! Main message
was to keep your address and number off the internet! One important message from
One Direction.

WOW - THIS SITE.  Enjoying the visual appeal as well as the usability.  

This Pt England Example… wow, slide four is a child’s perspective of a well functioning
Site.  I learnt that it is helpful when you’re designing your Site, to think about if you
want a theme.  Consider how the learners will be viewing the Site ie. chromebook or iPad.
Do a plan!  This way your collaborative team is more likely to be happy with the result.

Racquel’s Site is so eye-catching and I love all of the learning clips on there… helpful!

In closing, highlight of the day has to be the complimentary colour schemes website…
such a handy tool to copy and use the hex!  I may have already bookmarked it and chosen
my favourite mustard...

Prodigy Maths is described as a free gaming site which incorporates maths.
Google Takeout is a tool which helps you to transfer docs to another Drive outside your
domain… handy! Tim wanted to see the customised buttons I'd made so here you go.
Congratulations on doing yours, they look great!

DFI FOUR - Devices, Friday 16th August

In the week gone, I’ve managed to customise buttons on the new Google Site I created, pleased with that.  Just need to check how to make buttons usable for navigation. 

Maria presented about being Manaiakalani feels it’s vital that children are at home in a digital world.  This means that being Cybersmart is paramount, and explicitly teaching digital citizenship and children’s understanding of their digital footprint is required.  How you behave online needs to be worded positively… when we are online we are kind, we are helpful, we are responsible. Fits really nicely with our schools PB4L kaupapa.

Rewindable learning allows learning to take place at any time, any place, at ANY PACE.  Learning is ubiquitous.

Manaiakalani help to implement the Kawa of Care in schools, so that across whanau, community, staff, learners and different schools the understanding and language used is the same.

Interesting to learn about what the Hapara tool can do. It allows the teacher to focus on the learning, rather than needing to manage the technology.  You have visibility into what the children are doing, you can give feedback, and differentiate what you ask children to do. Allows you to see in their Drive.  I like that you can hover your cursor over their docs and see a thumbnail of what they’re doing. Great for monitoring the speed at which they’re working, and of course insight, feedback in real time etc.  You can also read blog comments and delete any inappropriate content should you need to. You can send messages to individuals, or groups. So you may want to send a URL or clip to a particular group, you can do this through focus session.  Useful that you can reset passwords for learners if they forget, plus you can remove learners if they leave the school, or if other children come. You can reduce the view of a folder to one item, that way you can see all learners folders, so you can see who has and hasn’t filed it in the correct folder… say you want them all to pop an item into their Cybersmart folder, you can view it to see exactly who has and hasn’t.

Had a good session exploring iPads, specifically Explain Everything app which I am already familiar with.  Expensive, but sooooo many great features. The lasso tool for custom crop on Explain Everything is a neat tool to alter an image so it transforms into exactly the way you want it.

Got a lot out of Robbie’s reflections around the use of devices in schools, and being very conscious of the SAMR model, and where your programme is sitting when delivering teaching and learning in a digital environment.  So often teachers are heard saying, learners are putting it on their blogs. My wondering is though, how often is this purposeful sharing in order to add value, and connect with an authentic audience? Is the ‘share’ to add an extra layer of meaning… or actually are the lines blurred and the process morphs into sharing for accountability?  Something I was to keep in mind.

Screencastify has to be one of my highlights of the day - rather user-friendly tool and so handy to show your screen.  I’ve completed one of the Digital Dive we did, exploring all sorts of things using Chromebooks (so many shortcuts), and one showcasing elements of the Smart Footprint component of being Cyber Smart.

Huge thank you to Pia and Ange who we spent some time in a Google Hangout with.  Great tips on the Google Certified Educator exam, any help is appreciated so thank you!

Two other great takeaways: Internet Awesome and ‘make kindness go viral’.

Thanks for reading,

DFI Session Three -

Friday 9th August

What has worked well for me since our last session:

Pinning tabs is great - I use for Drive, Mail and Keep.  Successfully commented on a couple of blogs.  Finished Scavenger Hunt - fun.  Continuing to use Keep Extension, so good for sites/URL you like, but you have no time, or images etc - just one click!

