Session 9 Devices

Today I sat level 1 Google for Education Exam. I am simply delighted that I passed the exam. I did the same examination back in 2016, a wee while back so I kind of knew what was to be expected. The omnibox question threw me a bit. It wasn't until I skipped the question and then went back to it, it dawned on me. The Add Tasks on Gmail also threw me, but I am grateful to have had the test open book. I just took my time and paced myself through the exam. I realised as I was doing it, to skip answers and to go back to them. I found copying and pasting titles, email, etc, really helped. I also found the course material very helpful to revise with. Last night I was reading over sheets as I thought there would be a question that would stump me, on this.

Today is the last DFI session. It has been most enjoyable re connecting again and building new networks. We've been a great team.
I have valued the professional development, as in 2016 I left the cluster and spent twenty months working at another school. A lot can happen with digital learning and technology. It has been wonderful to learn and implement what's out there.

Google Keep - has been one tool that I've used. I simply love how transferable it is.

Google Sites - looking forward to fully implementing the feedback next year, when George and myself get together over the holidays and start planning our site.

Google Earth - has lots of potential. I used it last week and showed the students how to locate the camp site Chosen Valley. I would love to use it at the start of the year, when we look at identity as one of our units.

Google Sheets - thanks to Angela has solved a problem around sheets that I have been wondering about for years - which was an appearance matter. Next year I would love my students to be a lot more analytical over the number of blog posts they put up and to set goals for themselves. Leave their global footprints more.

Session 8

I missed last week's session as I was at camp and was also down in Christchurch for a family emergency. The session seemed fascinating around using Hapara and unpacking the Cyber Smart Curriculum. I am keen to explore Workspace a bit more in Hapara. This was one thing that was introduced upon leaving the cluster back in 2016. I am grateful that the content on this course in rewindable. I am keen to explore the Cyber Smart site and resources. The beauty of attending courses like these is the takeaways you can use and implement in your classroom. The takeaways never go off and can be revisited any time. 

Session 7: Computational Thinking

Today I was most inspired by Vivian's session. There was a lot of thought provoking discussions on the Ten Break Through Technologies -Bill Gates. It tends to make you question what else will be invented within the next ten years. How will these inventions impact people? will they hinder or will they be a convenience? During the session it was great to be introduced to the Sort Me activity. It was good to use computational thinking in a practical way. There were no devices needed and I could actually see Maths links. I would love to do this sort of task with my class. It would be great to adapt it - around who lives the furthest from school? It was interesting to learn around debugging -the what if's around two people who have the same answers. The resources off the Trail Blazers website would be wonderful to explore and to try out. I tried Scratch-coding website last year, and I enjoyed doing the lessons that were put on there. It will be neat to get the children to create their own mazes. 

During the lunch time it was good to lesson to Makey Makey. I think this would be a fantastic resource to use at school as an introduction to electronics and to coding. I particularly like how with Makey Makey there are multiple learning opportunities with this resource.  There were lots of other takeaways from today's session such as Junior Scratch, Zombie Circuits. 

I could see the circuit idea working for games the students could make. 

  

Session 6: Dealing with Data

Today I learnt about Google Forms. It is amazing the special features Forms have now where you can add sections into divide content. You can also add link your segments together. I can see this working for pick a path reading activities and for explicit statistical investigations. I really liked how you can import sheets into Google Maps. When you create a questionnaire in Forms as part of a getting to know you unit, it would be great to use Google Maps and to get the students to add a photograph of themselves on the country/city they've chosen. I love how these maps can be published onto blogs.

This afternoon we were shown Blog Post Analysis, in which the students could track the number of posts over time (months and years). It was very interesting to look at one of the students blogs whom I use to teach. This afternoon I analysed one of my students blogs over the last two years I taught her. It appears that there has been a bit of a slide with the number of blog posts that she has published this year. There are many variables behind this, however the quality of the posts have not gone down. Good things take time to achieve. I would like to do something similar to this next year. It would be a great opportunity for the students to set goals around the number of blog posts they would like to publish upon their blogs. 

Day 5: Enabling Access Sites

Today was a wonderful day for learning something new. It was great to receive feedback on my class site from colleagues within the group. There was some constructive feedback on the site which in the long term I will implement next year. Today was good to implement some short term goals around ways I could improve it for my learners. It was great to have the time to fine tune aspects of the site. I have now got a home button link for every page created, so the students don't need to click the back arrow on the page. I have also learnt how to fix the my colleague's photo so it isn't so zoomed up and elongated. One thing I will sort out is ensuring the permissions are set for anyone with the link for the Writing and Maori Pages.

