DFI Week 8 Reflection: Computational Thinking

 

Dorothy shared about the fourth valued kaupapa word of "Empowered". Empowerment equals choice. Part of our job as an educator is to empower our learners. I hope that over the 18 years of my teaching career that I have empowered most if not, all of the learners I've taught in Digital fluency. The use of Digital tools is to empower our learners. 

This above quote from Matt has made me think of my practice especially online and how I can empower my learners to choose to do the work I set them. It's made me consider the idea of "Le Vā". The Vā (Pasifika terminology) translates to the space between us. If my relationships with my learners are strong then the space between us will be one where they would try to complete all set tasks online and if not have conversations with me, as to why or why not.

It's quite interesting to listen to Vicki share about technologies that are out there now. She started with the Jetsons (cartoon tv programme from the early 1980s). It showed a family that were talking via video chat/ FaceTime and had microwaves, flying cars, mobile phones etc. How cool is it that some of that tech was talked about in this show in now present. However, there are some bias and challenges of artificial intelligence (AIs) algorithms. 

Chat GPT and AI with Geoff Bentley from OMG Tech. He talked to us about what he does and some of the AI that we could use. We created a ChatGPT account. I'm a bit wary about AI but I've heard good things about Chat GPT especially how teachers can use it to generate report comments. He was very knowledgable and passionate about AI and how it's used and where it is heading in our beautiful country especially amongst our learners. I need time to explore ChatGPT.

Digital Fluency is a support required for effective, teaching planning, assessment and professional learning. Digital Technologies curriculum has been revamped because of the language it had been using. I think a lot of what we do in our classrooms and as part of the DFI programme covers a lot of the what the curriculum has already.

After exploring the TKI Technology site, I've noted I've taught quite a few of the lessons in my classroom over the years.

Donna shared the Hapara Hot Tip using the Highlights. I thought I was familiar with this function until I saw this slide for Guide Browsing. It can filter sites and you can do this for how long that students access these sites too. I didn't know you could schedule messages either. I thought this was very cool!

We were given some time to explore some coding sites. I haven't done any coding for a while. I am familiar with Scratch and Code Combat. They are very cool sites and I will have to explore these with my learners back in the classroom. You can find my example that I created today with Louise using https://studio.code.org/courses below.  

I've enjoyed my journey with DFI this term. Most of the tasks I have covered through my time at Point England School but it was great to connect and learn more about what others are doing and using in their classrooms. Thank you, Fakaaue lahi, Fa'afetai Dorothy, Vicki, Donna and everyone else that was part of the DFI programme happening across the motu (country). How awesome for our learners and our kaiako! I'm so glad I kept my professional blog too.

DFI: Reflection Week 7

Dorothy shared with us about the idea of Ubiquitous: A to the power of 4. The 4 As: anytime, anywhere, any pace and anyone. Learning takes place outside the original classroom. It's about removing the barriers.

At the beginning of the year when we (Auckland) experienced flooding and thunderstorms, lots of school including ours decided to close to keep everyone safe. During this time, I had a few children call or email me to ask for learning online. I was able to direct them to our class site and to activities that they could do at home.

Months later, I've had to remind my learners (inc. some parents) a few times, that if they're away for whatever reason, they can check our class site to see what learning we've covered. With the idea of being Ubiquitous, anyone can access their learning. It can be rewinded and students can cover their learning at their own pace. Students don't have to be absent. They can work on tasks at home too. 

Because our school is still new to Manaiakalani, one of the problems my students face is not having a device at home. Or if there is a device, it's a shared device among all the siblings in the house.

Being Cybersmart talks about empowering our learners and our whanau. As a teacher it is our job to help and educate our learners to be smart online. Smart Secure - policies and procedures, security etc I remember we had Watch Dog back in the day. I wonder if there's an aspect of: misinformation, disinformation etc.

I remember when teaching at Pt England and the first devices that came out were the netbooks. My son was Year 5 and had one.  I liked that the school gave parents an option to pay $3-4 a week. I was so excited about my son using a netbook. Then when he started in Year 7, I was very fortunate to get him a new chromebook when they became available. It's amazing to see how far the chromebooks have evolved.

Part of the session was spent on the Digital Dig. If you click on the picture above, you can see what I have done. I had to make this using a chromebook. I must say it wasn't as easy using a chromebook compared to using an Apple Mac. I also took a screenshot of a slide that I was stuck on and shared it with my learners to ask them for help. They happily obliged.

Next session was on using iPads in the classroom using Explain Everything. This is my project  using the whiteboard.explaineverything I created using my laptop.Hopefully you are able to see it! Above is a screenshot of my example. But I recorded a voiceover to my whiteboard. See the above. I managed to find the code and embed it. I won't be using Explain Everything with my class because my learners are on chromebooks.

I created my first task on Workspace with Matt Goodwin (an old colleague of mine). I have published it and shared it with my learners, only so I can see what they think and get some feedback from them next week on Monday. This is new learning for me. I found the workspace quite dull compared to the class site but it was good to see what Workspace is all about. Here is the link to my Cybersmart activity for Smart Relationships. I tried to use screencast using the Quicktime player but wasn't successful ha! This is probably something that I'll explore more.

I find the reader function in Edublogs probably the most helpful part. This is because I can see all my learners posts that is from the most recent. It's also handy because I can leave comments on my learners blogs without having to click on every single link etc. 

DFI Day 6 Reflection

Connected - Rangitāmiro what brings us together? Connected learners share. Digital has enabled us to keep in touch with others. Shared language enables us to make connections. Connections happen as a network when there are structures in place. 

Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu Fiona Grant spearheads this for Manaiakalani. As a school that is part of Manaiakalani, we keep in touch with other schools in our cluster via our class and student blogs. My class leave comments for a bilingual class Room 4 at Otahuhu Primary School and the Tuatara Class up North. We try to leave blog comments on their posts fortnightly. It's been very cool to see learners connect via blogs.

Leading Learning using Google Sites - I've been using Google sites since my teaching career at Pt England School. However, there was a time when I didn't because at one school didn't use them - they used Hero. For me personally, I enjoy using sites with my learners. However, I feel that it's a bit of a mess at the moment. I need to tidy it up and make it better. I don't think my class site is visible on our school sites page.  I have also reflected on how I need to get feedback from my learners and what they think. I liked how Vicki said that there's a 3 click rule for learners to access the sites. Here is the link to my current class site (apologies my site has now changed).

In my class site my goals are to: 1). jazz up my buttons. I will change these when I take photos of my learners and stage it that way. 2) Fix up the navigation so my learners have 3 or less clicks to access their learning. 3). Make sure my slides and work I've created and shared is visible to visitors. I also added a very brief statement about myself and my picture at the bottom of my site so people know I am the kaiako (teacher) in this class site. I created a banner for my class site and changed it. I checked all my pages and checked the view. I tidied up my writing page for our spellathon. I've also changed the theme from the greeny blue to a charcoal grey. Here are some pictures of the changes that I've made.

I'm happy with the changes I've made to my site. I am going to design a form to gather some feedback from my learners about the class site and hopefully make some changes accordingly. I learned a few things from looking at other sites and hope to implement some of the changes on my class site. Here's some very kind feedback from a few students from my class.