Student Blogging

Student Blogging

It has been an exciting week for the students who work with me in our modern learning environment for reading and writing. We have been working with our Manaiakalani Outreach Facilitator, Kerry, on our student blogs. The students had prepared a personal profile and chosen some pictures to add to their first blog. It was so amazing to see them beginning to share their learning in this way.

We have been working from my Google site for quite a while now and I am amazed by the way they have accepted the challenge of managing their work in a digital format. Sometimes they will lose a piece of work that they have forgotten to file in the correct folder, but as the student's experience grows, there is always someone to help find  the missing document! This is the beginning of an exciting journey at Taipa Area School and it is one that I am proud to be part of. My admiration for my students grows on a daily basis...they are incredible digital learners!!

The Final DFI

The Final DFI
Today has been a day to reflect and look back on what we have achieved over the past nine weeks. Over the last term it has been amazing to witness the growth of our group of teachers and the distance we have travelled in the digital world. A three hour exam did not put us off....it showed us what we can do well and what we still need to work on> Does that sound about right? Teaching as inquiry for professionals! I have learned so much and am looking forward to using all of aour Google apps with my students in the coming years!!

Go Manaiakalani!

Google Apps - Work Smarter not Harder!

Working Smart

Today was all about working smarter, not harder. There were lots of handy tips and apps to use to make a teacher's life a little easier! We looked at Google Calendar, Google Hangouts and Gmail. Although these were tools that I have used in the past, I was not using them to their full potential!! Obviously this was a huge surprise!!

Google Hangouts was something I used to chat with colleagues and I had never joined a group hangout before and it was so much fun. Screen sharing is awesome and I can't wait to share this experience with my students!! Learning and lots of fun!! This would be a great way to share learning!!

I had begun to use Google Calendar more this year to help me stay on track with my meetings and commitments. I have been creating events and inviting people to meetings. This taught me a few new handy hints and let me change settings and themes. Google Calendar has become a tool I use all of the time.

Gmail is something that I use all day everyday! It was great to go into settings and set up new labels and delete labels I have never used. Using labels has become so much easier than when I first started using Gmail. I found it very user friendly!!!

It was a really great session today and I am feeling confident using these Google Apps.

Manaiakalani DFI My Google Site

Manaiakalani DFI My Google Site

As Part of our DFI session today, we had time to spend on our Google Site. Time for this is precious and hard to come by in the early days of working with Manaiakalani and developing pedagogical knowledge! The best part of the day was looking at other teacher's Google Sites. They are so inspirational and motivating. I want my Google Site to be as amazing as those!!! All I need is time and there is no shortage of inspiration!

I set myself a goal today of updating my Google
Site Reading and Maths pages... and guess what? I actually achieve my goal! Go Google Sites. I can't wait to use my site with my students on a daily basis! Visible learning is awesome for students and whanau.

Visible Learning Using Google Sites

Visible Learning Using Google Sites

It was fantastic to spend time working on Google Sites during this weeks Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive session. Just having the time to spend on a Google site was great. There seem to be so many ways to develop and design your site and the possible content is only limited by your imagination. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at many Google Sites that have been developed by other educators.

I look forward to developing my site and being able to adapt some of the ideas I have seen during our session today. I have had several conversations with parents this term during which they told me that they have no idea what their children are learning, as they never tell them anything about their day at school. it was great to be able to say that this would be changing as we move towards having our learning visible on Google sites! This seems to be very timely! Our whanau want to know what their children are learning and indeed, how they are learning in our modern learning environment. Visibility of learning is the way forward!

Coding Maniaiakalani DFI

Coding Manaiakalani DFI
Today was so much fun! We explored coding, using tools such as Code.org and Scratch. We also had a huge amount of fun using Makey Makey boards. We certainly put ourselves in the students's shoes today. Learning with digital technology is engaging, develops oral language, maths skills, science skills AND is so much fun!

Coding for Beginners

This was a great way to get into coding and develop some initial knowledge and skills. The one hour of coding was a great introduction and I found the videos very helpful. I would love to use this with my students!!  This is an activity I will definitely do with my students!





