Digital Fluency Intensive - Session Five

Visible Learning

Creating visible learning is a critical part of the Manaiakalani pedagogy; creating transparency between us as teachers, the students, whanau, and the community in order to develop strong partnerships between the school, and learners.

Teaching is a more collaborative process than ever before, and we should be making an effort to include as many relevant parties as we can in the process; by including people we can share the responsibility for learning - a problem shared is a problem halved, so to speak.

"It is our job to get inside the learner's mind. Not the learner's job to get inside ours”

Creating learning opportunities that are effective across our learners lives means we make learning accessible, available, and in advance. Nothing happens by surprise, students are aware of learning intentions, outcomes, and of the tasks they will be working on.

Feeds strongly into the feedback/feedforward elements through the use of comments & sharing on Google, and blogging our work (both students and teachers)

Multimodal Learning

- Priority Goals 

- Engagement

- Personalised Learning

- Accelerated achievement 

- Empowerment

Creating engagement is critical to learning, and so the more personalised, and relevant information is a powerful tool; it is also critical for student’s information literacy, understanding how many different types of texts, and styles of presenting information. By empowering our students with information literacy through a variety of text types, and multimodal learning we give them confidence not only to tackle the work they do in class, but also to become life-long learners who are confident navigating the contemporary world of information.

Our class sites are the first port-of-call for creating an engaging place for our student’s learning; in order to do this we need to be creating multi-modal designs for them to engage with.

We design these sites with the following in mind; 

- Engagement

- Accessibility

- Empowerment and agency (making choices about their learning)

- Cognitive complex 

- Personalisation, and differentiation

- Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Multimodal Designs used for behavioural engagement & Multi-textural design for cognitive engagement

For me to focus on;

Finding ways to separate tasks into smaller chunks

Offer greater variety of texts, not just variation of activity options

Multi-textual Learning

Along the lines of T-Shaped literacy, multi-textual learning is built around the idea that we don’t teach to text; we teach to theme or a structured set of ideas. By using a variety of texts from multiple perspectives/contexts we give students a wider array of information from which to draw conclusions;

Main text (w/ identified theme)- the focal point of the teaching, and the one which we use as the fundamental gatekey to the learning.

Complementary texts - texts which are similar in idea, theme and/or reading level to support information.

Scaffolded text - a text which is chosen for the purpose of supporting students who are finding reading the main/complementary texts difficult. 

Challenging text - texts which will challenge pre-existing ideas, ideas within the text, or perhaps cognitively challenging by being more in-depth, or a more difficult reading level (which can also require some support and scaffolding for students to read)

Learner selected text- gives students ownership over their learning, and also allows them to exercise their own research skills, and choose texts which are interesting and relevant to their own interests.

“Identifying what is an appropriately challenging text is a very complex undertaking as it is not just determined by quantifiable features such as lexiles, but by multifarious factors including students’ prior knowledge and interest in the topics at hand, their motivation to read, the extent to which the task is purposeful (and they see it as purposeful). We believe that one affordance of text sets, as opposed to single texts, is that the range of texts used increases the likelihood that all students will find at least one text that is challenging and all students will find at least one text that is accessible. Text sets might therefore be seen to spread the risk that one text would be too easy or too hard. Achieving the balance between high and deep, wide and narrow is likewise a very fine balancing act, and what is the appropriate balance is always contingent on the students’ strengths and needs and the purpose and context.” (Wilson and Jesson, 2019)

Google Sites

I've been very familiar with Google Sites over the last 4 years working at PES, but understanding the process of creating one which is multimodal and multi-textual has been an awesome challenge - here is one I created today as an example of what can be accomplished using Google Sites; following the Manaiakalani pedagogy of Learn, Create, Share the site is simple; three learning areas, with a variety of texts, tasks and activities for the students to complete, and to share their learning with their classmates, and the wider community

Digital Fluency Intensive - Session 4

 Session Four - Dealing with Data

Sharing

“Every person on the planet has the potential to live life as the star of their own movie -  not only sharing the daily minutiae, but also the commentary, the analysis of it and creating collections of feedback and feed-forward.”- DJ Burt

Human beings have an instinct to share; how can we channel that instinct into genuine learning experiences? 

Allowing students to share their learning creates a community of engagement, and gives students a sense of pride seeing how other people engage with the work they have been doing - it also encourages students to create work which is thorough, properly finished, and writing descriptions for their blog also gives them time to reflect and summarise their learning experiences.