Next year, I will try and create buttons that have more of the children's image on. This year the theme is around Super Heroes and so I made it look like a comic. I used the Pop Art theme of the Roy Lichtenstein dots as a background to create the buttons.

This afternoon I learnt about creating buttons. It was good to have a refresher on this and to use the mask tool to create my buttons. To ensure buttons are consistent it is good to know that if I copied and pasted my original button over, then I can just replace the image and change the text each time. Another little gem I have taken away is the importance of shift, when resizing lettering.

I also enjoyed learning about creating headers. These could be used next year for my pages. Another thing I learnt was that it is critical to have less colours on my site and have a white back ground, as it makes the page look much cleaner and professional for the students.

There is so much to takeaway from today's session that I am looking forward to meeting up with George after the Christmas break and plan our site together. It will also be good to get the students to do a screen recording around the navigation of the site.

Digital Fluency Day 4: Collaborative Sites

I have had the most inspiring day. It has been a wonderful in site around how Google Sites have been used as a tool for engaging students, especially through the use of multi modal texts. I like how user friendly it is for the students. Currently I am using Google Draw to present my multi modal texts on. I find it has worked okay, but tasks have become rather cramped. There have been too many URL's copied into one cell of the table. During the session it was good to unpack Reading to Learn and how this linked to Multi Modal texts. It was great to see some examples around how Multi Modal texts have been used in the classroom. I particularly liked Matt's site on the Titanic, the Very Hungry Caterpillar site, and the Romeo and Juliet site. Also Angela's spreadsheet around how other teachers use multi modal. Lots to takeaway. Some takeaways from today - Coconet TV (A fantastic website on anything Pasifika), Kea Kids News and using the carousel option on sites to create an interactive slider of photos.

Also great to know about Chrome Cast. Haven'y had much luck with getting sound transferred from laptop to TV. Found out today that I needed to cast from tab. Will try this on Monday. 

Tapa Cloth - Multi Modal Google Site

   

Session 3:

This session I sadly missed due to my very dear friend and ex DP from Glenbrae School passing away. It was wonderful to see her Literacy Cycle displayed at the first session of the Digital Fluency Intensive. This session would have been a great session to attend and learn about YouTube Channels and Playlists. I've made Playlists previously. They do provide a wonderful platform of engagement for students to learn a wide of material. I've mainly used them for Inquiry Learning.
I also missed out on the Google Drawing Session. I've mainly used this application for displaying student learning on. I would like to explore the videos around using them for actual drawing. When I was down in Christchurch a young girl used Google Drawing for drawing her dog. It looked so real. I think I need to have patience and time. However when I first used Photoshop 14 years ago I did very cool drawings where the photograph was the first layer and then I drew over the top. I created something similar to the Andy Warhol artwork "Marilyn Monrow Tableu".

Digital Fluency Day 2: Work Flow

Today we have been learning about managing work flow through using Gmail, Calendar, using Tabs effectively and using Google Hang outs. It was great to go through the settings of Gmail and Calendar. At this stage I am happy with the way my Gmail and Calendars are set out and they are working for me. Probably one thing I need to do is to group children's blog posts, so once they are posted they all don't need to go to my Inbox.

It was great learning about using the website: Unroll Me. It was good to remove the junk emails that I have subscribed to over the years in which I don't look at any more and to have a cleaner Inbox.

 I enjoyed using Google Hangouts this morning. I feel Hangouts have a lot of potential but I just need further practise around sharing the screen and ensuring all members are recorded under Quick Time. (Note to Self) No head phones needed if you are using Quick Time to record a group discussion. It was a little disappointing, but it has been a great learning curve.

Day 1: Digital Fluency Intensive - Core Business

Today was the first day of the Digital Fluency Intensive. I have learnt so much throughout the day. There have been lots of takeaways for me. I would like to find a piece of text on a topic and get the students to read the text and then to use the comments function to pose questions to each other based on the text. There would need to be a structured criteria around questioning, but I can see this working on all levels. It would be great if the texts were differentiated.

Another takeaway would be to use Voice Type more with my learners. I have used it before, but I did not know that I would have to set it for New Zealand English. I particularly like the way in using a cup (with a cut off base) to amplify the sound. I think it has a lot of potential.

One of the gems from today's session has been the pasting without formatting. Best for it to be used on Google Documents. In my class we often experience formatting issues - text going right across the blog page. I look forward to sharing this with my class next week.

I am looking forward to trying out the Add Ons and Extensions. I will have a play using voice commenting - Talk and Comment. It will be interesting to see how the students respond to this. Things that would improve my work flow are related to tabs - using first and last initials to label documents, shortening bookmarks, and if I suddenly click out of a tab, I can then reopen it through shift b.