Session 8 - Digital Fluency Intensive

We had Matt join us from Point England School this week to take us through Media - Youtube, Google Drawing and Google Sites.  First we caught up with Dorothy in a Google Meet to hear about empowerment.  I must say some of the images she shared were a real eyeopener for me.

We checked out Youtube with Matt, created an account and learned how to make our own playlist, which will be great for when I want to share videos with my learners.  We then had a Google Hangout with Kent, also from Point England School.  This was a closer look into live streaming through Youtube.  I'm not sure I'm at this point and don't know if it is something that my school would be interested in, but I like that the learning here is rewindable and I'm sure I could ask for help in this area if it was of interest in the future.

I am really loving Google Draw, mainly because of my button obsession haha!  I REALLY want to complete my digital drawing - but it is tricky getting those lines right, so I've had to put it aside for now and aim to get it finished when I have a bit of time.  Loved all of the different ideas that Google Draw could be used for, so have popped it in below as a reminder to revisit.

Lastly was another look at Google Slides and it's potential for all sorts of creations!  We had to chose to create something so I went with a pick-a-path story.  While I haven't quite finished it yet, it has been really fun.  Check out what I've done so far below...




We've signed up for our Google Exam next week which I'm slightly freaked out about, but more sad actually that it will be our last week.  I've enjoyed this DFI so much and especially working with such an amazing and supportive group of teachers - I'm going to miss you guys!

Session 5 - Digital Fluency Intensive

First thing, we had a Google Meet with Gerhard to look at the Share component of the Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa.  It gave us a overview of sharing over time and how sharing has evolved with the introduction of social media.




We then looked at how sharing since time began (with one another, the class, the school, the community) can now go beyond that - to the world (global) in the digital age.  Blogger is Manaiakalani's choice for this global sharing platform and by using it people who access our learners' blogs are choosing to listen to them.  Gerhard also talked about the model that is used for commenting on blogs.  Comments should be positive, thoughtful and helpful and if we are giving our learners this scaffold, then we are helping to eliminate negative posts and bullying.

And I am sharing this seriously cringey video clip, which is a parody of One Direction's 'You don't know you're beautiful', because it does have great messages and I think the kids actually might be into it!!!!

Next up, we had a look at some class sites.  This was great and just what I had wanted to do when I gave feedback last week.  I found this so useful and have heaps of ideas of what I want to try and how I want things to look.  Themes, links, introduction about the class, image carousels and buttons, lots of buttons!!!!  Unfortunately I will have to wait for next year when I start a new site to implement it all, but for now I will use some of this on our current site.

Anyway, back to buttons...

I am in love with creating buttons!!!!  It is so much fun!  I have added some of these on my own personal site.  I am keen to teach Lynne how to make these too and add these to our class site.

The remainder of the day was improving and changing our current class sites after getting some feedback from fellow DFI'ers.  I made a couple of image carousels which was great, they take up far less space.  I changed some access settings so that anyone with the link can view and of course I made some buttons.

Great day!  Back off to school to see if we beat Ubby's Riverdale rugby team haha!  Looking forward to next week.

Session 3 - Digital Fluency Intensive

Today's session focused on supporting visible teaching and learning through building collaborative, multimodal Google Sites.

Firstly, in our Google Hangout with Dorothy Burt, we looked at the Create component more closely. It is all about the hook - creative ways of engaging your learners. There were some links to video clips that I want to go back and look at, so will do when I get a spare moment, hopefully before next week's session.

Looking into the multimodal learning sites highlighted the importance of being creative for me. Some of the examples I thought were quite bland, so can imagine that the children would think so too! So with that in mind, when it came to picking a theme and then resources from the Multitext Data Base to make into a Google Site, I wanted to make it attractive and easy to use for the learners. I picked up some tips for making a site to add to my knowledge from Maria's tutorial too and was pleased that it is not just me who gets frustrated with changing the size on images! As well as the links provided, I added 2 youtube clips on how to make a Manu Tukutuku and a paper kite and also a STEM Challenge slide using the Learn, Create, Share model as the scaffold for this learning. I'm looking forward to using this site in the future - perhaps during Te Reo Maori language week.

Here is the link to the site...

I have started a Google Site on speeches as well, so will try and get this finished as these are fast approaching! It would be great to have it set up to support them in their speech writing.

Another enjoyable day, looking forward to next Friday already.