Awesome reading Robin Sutton’s blog - highlight has to be disruptive technologies and rethinking and re-imagining as the new creativity.  Re-imagining as the new improvement programme.  Certainly, we need children who want to take risks and disrupt the status quo, not solely in response to problems.  Because as Sutton points out:

The difficulty is that there may be no apparent problem, nothing that immediately presents itself as demanding a response, yet things are changing, and changing faster and more profoundly than we realise. There are massive disruptive influences in play around us every minute of every day. These disruptive influences may be technological innovation. They may be such fundamental issues as climate change.

As we reflect on the importance of creativity, he is a passionate principal who blogs about creativity, aspirational teaching and learning, visible learning and future focused thinking.

Soft skills that are developed through CREATE, which often is not emphasised enough in primary schools.  Valuable!

Creative kids with problem solving skills who can communicate and collaborate… these are the kinds of soft skills children need to be equipped with through primary school.  Like Sir Ken Robinson points out in his famous Schools Kill Creativity conversation - We now need to use our imaginations and creativity wisely, to face an uncertain and problematic future. We may not see this future, but need to equip our children to conquer it.

My favourite of the slides, links well with work we’ve done around the year six leaver:

Throughout history, we as teachers have been creative people, create professionals who model learning through creativity.

Create often gets the squeeze in NZ classrooms.  National Standards seemed to be blamed for a time, and creativity which was ever-important sixty years ago, became no longer the flavour.  Some leaders from many years ago in our local region, featuring in the heART of the matter.

Creating as a doing word, a verb.  Heart - hands - mind - voice - feet - we use the whole body/whole person as we create 

So many children need to ‘do’ something as they learn - they need to get the juices flowing in order for the learning to connect with their mind.  The create pedagogy very much affirms this learning style.

Interesting reading Making Progress Possible: A Conversation with Michael Fullan by Naomi Thiers where Fullan affirms that “It's the teacher with a degree of autonomy interacting with other teachers, figuring out the best things to do to get results for the particular students they're working with.”  It is this kaupapa which places me in a great place for learning at the DFI, having experts alongside, and other teachers also, who all want to bring about positive improvements.

Sisimo co. anecdote is quite powerful, about sight, sound and motion, and connecting these concepts back to the create component of the Manaiakalani pedagogy.  Saatchi + Saatchi used these techniques through marketing in order to create emotional connections.

Deep Dive - what it means to be multimodal.  Different kinds of sharing.

ENGAGEMENT:  hook the learners in through different opportunities, drawing them in using a range of different skills, hooks, attractions.  Pt England School spend a lot of time and energy at the beginning of each term, hooking learners into their ‘big idea’.  In the first term of Manaiakalani, the device itself is new, so that helps engagement.  Beyond this, effective teaching is needed, and other ways of behaviourally and cognitively engaging them.  Visibility and rewindable learning helps with shifts and acceleration.  UDL and the idea of teaching to the edges of course benefits all learners and is accessible for all.  Personalisation and differentiation, rather than one size fits all.  Using just ‘Drawings’ google app as an example, is just using one app, one mode, and narrows the parameters for all learners to engage.  Providing video, audio and opportunities to move so that different ways of learning are all supported is a multimodal way of fostering learning.

Great example shared from Pt England School, the way they’ve used Sites, and laid it out to engage learners… amazing to see the way their design has progressed over the three year period shown.

So visual:

Had a browse through a Site, the hook was theme parks.  Not so sure how effectively multimodal this one is.  I found PIGEONS to be much more engaging.  Many links, logos, diagrams, video clips and voice clips plus HEAPS of pictures which really draw your eye in.  The Site provided many opportunities for learners to create and collaborate… love the fast finishers group challenge!  I think this site would work well to promote engagement.  The Lightning Site was also well built.  They included screenshots as models, as well as invitations to learners to contribute other findings which can deepen their understanding as well as support others’ learning.  Not entirely sure about the GARDEN model, does not seem to include as many visual, or audio hooks however it does have a link to another blog site which looks like a good blog.  My pick of the bunch for me:  READING TUMBLE as an opportunity to decrease paper and laminating pouches!  A neat, clean digital example to scaffold children.

