DFI - Week 8 - Computational Thinking

 DFI - Week 8 - Computational Thinking

 

Fist Pump!!! We made it week 8 

Todays session was a great reminded of the background story of Manaiakalani and how it 

evolved from the schools in Tamaki area. The above photos are screenshots of the slide presented.

With empowerment comes, opportunity, making connections, empowerment for our students and teachers. 

The other side of the coin is the many factors of disempowerment and the challenges our students and families make on a day to day basis, such as finance, housing, employment, health, family conversations and the building of children's vocabulary.

With these factors schools are doing their best with the resources and technology available to empower our students with multiple learning opportunities.

Within our New Zealand curriculum it is stated;

  

Our focus for today is Computational Thinking, we were shown this image below in a slide. (I took a screenshot)

This is reflected in the advancement of technology. The  evolution of technology with robots and transport are prime examples.

LEARN, CREATE & SHARE

https://studio.code.org/s/course1/stage/6/puzzle/1

This clip has the best explanation of computational thinking and we need to give our students opportunities to think in a such a way and how we are doing it every day without even knowing it.

Today we were given opportunities to explore different computational sites and wow.. This got my brain thinking.

Check out what I explored today.

Using Minecraft




https://studio.code.org/s/aquatic/stage/1/puzzle/1




Today we tried coding and my group, we explored a coding programme called Scratch.




This was an enjoyable exploration and definitely got me thinking about my students and how this programme could be used and adapted for my year 2's and 3's.

Me personally, I am only good a basics, and it was fun. I enjoyed Minecraft the best and trialing different explicit steps to move my character. I think scratch would be the next level of coding for my students.

Today, there was lots of discussion, advice and tips regarding our google level 1 exam next week that we/I would have to registered and of course prepare for. This is something I / we are nervous and excited about. 
This term has been fast as we have covered so much and my understanding of Manaiakalani pedagogy of LEARN, CREATE, SHARE.
I am good at learning, and sharing and will continue to learn about Create and the different media usage to share my students learning.
So, let the study preparation begin for the exam that I will take next week on Thursday as I have parents conferences next week Tuesday and Wednesday.

Have a fantastic week everyone.

DFI - Week 7 - Devices

DFI - Week 7 - Devices

Cyber Smart

Another exploration in the Kaupapa of Manaiakalani and today it was Being Cyber Smart. This outlines the points of empowering our students / learners.
Exposing our them to experiences of the real world such as blogging and people reading and commenting on their blogs.
Being cyber smart is for us educators is to guide our students / learners in real authentic experiences and how to be  safe and confident.
The internet world has positive and negative impacts and it is important to give our learners the skills to be cyber smart.

As I reflect on the importance of helping the learners be cyber smart, I need to start at the basics of 'kawa' of care and building smartness from there.

Exploring Devices
Today we experienced what it is like using a chrome book and how it works. I am so used to a MAC. This was interesting and wow, I know what our students go through using this device. 
This was interesting using the chrome book stimulator as well.

Chrome Books

 using chrome book stimulator to explore a chrome book.

Ipads - Using Explain Everything App

screenshot of task playing around on an ipad using explain everything app.

Now this was really interesting exploring Explain Everything on an Ipad. I have never used Explain Everything app and this was fun to explore and use, but not fun trying to save, and print and send to me.

I love the buttons and exploration of creating art, work and  learning. However trying to save it, send it, access it to print was interesting. 

This is the process I want to be really good at so that I can either 1 - add to class blog or 1 - print and display in class. 

This will be a exploring process for me to learn and practice and be better at. 

CREATE

For today's create, 
Using EE (Explain Everything) repurpose a cyber smart lesson.

Using EE cover 1 of the cyber smart concepts for your learners.

check out what I created.

I think I'm cool now because I'm getting good at adding embedded code on HTLM on here. LOL.

This was a cool experience, and I had to keep it simple for my learners. I was experience issues such as saving it, accessing it, emailing it, and of course, using 2 ipads and my laptop. 
Using the whiteboard EE website was good and I was trying to video and save to my drive and having it accessible for all, opening new window and getting the embed code. WOW... did you guys get it??

APPLICATION

I look forward to exploring this more in depth and making attempts to add to my teaching program next week. I enjoy learning through the struggle and I experience what my learners go through.

I love how my learners also figure it how and teach me.

On wards and upwards to using Explain Everything.

DFI - Week 6 - Enabling Access

DFI - Week 6 - Enabling Access

As we begin another week of new learning, we discuss in our learning bubbles with references to WWW.
What has worked for me since the last time we met? 
What hasn't worked or made sense?
What do I need help with?

