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,

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