Google Sites is very new for me, having not used it in many years.  I cannot believe this is the same platform, it’s drastically different with so very many improvements.  Impressed by how functional and cohesive the exemplars are that I’ve seen, specifically the multimodal examples which include a range of buttons, visuals, graphics, screencasts, embedded clips, screenshots and more.   Have begun to make personalised buttons using photos of learners.  Work in progress!

DFI session 2 - WORKFLOW

Friday 2nd August 2019 DFI session 2 - WORKFLOW

WHAT HAS WORKED WELL SINCE PREVIOUS DFI:  Toggling between tabs!  Efficient/helpful. Remove.bg another helpful wee tool.  Tried hard to use Learn-Create-Share pedagogy so learners feel what they have learned/created is going somewhere, and has a meaningful,authentic audience.  Fixed up photo on my professional account so that it’s appropriate, just me - no pets, no kids etc

WHAT HASN’T WORKED OR MADE SENSE?  Have not done Scavenger Hunt as yet.  Can’t figure out how to bookmark, back to top etc.  Can you help me to move a file into my own Drive using the shortcut we learnt about?  I didn’t achieve this when I tried.

WHAT DO YOU NEED HELP WITH?  Accessing and commenting on others’ blogs can now be done as I’ve got the links..  Using Docs voice typing in class effectively. Amie will be coming into school to demo use of Sunshine online as a tool to support fluency in reading.

I enjoyed connecting with Manaiakalani kaupapa and the reassurance that it in no way is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  References to Blooms and SAMR model, hoping to modify or transform learning for our tamariki… turbo charge!

Rewindable learning:

The concept being that if it’s worth teaching, and worth learning, then it is worth capturing and putting on your Google Site so that learners can access it any time, and rewind to it when they need to.  If it’s worth teaching/learning, it’s worth sharing.

We had a delve into Hangouts and Meet.  You can present what is on your screen to the group.  You can include many people in the group. Can access through gmail, calendar, hyperlink or apps.

Screen castify - thanks Ubby and Briar for the tip!  A great way for learners to record their reading, so you can see all their behaviours, and they can measure their progress from week to week.  Ubby shared her Site. A great hub where all of her planning for EVERYTHING is available. Learners go there, using it as a hub for their reading books and activity, word work, writing material, websites with practise activities etc.  Really enjoyed seeing this very slick model - organised in such a meaningful way. She spoke about very high levels of engagement using this model, as well as the sense of safety and predictability providing children with sound routines.

Briar kindly put me on to yet another clever shortcut; Ctrl + shift + t which re-opens the previous tab you just closed.  Pretty quick way to keep organised, I can see myself using this one. Also, the ‘starred’ feature in Drive will prioritise key documents making them more accessible.  This makes them quick and easy to open.  

Toby Mini is a Chrome Extension to tame your tabs.  ‘Save your session’. Could be good if you open all sorts of sites relating to a particular study or focus (termly integrated study as an example) for planning, then save and share with other collaborators.  Essentially a collection of URLs. Could be good/quite useful at a team level.

I can see the workflow benefit of pinning tabs, the ones you like to keep open most of the time, Drive, Keep, Gmail.

For the CREATE component, we worked in collaborative teams of three to record some discussion around a child’s blog we read, sharing an activity from The Summer Learning Journey.  Not without its connectivity issues, we had some quality, critical discussions as well as lots of laughs. 

 

Turns out soft skills aren’t a big focus at high school, I’m told.  Who knew two men could be so chatty. Lots of fun in our group, and a great opportunity to practise using Hangouts, presenting screen content, and recording using Quicktime screen record feature.

Through lunchtime I was able to delve back into the scavenger hunt… you can do so much without leaving Docs!  Loving the ‘explore’ feature.