As I reflect on last week and the learning and building of google sites, this was really helped me with managing my work load and work flow.
Since the beginning of the year and the end of March (since lockdown 4) I have been working on my class site and have watched it evolved as my knowledge developed creating slides and embedding them.
Because I am using my class google site frequently everything makes sense and this week I was lucky enough that I didn't really need help.

However previous weeks and lessons

Enabling Access and being Connected

Our Kaupapa of the day - Connected. The points that stood out for me is the emphasis of connect. It is one of the four elements that stands with the pedagogy of Learn, Create, Share.
Having the default visible, the shared language of Ako - visible, empowered, connected and ubiquitous.
Tihi Mai - Tuhi Atu
Write to me - Write to others.

LEARN CREATE SHARE

Today was a follow up on google sites. We had the opportunity to explore sites for varies year levels, schools and topics and thinking about the Engagement and User experience. 

Exploring these google class sites was really good and we got the think about the usefulness of it, the access, visibility, the learning, creating and sharing. Keeping in mind the visual and the user experience.

With this knowledge, our own google class site we got to share and our colleagues giving us feedback for improvement.

Screenshoot of my class - Room 11's learning space

link here

My class site is an ongoing developing site and I am always making changes to improve the use for my students.
I got great feedback and my goal is for me to continue to create and develop  Multimodal content, Multi-text content, creating student agency and empowerment over their learning, rewindable learning, using photos that are current as well.
Always remember to check sharing access too, making it accessible to anyone with a link.



Today's session was great. I love exploring the kaupapa of Manaiakalani as it helps me to have a better understanding of the pedagogy of our teaching with the support of technology. Everything is making sense.
Our facilitators are amazing and my little bubble group is awesome.
Thank you so much to our facilitators and colleagues whom I am on this journey with as we explore these tech tools to enhance our teaching practice and knowledge and managing our personal life to make things easier.

'Meitaki Ma'ata'

DFI - Week 5 - Collaborate Sites

DFI - Week 5 - Collaborate Sites

Visible Kaupapa

Todays unpacking of visible brought everything together of Learn, Create and Share. 
With Visible I love how everything connects and I can see the connections of the foundation of the pedagogy of what Manaiakalani want to achieve with educators and the successful of students learning and achievement.
It makes lots of sense how with visible there is an importance of making teaching and learning visible to all. There should be no hidden plans/user names or locked access for students and families to see their child's learning and their teacher's planning.
Exploring visible was very interesting and I gain a lot of new learning and enjoyed it and love how everything links together with the exploration of Google sites.

LEARN

Deep Dive into Multi Medal

Today learning about multi modal was really cool and really interesting and it brought up the importance of reading and the lack of skills or strategies our students have in their reading ability.
As I learnt about multi modal and their purposeful approach to visibility of teaching. It was also mentioned the HOOK, and how important it is to get our students/learners HOOKed in.
After 5 weeks, everything is really making sense and I can see the pedagogy coming to life.
Multi modal I found really enjoyable to learning about and explore with my bubble and other colleagues.

Google sites
Google Sites is a structured wiki- and Web page-creation tool offered by Google. The declared goal of Google Sites is for anyone to be able to create simple web sites that support collaboration between different editors. Wikipedia

I have started to use and explore google sites this year as my school Glenbrae has a google site and I had to create one for my class. WOW!!!!
This was a fun/hate experience. LOL.

CREATE and SHARE

Today, we/ I learned and explored a multi textural design for cognitive development using the T shaped literacy.

Below is a screenshot of the multi-text database with the headings to explore a topic to cognitive challenge and engage the learnings in different aspects of learning approaches.

From here, we had a subject topic and brainstormed and plan a google site that displayed the multi-text headings.

Here is my attempt and creation of my google site and T shaped learning using the multi-text.

Anne's site link

only the reading works.

Todays session was really good. So good, it has taken me 2 days to reflect on the learning and write my learning blog. 

What really stood out for me to apply into my teaching practice and use to make my workflow more manageable would definitely be the multi-text task and making my reading task design more cognitively demanding to deepen their critical thinking. Having a range of task that supports the topic and varies of reading models to support the learning and my teaching. I look forward to my reading tasks developing and becoming more engaging and task demanding to allow my students to thinking critically about topics with varies of learning modes 

I love how I can create a web site too with google site. This was so much fun. Learning the tools to create pages and adding links and using google slides and publishing my site. WOW!!