Coding with Scratch

This is a great way to learn about coding. With a small amount of help, you are able to develop an animation.  My year seven and eight students would love this and would be able to produce some amazing animations!





Makey Makey
This was such a fun activity and was very user friendly. You Tube videos were a great help after we unpacked the Makey Makey board and organised clips and attachments. We chose to make a screaming banana following a You Tube clip. The bongo drum was also easy to make.

Screaming Banana

Manaiakalani DFI Google Slides and Drawings

Google Slides

An amazing amount of learning happening again today as part of session four  in our Manaiakalani DFI. Although I have been using Google Slides for quite some time, I was astonished, once again, by learning new applications to use with this Google app.


The main points were:
-keeping slides simple with a minimum of information 
-not to use templates, be creative with your slides
-slides can be used to create simple animations

I can't wait to try the animations with my students! A simple idea that could be an effective way to engage students and have fun! Another way to be creative with our learning!

You Tube
I had already created a You Tube channel when I was attending The Mindlab PD. I had never used my channel. I learned an incredible amount of information about this digital tool today and I can't wait to create playlists! I have already created one playlist to use on my Google Site about our Survival topic for this term. I particularly like the safety that this creates for our students, allowing them to access the video you want them to watch. Video is a great way for our students to show their learning,

Google Drawing
The star of the digital tools today was Google Drawing. There are so may uses...comic strips, drawing, info graphics, posters and 'how to' instructions. I have seldom used Google drawing but I will definitely be using this on my Google Site                                           

Hapara Manaiakalani Digital Fluency

Today has been intensive but a real game changer kind of a day. We have learned about using Screen Castify as a way to create, which is part of the Manaiakalani pedagogy. It was challenging learning to use the tool in a few moments but it was very user friendly. Time to develop a script would have been helpful!!! All part of the learning!

We also had a look at Hapara, which is what my video is all about. It feels like it has been the missing link to this process. It was great to see the work space and learn about how to share work with students. It is incredibly exciting to see how Hapara links to our Google sites. I have been a user of Google classroom for quite some time and I see that Hapara is far more expansive than this and the biggest benefit is making learning visible and accessible to our students. 

My Holidays Map

This weeks Manaiakalani DFI  session has been full of new learning for me.

We focused on Learning and the idea that learning can look very different in different school settings. It is the shift in pedagogy and the way we use technology to engage our students that is at the heart of this PD today. It is not enough to use technology as a substitute. As teachers we need to use technology to augment the student's learning  and provide a different way to achieve learning goals.

The use of Google Forms was great. I felt empowered to use this tool, after realising that it is user friendly and takes very little time to set up a form for students to use. I will definitely be using this with the students. It seems to be an ideal way to gather student voice and collaborate with students for learning.

Learning about Google Sheets was a challenge but very worthwhile as I learned about auto filling and finding the range, average and median of data. As part of the learning discussion, we started talking about using Google sheets to record Class Dojo points.... another opportunity to use today's learning.
This professional development is so valuable and I look forward to using today's learning in the classroom setting.

Manaiakalani Digital Intensive

Today is the day that the Earth stood still for me!!!! Well for a moment anyway...well quite a few moments actually, during the first session of our Digital Intensive PD with the amazing team from Manaiakalani!
The use of digital technology in education has become a crucial part of teaching and learning. With the ever increasing teacher workload, it has been amazing to learn about new ways to work smarter! I have learned things about Google docs today that I have not been aware of and it excites me to think that they can become part of the tools I use as a teacher in the classroom. not only that, but I can share the knowledge with the students! I never used the drop down menu under Tools but today I have learned so much more about using Google Drive and Google docs that will change the way that I teach. I have never thought of inserting an image by creating an image with the camera!!! Amazing! To all the tech savvy people out there, I only wish I had discovered this years ago! I was so inspired, I created my poster about my new knowledge in digital technology!

Beginning the Manaiakalani Journey at Taipa Are School

Beginning the journey.......

I am enjoying the beginnings of our journey with Manaiakalani at Taipa Area School. I am so pleased the Middle School teachers helping to lead the way. Creating a Google Site is a challenge but very rewarding...the possibilities for learning are so exciting. Can't wait!