My greatest joy comes from empowering students to have a voice; someone that listens to them and value their ideas. Digital Technologies can improve my capability, confidence and workflow by creating my own solutions to support my teaching. Although it will take a while for me to integrate it seamlessly, my digital confidence have improved dramatically. I already incorporate it in my planning and develop tasks according to the needs of students. I can model digital skills needed to complete tasks and ever so often, the students teach me too! We are all lifelong learners! I am very curious about Raranga Matihiko and the tasks that work collaboratively with Te Papa and on investigation, I have decided I can use the Dance Party Coding successfully in my class. The Binary session with Makaori was an eye opener. I never really understood how it worked, but he explained it really well and it so much clearer for me now. It is a great tool for abstract learning and I am sure it will be a tool you can use in class that will aide cognitive development dramatically. As my DFI course comes to an end, I can truely say it was worthwhile; I resisted the change for so long, and now my goal is to incorporate it with my 28 year skills I have stored in my Teaching Kete.

DFI - 10 September 2021

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

Learning should be accessible anytime, anywhere, anyplace anddata has shown that the accessibility throughout the year prevents or lessen the "summer slump" in learning.

Being ubiquitous, provides quality learning to your students when you are not at school, when they are not at school or when learners need additional support.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

Being able to work with and descover the differences when using a Chromebook vs Laptop helped a great deal. I realised why some of my students seem "lost" in their learning. Discovering and navigating through devise systems is very important to be able to assist and support studens through their tasks.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 

When introducing Cybersmart to students, we share positive wholesome learninga nd commenting with our students. We celebrate kindness on a digital platform and build on our school values of Care, Courage and Committment.

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

Using chromebooks and empowering students with all the shortcuts, could definitely have a profound influence on capability to complete tasks to a higher level. Participation will definitely improve and even the teacher would look smarter!!

Lockdown Reflection:

During lockdown,I was really proud of the fact thet I created a site overnight, built and planned it on a daily basis. I have reading, writing and maths groups on the site with differentiated tasks and a special area for a student with high needs to accomodate fher learning abilities.

Our daily meets secured learners in their learning and having more skills, made it easier to assist them. I learned so much by being thrown into the deep end of the river and swimming with the Taniwha!

In hindsight, I wished I had done DFI before and knew everything I know now, but it's never too late to start.

In future, I am deinitely going to try my hand at Screencastify more often and be able to record learning sessions for later use. It just makes it so much more personal and relateable for students, seeing and hearing their teacher.We are currenty rewinding and revisiting  all our tasks; empowering students who did not feel courageous enough to tackle it by themselves and the improve on wht they have done and shared.

Week 6

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

Learning accessability is the key to accelerated learning. Having all the tools ready and ubiquitous for all learners to access wherever they are.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

As usual , I was nervous sharing my site, but I see the value of recommendations and ideas from my bubble.Seeing it from another person's point of view shows shortcomings. I could browse sites that I admire and strive towards. I am confident that in the long run it woud make my planning load lighter, and I will be able to add Learn, Create and Share.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

Mote knowledge and confidence improves with every DFI session and students can use it more often too. I made new buttons for my site and as soon as I put them on, I will share an image of the before and after picture.

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

Ubiquitous planning supports ubiquitous learning. Accessability to online material makes planning easier. I do not have to physically be at school to plan my week successfully.

Jamboard Reflection - 1 September 2021

 During DFI Week 5, we were introduced to Jamboards. Writing sessions during lockdown Google Meets, were the ideal opportunity to try it out. We successfully applied our Write That Essay sentence structures on the Jamboard, and the students were engaged and participated whole heartedly. Some even shared 2 sentences. We applied this to our Maths warmup session and they loved it.👌

Next steps would be to teach them to insert pictures and links that would contribute to Whole Class Brainstorming sessions, then Group Jams, Buddy Jams and Individual Jams - it has such a nice ring to it!

We need to set clear rules so kids cannot mess around with the tools during a teaching session - I might just have a informal session where they can get it out of their systems!

I would definitely make use of this regularly and I am totally sold on the fact that it can be prepared in advance or on the spot.

👀 Writing Jamboard