Amplify Basic Facts Online Toolkit

 Term 3 toolkits I decided to do another workshop based around Mathematics and statistics. My last ones were very popular and seem to be of high demand. So I choose Basic Facts always an area of need and concern. I started it in lockdown so I had my site I developed already started and just needed to add to it. My big idea was how to link the creation into the teaching of basic facts and using a lot more of the online manipulatives to model number sense and understanding of the facts. I had 57 registered to attend and had 36 turn up for the hangout. I was concerned that it would become a lecture at that high number and still wanted to include some activities. So I included a padlet to assess what our teachers are using currently to teach the Basic facts. I then decided to give an activity at the end so the teachers had a chance to be in the students' shoes. I got some great feedback. 

Level 3 Still Working From Home

Another week of Hangout Meets with students in the class hangouts and with teachers. We had 2 good workshops with Harley on Monday going over the basics or creating movies. With this Pandemic and the History behind it, we have suggested the Movie festival theme for 2020 be about our lives in Lockdown or surviving COVID 19. A great idea for looking back in years ahead to see how we survived. The students are excited and the poor parents will be losing their phones over the next week while students are videoing. Look out Peter Jackson!!!! I have joined some class hangouts I am not sure if I was a help or a disturbance as the students where so excited to see another familiar face. It was great to listen to them talking about their creations and learning at home. Some have really got very creative and with the support of parents and grandparents, they have become projects that keep developing. I have been commenting on student and class blogs. We had our second Junior teacher catch-up today we only had 7 teachers but they had some great conversations and shared ideas. Students are starting to lose motivation and are sharing learning less and less as the weeks go by. We also need to work with parents on commenting on blogs across the clusters. We will find out tomorrow when and if we are going to level 2 or 2.5. We had 2 days of no cases recorded and then today we had 2 cases and another death. They are going to announce what the level will look like for education. we had a great Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu hangout on blog tips, I got some great ideas and can now answer questions I often get asked about blogs.

Week 3 Lockdown

Week 3 of lockdown nearly over we head into week 4. Will it be the last week or will lockdown level 4 be extended?? The daily case numbers are down but our death rates are on the increase as it has spread to a couple of elderly homes and the elderly are not strong enough to fight the virus.

With a nice break with Easter just finished it was good to watch some movies, get out in the garden and do some cooking.

But today is a day that will also go down in history as New Zealand schools start teaching from home or distance learning while the country is in lockdown. I have had emails, phone calls and texts from teachers all weekend with the common title "HELP".

• How do I embed a video?
• The sound is not working in the video?
• I can not get the video embedded in the site.
• My site links are not working.

With the panic and stress coming from teachers I, of course, made how-to videos and shared them with teachers and also sent instructions. I wanted to support and release some of the stress they were having.

I have set up myself in the backroom as our weather has turned very cold and wet my two men at home are now inside a lot more and are very noisy and distracting. 

I have had to move the desk around from under the window as I had a clear view over my shoulder of the pathway to the toilet and while in a hangout my 18year old son wandered through in his boxes.. A good lesson for teachers and students at home in Hangouts to make sure you have a wall behind you. 

This week is a short week but we have support hangouts today and tomorrow for teachers in the Te Hiku and Kaikohekohe clusters on Google hangout Meet and Hapara and DFI on Friday. I am also creating videos for teachers to add to their sites. Some are how-to videos for rewindable learning and others are just to say Hi and connect with students. I thought I might do some of me reading stories for the junior classes. I will also remind the students to be cyber smart while on their devices and online. It is frustrating when you hear on the news that we can not trust students. We should just block everything. That will not teach students to be cyber smart. I notice my email box starting to fill up so I had better go. Good luck to all teachers, students, and Whanau with online learning. 

Online toolkit

This week I presented my online toolkit on Amplify Talk Moves. It was great to get back into my Mathematics and statistics hat. This presentation I made a very hands-on one with the teachers doing exactly what you would get the students to do. It was hard to judge the time as it is teachers, not students completing the activities. Some of the main areas, I wanted to emphasize was the purpose and big idea of the lesson. We also looked at a couple of tools to help amplify the student's voice and discussed and shared ideas of how we could turbocharge the get ideas and voice of the students. I felt it went well and feel after looking at the cluster data Maths and statistics is an area we need to focus on.

Classroom Climate

Positive, warm, welcoming classroom climate.

Creating positive growth mindsets Carol Dweck.