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!