DFI Term 2

DFI has just come to an end for term 2 which is sad as I really enjoy being a coach one day a week. I get to work with a great team of coaches that include other Manaiakalani facilitators and also teachers from schools. As a team we meet on a Wednesday afternoon for planning and had a reflection meeting after the day on a Thursday. This term I had a much bigger bubble group with a mixture of secondary, primary and junior teachers. I also had a wide level of expertise in the group. Just like in a classroom I had a mixed ability group of learners and just like in the classroom I spent more time with the lower level experts than with my top level experts. I was challenged regularly by the secondary teacher as there planning is done for them and their class site is set up for them so they did not have any input into that. Which I did ask how they differentiated the learning and catered for all the different learning needs in the class. Which they said was there job to do in the classroom teaching. As a primary trained teacher I strugle with this. But it was not my job to debate this kind of set up I was there to coach DFI. Some of the bubble group struggled with the blogging and reflecting on the day which we had to disscuss the point of us being role models for our students and experiencing how some of the students feel. Through ignoring the moaning, complainng and loud sighing they did complete their 9 blog posts. The one embarrassing moment that one of my bubble group got caught, (thought they had there camera turned off had told us they where not feeling well) was laid back in the lazy boy playing on the playstation. I was speechless (which does not happen very often) and didn't quite know what to say. But one of the others in the bubble group unmuted and loudly commented you forgot to turn off your camera and we can see you playing on your playstation Obviously not as sick as you said you where. Nothing else was needed to be said. The fun of working online in others houses. I also challenged myself this DFI round and had ago at presenting aspects I have not presented before. I am not part of the DFI next term as the day clashes with a busy day so I might be able to be part of term 4 DFI. Everyday on DFI there is always something new to learn and share. A new update or tip. Thanks Vicki and the team for another great DFI.

Term 2 Online Toolkits

This term I choose to do my toolkit on google Earth. In the holidays I researched and experimented with all the different tools and options on how to use google Earth in the classroom. I also watched you tube clips and looked at Eric Curts amazing site and work he produces. 

I had 27 register for my workshop and choose the first night of the 3 days of toolkits. This time I did choose the 4:30pm session time instead of the usual 3:30 pm. Lucky I did as there was a major car accident at Kaingaroa and the road was closed and I had to go back into Kaitaia and travel home by Fairburns road and through Peria which added an each hour to getting home. 

Today at a school I got some great feedback from some teachers that attended and they could not get over the amount of resources and how realistic the imagery was. They where also blown away with the street view and ability to look around inside museums and shopping malls. Both where planning Google Earth projects around shared books in their classes.  

With an early finish today due to teachers at a union meeting I also got to watch the recording of Cheryls toolkit on chromes screencast. 

Walking Stories of Te Hiku TOD

First day of term 2 and the teachers in the Te Hiku Kahui Ako had a teacher only day. A first for our schools in the Far North, a ground breaking day for our students and teachers. The first hui lead by our iwi in Te Hiku for all schools. We had a  powhiri onto the Te Rangi Aniwaniwa kura by their students and kaiako. The first key note speaker was by Anahera Herbert Graves talking about the history of Te Tiriti and the Ngapuhi. The next speaker was Shane Jones who I have heard talk many times and new we would enjoy it. He is such a good story teller, with great history and humour. He told the story of Te Kāinga Ngāi Takoto the land we where on. We then had break out sessions run by the different iwi Te Aupouri, Ngāti Kuri, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Takoto. We heard the stories of each of the iwi. Then we had the Iwi panel answering questions.

This was a great day to have everyone together hearing the stories from all the iwi. We heard a lot of the what they want us as teachers to tell the students in the classrooms and the why, the only thing that is missing is the how and the resources to support the what? Who are the experts in our iwi, the story tellers the come in and correctly tell the stories. We need more books, songs, videos, podcasts for teachers to tell the stories. So our students can learn who they are and where they come from. They can learn their Whakapapa and about their turangawaewae. So they can locate themselves and where they belong, how they got here. The significance of their iwi stories is vital to understand who you are.

This was a fantastic start to the histories of Te Hiku, the stories of significance and connecting our tamariki. Faces where put to names and great people with amazing talents where show cased. I am looking forward to the follow up workshops, resources and Teacher Only days that will develop out of this.

