DFI#8 Cybersmart and Devices

Today began with considering 'Cybersmart' and what that means for us as educators and the implications for our learners. At the heart of this is "empowering our learners as connected and confident decision makers".  Our kids are constantly facing challenges as they learn in an online environment and have to be equipped for the perils that they can potentially face.  When kids have ubiquitous access it is essential that just as we assess risk and any special circumstances that might need managing when preparing for  an EOTC experience, this needs to be approached with the same degree of forethought and preparation - "taking our kids online is one of the riskiest EOTC experiences that can be undertaken and the Cybersmart serves to ensure that they are well equipped for this experience".

Being proactive...
Cybersmart learning needs to have a schoolwide focus and should have an intentional introduction to each aspect of the Cybersmart Curriculum. If we are successful with the integration of this our learners will have a common learning language and a true understanding of the power and privilege of connectivity and online sharing.

We need to make sure that our learners truly understand that everything they do is visible online  and that they constantly consider what their digital footprint communicates about themselves.





Central to the Manaiakalani Development of 1:1 were the principles of the Treaty Of Waitangi ...Participation, Protection and Partnership and these resonate throughout the Cybersmart Learning.
The following Screencastify explores some of the content that sits within the Cybersmart Site.




Another great day of learning and challenges...

DFI#7 Empowerment and Computational Thinking

Empowered - the word that has been adapted from Agency is what today was all about, but of course this can't be achieved unless the other key factors are interplaying ...ubiquity, visibility and connectivity.

It's NOT just a tool ... the device that is, is so much more than that and teachers are continuing to  explore how best to enhance learning and develop pedagogy

"when it transforms the way we learn, offers us new unchartered experiences and opportunities ..." Dean Shareski, 2011.

"The Manaiakalani kaupapa of empowerment is about the advancing of RANGATIRATANGA; taking back control of their lives."  Pat Snedden


The default is Visibility, that is the learning and artefacts that support the learning should be readily accessible  - this empowers the child so that they don't have to sit and wait and have access to go back and take the time to check and reflect so whenever possible and practical the learning should be rewindable. I'm sure each and every one of us can relate to this having no doubt taken a Youtube tutorial on how to acquire a new skill, solve a problem or learn the latest dance move perhaps, you then understand the power of rewindability.

Further to this today we took a deep dive with OMG Tech to consider  - making Tech accessible for everyone ...preparing our kids for the future ...being responsive to the rapid rate of change that is happening in society.
And I proudly completed my Hour of Code - this is a quick introduction to Coding in a self led environment - check it out...

DFI #5 Visibility - 'Can you see it?'

"Can you see it?"
Todays session was focussed on the importance of 'Visibility' and the new and unique opportunity we now have in education to use technology to  allow ubiquitous access.

Prior to being visible there was a measure of how well you could 'read the teachers mind' and interpret what the teacher was expecting or where they were heading.
Technology has given us the ability to completely expose the learning and have no surprises. Implicit and critical  in this is that the learner must be at the centre of the learning and therefore every part of the learning process should be exposed to the learner.

We are lucky enough to have Hapara - 'making teaching and learning visible' as a management system to help ensure visibility for the teacher.

As part of the analysis of effective practise in Manaiakalani schools Stuart McNaughton wrote" Their use of class sites to make learning and teaching visible further supported student agency ..."

Applying Multi Modal Learning

As educators, our job is to strive to make learning engaging, and exciting for our students. In Manaiakalani we have termed this the Hook and know that hooking our learners in is essential. We need to keep asking  "Is what we are doing in class engaging?" ... Will it “hook” them into the learning and what we want them to experience?"  We need to be working to inspire our kids to go in and investigate further and using the affordances of technology allows us an enhanced ability to do this effectively. So we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at some great examples of sites and learning activities that have a range of multi modal texts and activities and then had a go at creating our own.

DFI#6 Enabling Access- Sites

2015 was when the Manaiakalani Cluster began to grow and included 5 new Clusters becoming The Manaiakalani Outreach Programme. This has continued to develop and grow to the point where today we are a connected network of around 22,000 learners and a huge group of educators from a diverse range of kura across the country. Over time meaningful relationships and a sense of belonging have continued to grow and develop.

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"If you are all paddling in the same direction, you have greater power, you are more efficient. There is an impact on the nature of teaching and learning because if the teacher and student each know what it is you’re meant to be focusing on you are more likely to reach your goals". - Dorothy Burt

There has grown a pedagogy and kaupapa -  visibility is a critical component to sharing and there has been huge development in the use of Google Sites over time to expose 'Learn. Create, Share' with kids, whanau and communities.

Clarelle Carruthers shared some insight into the rationale and purpose of effective sites and some tips and tricks when creating in new sites. What a long way we have come from the initial sites we set up 'back in the day'!

And after a few reminders about the importance of planning for simple navigation and being mindful of the audience, I went back to the drawing board.






The site I am developing is still a work in progress but is intended to share some of the components of pedagogy that we have adopted that work for our tamariki ...

