Digital Fluency Week 7

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

Today's focus was 'Being Connected.' Being connected empowers students. It takes their learning beyond themselves Being connected online means 'being visible' and involves being connected to whanau, to other schools, the local community, the nation and the wider world.

Manaikalani currently has 22,000 learners in it's network who are connected by a shared language and pedagogy. The programme design focuses on a different aspect of the Manaiakalani pedagogy each term. 

Term 1: Learn - setting up systems   Term 2: Create   Term 3: Share   Term 4: Learn, Create, Share 

Programme Design

A school's kaupapa, the year level of students and the teacher may influence this guideline but across the network each school will focus on the same design aspect

What did I learn that will increase my confidence, capability or work flow as a professional?

Being connected empowers teachers. Clarelle Carruthers encouraged us to take opportunities to learn from others i.e. 'Toolbox' sessions where we can discuss ideas, share and learn from each other. This can be done by developing a cluster website, a Twitter feed [students don't twitter], link to Twitter feeds from other Manaiakalani clusters and the Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu Blog which connects to other classes.

I also came away from today's session feeling a lot more confident that I will be able to have visible, connected learning in my own classroom. I changed and earlier attempt at a class site applying the tips from Clarelle and Kerry about colour schemes and targeting the main users [my students]. I am so much happier with the look now. We also gave feedback via a Goggle Form to others on their website designs. I gathered tips from all of the sites and was so impressed with what my colleagues have designed and implemented.

What did I learn that I could use with my learners?

I have started designing Google Slides and projects using 'Explain Everything' for 'Letter Sounds' and 'Handwriting.' I intend to get this up and running and iron out any wrinkles before attempting another curriculum area. So the letter Zz project looks like this. I have not got everything up and connected yet but am happy that I am out of the starter blocks. The Zebra will connect to the letter z in the Letter Land programme which we have not purchased for the iPads yet. The E button will take students to letter-sound and handwriting activities. In EE I used the recording tool to say the W.A.L.T, the letter-sound, and word associated with pictures. This is a great tool to use for New Entrants that can't read. It was very easy to use.

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

I know that I have the responsibility to introduce the use of Explain Everything to the other Junior Class teachers at my school. I need to be confident in the use of it myself. I've started the journey and have a plan. I have designed a site that will be used by both classes in our syndicate. I am confident that step-by-step, with time, experimenting, calling on help from the experts and having a bank of appropriate learning resources, digital learning will give me more time in my personal life.

Standards for the Teaching Profession STP1 Te Tiriti o Waitangi Partnership STP2 Professional Learning STP3 Professional Relationships STP4 Learning-focused Culture STP5 Design for Learning STP6 Teaching Link to standards

Manaiakalani Teaching as Inquiry labels