Digital Fluency Intensive Coach term 1

I was lucky enough to be a coach for the online Digital Fluency Intensive for term 1. I managed to change my timetable to fit all my teachers in over 4 days. For the full 9 weeks I was a coach and had a bubble group of teachers I supported and guided and got to build a great relationship with over the 9 weeks. I had a mixture of male and female primary and secondary teachers with a varried level of knowledge of Google apps and Manaiakalani kaupapa. I pushed myself to take some of the sessions for the whole of DFI participants this was great to keep me upto date with all the changes and upgrades. Also the challenge to keep to the time limits. This took some practice as it is so easy to go over time and also a challenge to not rush and talk to fast. Our leader Vicki is so professional to work with and encourages and supports us to take sessions and offers time to go over the workshops if we need. Having the reflection time as facilitators after each day is great to disscuss, change and follow up emails to teachers or facilitators working in the schools to follow up. The feed back was great to read and nice to have some specific to myself "I loved my bubble group. I felt very fortunate to have a group of teachers that had a mix of genders (we have no male teachers at our kura), spread across Aotearoa, spread across year levels/experience. It was SO interesting to hear the experiences of everyday teaching life in all these different environments and Donna was an amazing facilitator that was able to share her knowledge of how Manaiakalani DFI might help us meet some of our personalised challenges/goals/expectations for learners." "Donna was an amazing bubble leader. Was always helping and finding ways to create good and thought provoking discussion." Next term I am able to be a coach again and am looking forward to my next bubble group and pushing myself more and taking some of the workshops I am not confident with to learn and extend myself. I feel confident to do this with such great facilitators and Vicki that will jump in an help at anytime.

Te Mātaiaho The refreshed New Zealand Curriculum

 

I attended the MOE webinar on Te Mātaiaho The refreshed New Zealand Curriulum on Thursday 23 March. I attended one when it first came out and it was good to hear it again and some of the changes they have made since than. I think it is about time Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the local comunity, iwi and inclusive of all ākonga is better embeded into school curriculums and strategic plans. The story behind the develoment of whakapapa of Te Mātaiaho is very beautiful and good to hear from Dr Wayne Ngata himself and how it is the foundation of the Te Mātaiaho and the meaning of the 7 curriculum components. I need to spend some time going over it again and watching the video again. I also need to go to the web site and look at the resources they have available. It will be good when more resources and progressions are out over the year to put the components together and understant the Whakapapa through to the ākonga in the classroom. It will be good to unpack the new phases of learning and progression out comes and steps. The progression out come describes what ākonga should Understand, Know and Do at each phase of learning. Which fits very nicely with the Learn, create and share pedegogy of Manaiakalani.

Introducing Google Screencast for ChromeOS

Started introducing this app to the students this week. Such a game changer and so easy to use. 

We needed to change the keyboard to English USA which was simple enough. It also would only work on chromebooks with 103 version or later. The great part of using google screencast app is they save to the drive and are not limited. We have always used the screencasitify extension which was a great app but it is limited to 10 a month and only limited to 5 minutes. The activity we did today with the students was to record the great chicken coup designs they had made on Tinkercad and show all the component's on the design and explain them while recording the design in tinkercad and show the 3D design and zoom in to each component. The students gave good feedback on the activity and the app. If they where working in a group they had to have verbal input from everyone in the group in the recording. 

They did need to remember to check the sharing permissions on the recordings are set to anyone with the link can view as some we could not see on their blog posts. I will be using this resource more in the create side of my pedagogy. To gather student voice and create rewindable resources.  

Online Toolkit Term 1 2023

 Term 1 toolkit I decided to introduce digital escape rooms. I had created one as part of the summer Learning Journey activities and thought I would turn it into a toolkit. I already had the videos I had created for the SLJ so could repurpose them and teach the teachers in the toolkit. I put it as a beginners and after the toolkit I should have had it as an intermediate level. So teachers struggled with some of the technology tools.  Especially the google form validation process. I had created a digital escape room for the kawa of care, I have trialed it with a year 7 class and they enjoyed it and gave me positive feedback. It was great to have the teachers share and email me some of their escape rooms. It is a great creative learning digital process for learning that can be integrated into any curriculum area.  For our digital proficient students we could also add digital escape rooms as part of the Hanga.