Giving students the opportunity to have an authentic audience (i.e edublog) will help them to raise achievement outcomes, and for students to develop a real sense of pride in the work that they have created, and the learning they’ve done. An authentic audience, as defined under Manaiakalani, are the people who CHOOSE to listen to you.

Sharing with;

- One another

- The class

- The school

- The local community

- Global communities (digital age)

Blogging was the  choice for students to share their learning for different reasons;

It resembles the spaces our young people want to be on (youtube, facebook, etc.)

We are able to provide legal, safe, secure provisions for students

Used by teachers and students

Allows for engagement, and interaction between creator and audience (going back to authentic audiences)

Spaces like Facebook, while useful, are open, and not safe for students to share personal information.

Allows for students to create a SMART digital footprint.

We share to show the process, but also to help students understand what “finished” looks like; that it is ready to share. A life-long lesson to learn, we use the acronym FIOP at Pt England for our learning; to finish it off properly. 

Google Forms

Google Forms is something I am very familiar with, we used it frequently in my time as a high school teacher;

Quizzes for students, and allows for easy collection of date - transferable to Sheets so collation of data is helpful

Feedback about what they found difficult, challenging or needed help with.

Use for interaction with families - to gather information, find helpers, get feedback etc.

Useful for gathering information quickly, and is more engaging than just responding to an email when getting into contact with adults who can be busy.

Google Sheets

Google Sheets is very similar, and has a lot of the same functionality as Microsoft Excel which is helpful as I can use a lot of my prior learning/knowledge to help.

This is a very powerful tool when organising, filtering data, particularly when creating groups based on reading age for example, or to arrange students into priority groups based on test results, or feedback from a Google Form.

In a digital age it is so important that we allow tools, like Sheets, to assist us to use critically important data to guide our teaching practices; whether that's for organisational purposes, for streaming students, or to identifying outliers who may need further assistance, or pushing depending on where they fall on the spectrum of results.

Here is an example of data that has been turned into a table; comparing two student's blog posts between 2015 and 2021. As you can see the Y Axis does not show accurately the number of posts, however it is useful for making comparisons between two different elements of data.

Digital Fluency Intensive - Session Three

 Today's session focused on the element of the "Learn Create Share" model that I am most excited about to take on in my journey teaching primary - CREATE!

We started today's session with some reflections of last weeks session; how our workflow has changed, and how it has helped us. 

Links to emails for efficient organisation of calendar as well

Helps to keep things organised by topic.

Google Draw

Google Draw is such a useful tool for allowing kids to be creative in a number of ways. Creating infographics, as well as presenting information in a visually creative way. Using Google Drawing to help create buttons, and banners for Class sites to make navigating pages easier for students, as well as create visually interesting and engaging pages for students.

Check out the sweet ride I created using the Polyline, and curved lines tool, as well as a small infographic about me!

Hapara

Using Hapara is a way of making student’s learning visible for us, as long as things are filed in the right folders. Emphasise the importance of filing student’s work in the correct place.

Media

Media plays such an important role in modern learning environments; we have so many different ways to empower students to create and share their ideas with others; making sure they have the opportunity to share their learning through a variety of different mediums. 

Using their chromebooks is a ready made studio where students can record video, audio, and take still images. Green screen applications will give students the ability to create videos with different backgrounds and interesting effects.

Podcasting is another great tool to look at for reciprocal reading; potentially used post-RR sessions to reflect and share their collective ideas in a less structured way (allowing for more open conversations?)

Youtube

Youtube is a tool to be used with caution - kids are not to set up accounts, but I can use it to curate playlists of useful videos, music for kids or myself to work with, and saves you having to search through videos again to find useful ones, which can be a big time saver in the long run.

Slides

Slides are a tool I have become very familiar with in my teaching journey, a wonderful tool which allows for a huge variety in uses, for both presenting information, navigating learning, and for students to present their work in ways which is engaging and interesting. The pick-a-path session was particularly interesting as it opens a whole new world for creating narratives, and making quizzes for each other in interesting and new ways. I started with a quiz format as a trial, which you can check out below, but stay tuned to this blog to see how my adventures in creating narratives go!

Digital Fluency Intensive - Session Two

WORKFLOW

Learn

We began today's session with a presentation from Dorothy Burt which focused on the "Learn" element of the Manaiakalani "Learn, Create, Share" model. Developing an intentional, focused, and evidence based programme that works to help with teacher effectiveness and accelerating learning outcomes for our students. The "Learn" element focuses on the acronym RAT; to recognise, amplify and turbocharge our practice.

