Revision

Today was the final day of the DFI course the major thing we did was to do the Google Educator exam. We first, however, looked at the phrase ubiquitous learning. This is learning anywhere, anytime and anyplace which is definitely an important concept. This is a way of working which opens things up for many people. Rewindable learning is something I am beginning to do more of which fits in with ubiquitous learning. Rewindable learning is very useful for many reasons

• when a child is away
• children who need extra support
• helps when managing many groups
• supporting your children when you are absent

 I found it interesting how in a study they matched the children and then compared the results of children who blogged for the summer and those who did not. The results as you see below sure show that blogging during the summer did help. I learned that blogging at least two plus a week regularly really benefits the children's learning.

 

This is our final day of the course which has made me fully understand the background as to how and why Manaiakalani started. By understanding this it has helped me to really understand the learn, create share aspect. I really have learned a few things and my confidence has increased and I am keen to teach others what I have learned.  I will continue to make things visible and extend my I.C.T skills so that I can share this with the children and keep working on engaging my children.

Devices

Today with Gerhard we went through the Manaiakalani Cybersmart programme which as you will see in my screencastify. I was aware of the Smart Footprint, Smart Relationships and Smart Learners however I was not aware of the other areas. I did like the idea of using common language and using this instead of being negative. For example, asking the children are you being a smart learner? Also using the language of the blog of being positive, helpful and thoughtful and how this can be used in other areas. I look forward to using this language more in the class with the children.
Explain Everything- We went through this with the ipads. There is a bit you can do with this programme and I can see why teachers use it.
Hapara teacher dashboard-we went over this and I learned how we can look at the blogs and the comments, we have just started to do blogging so this is handy to know. I learned a couple of other tricks that will help my workflow.
Chromebooks- we worked with these which I admit was a little frustrating partly because I did not know all the shortcuts. We looked at these which I found very helpful and am planning on printing these out to help me with the children who are stuck.
Screencastify- I revised over how to do this and learned at how to manage this with the children and where these are stored etc. We went through how to embed it on the blog/site which is good to know.
Below is my attempt of screencastifying. I have a few ideas for using screencastify but need to work on getting the children to do this as I have not used it with the children yet.

Computation Thinking

Today Dorothy went over how we can empower our children. She started talking more about why it is important to empower children. The background of many of the children in the area she works in come from very low-income families. This impacts on many areas of their life some of which I hadn't even thought of.  We are using more and more technology in our everyday life and if you could imagine what it would be like to not to be able to use a computer or have access to the internet this would definitely make some things in life tricky. It is also such a barrier for many things. Having good access to technology can empower not only the children but also the families.

I really liked this poster as digital technology can be all these things and this is something that needs to be remembered when planning and discussing with parents.

We went over how to use Scratch and Hour of Code and given a few ideas on how to include these in your class programme. It was great to have an opportunity to look at Hour of Code and I found this quite easy to use I would like to include this in my programme at some stage.

Media

Today we went over how it is important to allow the children and family to see the planning as this allows access to their learning. Kent explained how some of the parents at his school had not had good experiences at school. By allowing the adults to see their children's learning in their own time this meant they were more comfortable and keen to check out the learning.

The interesting thing about You Tube today was that you could embed your own playlist so that the children only look at those videos. This could be very helpful to help children stay focused during research. I included one on the maths workshop for some videos on fractions which will be good as the children do like watching videos and so this way they are learning and staying focused.

Today we saw how the teachers are sharing their planning at Pt England School and that they use slides for their planning. The bonus for this is that when it comes to writing reflections on their lessons this can be not seen by others as they write it in the comment section and only those who the slide has been shared to can see these. This is something I was concerned about but by doing it this way it works. It gets me thinking if I should do more planning in slides, or not.

We had another look at Google Drawings and how it is a great tool for children and teachers to be creating on. I made a word bank drawing in which the children can edit and put in some interesting describing words. I needed a bit of assistance ensuring that only a few selected children can type on it there are a few options to do this.  Drawings is great for creating and I plan to use it more for the create side of my activities.