Connecting this to my inquiry into Reciprocal Reading I will continue to look at ways in which we can use different digital tools to encourage student discussion and conversation, as well as continuing to develop our dive into T-Shaped literacy in which we give students  different text types, and learning opportunities which can allow students with a variance in learning styles to work in a way which suits their strengths.

We also focused on developing a better understanding of how we can apply more smooth, and deliberate workflow choices in order to use our time more efficiently, as well as help us organisationally. 

Google Keep

A helpful app that can allow for quick note taking in collaboration with the other apps that we use

• Making lists (to-do, students to see etc.)

• Adding images

• Using a voice recorder to quickly make notes that will be transcribed, and recorded (helpful!)

Gmail

A reminder to use the filters and labels to organise incoming emails so that the main inbox does not become overcrowded

• Allow dynamic emails so I am able to interact with comments, and docs directly from my email

• Include a signature for ease of use & a more official appearance to emails.

Google Calendar

Using Google calendar is an excellent way of tracking, and planning events 

• Synching calendars with notifications allows for better time management

• Following other calendars means it get easier to organise meetings/google meets with others by being able to see when they are free without asking.

Priorities

Google Drive has a function where you can group different docs/files from Google Drive organised ahead of time; it will be of particular use when writing reports, and planning using online sources.

Google Meet

Over the last two years we have used Google Meets for our remote learning program. It is something that I have become very familiar with over the last two years, but it was good to experiment with the breakout room feature which we did not use a lot, due to the fact that the rooms cannot be recorded. It may be something I look into doing more of in class as it means students can still be observed.

Here is a recording that we did in which we discussed some of the work that was done by Manaiakalani students during the lockdowns in 2020.

Digital Fluency Intensive - Week One

 Today was the first of 9 sessions in the Digital Fluency Intensive program, organised by Manaiakalani, and run by Dorothy Burt. The course is focused on 4 Goals;

- Teachers are supported to acquire fluency using the basic tools our young people use for learning

- Teachers are supported to acquire fluency using the basic tools required for effective teaching, planning, assessment, and professional development.

- Teachers are supported to understand how digital technologies used effectively can have a significant impact on accelerating achievement outcomes.

- Teachers are supported to understand how the Manaiakalani Pedagogy and kaupapa has been co-constructed over more than a decade to maximise the impact of effective teaching and learning in a digital environment.

The course is designed to ensure that we are not only digitally fluent, but also that we model, share, and teach our students to use those same "Learn, Create, and Share"  skills. Students may be digital natives, but we should ensure that they can use their preexisting skills to have a more positive impact on their lives.

Today has been a very eye opening journey; from learning about the history and challenges Manaiakalani went through to provide this for our cluster, to a very cathartic tidying of my Google Drive, I have renewed vigour in my approach to how we use digital technology in the classroom.

The most interesting, and challenging idea was the conversation we had regarding voice typing. This challenged a lot of prior ideas I had about how we get students to present their ideas in the classroom; if we're restricting their ability to share their ideas by adding a spelling, or typing limitation, are we really seeing their best work? I will continue to reflect on this, and experiment with how I use voice typing in the future to encourage those students who are resistant to writing.

If you would like to read more about what we do each day, in depth, please check this out!

I look forward to continuing to develop my understanding of digital technologies in combination with the Manaiakalani pedagogical principles - I think it is crucially important for teachers to accelerate our own learning in the digital space so that we are able to keep up with students who are digital natives, and push them to learn, create, and share their learning in new and innovative ways.

STEM - Catapult building

 Over the last couple of weeks I have become more and more interested in how to engage and interest children in STEM subjects. Our students have good mathematical skills, but lack some fundamental literacy skills needed to really comprehend the science, and engineering vocabulary.

 So how can we learn to apply these skills without overwhelming them - by making STEM practical.

I thought that if we start with something practical and can include some technical vocabulary, and help students form connections between new vocabulary, and practical application.

So we started with something simple. We built catapults. Here are the instructions students were given.

Concepts discussed; force, energy, trajectory, projectiles, measurement, hypothesis

If you want to see the video, check out the link here!

Keep an eye out for more interesting science and engineering experiments as the year goes on!

Mask On / Mask Off

 Over the last two years we have faced a lot of challenges with Covid restrictions and lockdowns; we have been focused on reestablishing norms, and doing our best to set up our learners to do well in the "new normal".

We discussed what challenges we faced, and what we would like to see change as restrictions eased.

Here is what I came up with;