Digital Fluency Intensive - Day 4 Tohatoha

Sharing - Tohatoha has been happening since the beginning of time and the possibilities have been amplified by technology.
 Our Manaiakalani schools have continued to use Blogger as the platform to teach our kids how to share and be an effective and responsible online citizen "Work with learners to establish an authentic audience for their learning outcomes".

The Cybersmart Curriculum is critical component to ensure that every learner is " kind on line, internet-awesome, and positive" ...there is a common language that is explicit, consistent and deliberately scaffolded for our learners.

And a reminder that 'to get an audience you have to be an audience' ...


I had never checked out my maps before, this  might just be my new favourite App. I can see it as a cool way to start the year off when we are finding out about each other and where our whanau come from or where we'd like to explore in the future. So many possibilities in the classroom.


Dealing with Data ...
It was great to find out about some really useful add-ons in spreadsheets. My favourite two are rowCall and Cropsheet ...thanks for sharing. I love shortcuts!
I use spreadsheets all the time and it was great to look at using them more effectively and the data that can be generated out of them.

I took a closer look at one of our kids blogs to see what I could find out. The data collected by Woolf Fisher for Manaiakalani tells us that there are improved student outcomes if kids blog 3 times a week.
At a glance ...

What's Your Story? DFI - Day 3

A few key messages...

When using Google Slides ...

So What's your story? What are the key messages you are trying to convey?
Pictures really are worth a thousand words! So choose them carefully.
Ditch the Defaults. It's great to start with a blank slide and create your own.
Use consistent formatting and ...
Plan ...plan...plan!

"Keep the message to a tweet"

We had some amazing guest presenters from Panmure Bridge today, who shared their skills in Google Draw.

My first attempt  with Google Drawing ...learning to create yikes! Still a long way off from mastery level!

Thanks for the tautoko, Ms Tuiā!

'Don't throw the baby with the bathwater' ...Day 2@DFI

During todays DFI we focussed on  LEARN.

Putting it bluntly - "If you can be replaced by Digital Technologies then you should be!" Best practise or effective pedagogy are  still fundamental and indeed critical to improve student outcomes.
Effective teaching coupled with Digital Affordances will lead to accelerated outcomes for our learners.

In order for the learn to be effective  the following 3 things need to be in place.
Firstly we need to Recognise - what effective teaching practise looks like.
Then Amplify - to make a difference really great teachers use technology effectively and capitalise on the affordances. Looking to work above the line on the SAMR Model is ideal.
And if we are truly using the affordances of the technologies available we can Turbocharge - enhancing the classroom experience to connect our learners.

Rewindable learning gives us the opportunity to be Ubiquitous - "if it's worth teaching it's worth capturing." So it was great to look at ways to make learning rewindable today.

I was reintroduced to Google Hangouts and thought this could be a handy way of collaborating with my fellow students on our various share assignment tasks this year. Along with this we played around with using Quicktime for screen recording and my first go at creating a tutorial is a little lacking, but a great reminder about making learning rewindable.

We explored the various settings within Gmail, so I have been brave and changed my Inbox set up to see if that has an impact on my workflow.

Some great handy hints to use Google Keep and I was very happy to learn that you could convert an image to text. So am wondering if I am neat enough in my note taking whether I could use this functionality.

Another great day of revisiting the known and delving into the unknown.

Back to the Future - Day 1@DFI 2019

What a wonderful day having time to think, learn, create, share and reflect. It was great to take a look back and be reminded of where it all began ...

It made me think about this group of learners that were our very first Year 8 Graduates  in our first 1 - 1 classroom using devices from Year 6 onward. How privileged I have been to share in their journey and what a long way we have travelled in a short space of time!
And a reminder from Dorothy that "Effective pedagogy via deliberate acts of teaching is the critical factor" to make a difference to learner outcomes.

So what did I learn ...I need to reorganise my Drive and was reminded about the power of Omnibox!

The tips and tricks were great and will undoubtedly help me to be more efficient!

I was also reminded of the challenge for our learners when trying new things - creating a Poster in Google Docs was a great chance to explore using Docs in this way and I appreciated the time to learn and discover for myself, with support on hand when needed for just in time learning.

And here it is, my data infographic - hopefully self explanatory??

Language in Abundance

"I can't say what I mean I can't tell you how I feel ...if I don't have Language"

Language In Abundance - 'it absolutely matters" another wonderful afternoon spent with Dr Jannie van Hees learning and being reminded about the importance of oral language for our kids!



One of todays resonating messages was the need to be very attentive to the sources that we are providing for our learners ...don't take things for granted - Quality matters! Quantity Matters!

You can have abundance without quality! We need to be "Champions of Oracy" for our tamariki and keep gifting new words and language groups for them deliberately and purposefully.


What else Matters - The Trio
Explicit attention to the Language that is carrying the meaning
Optimising Environmental Conditions - the social norms/expectations
Attention to Co-contributors

My wondering ...
We know that many of how kids have the Taonga of their home language that they bring with them - so how can we ensure that we encourage the ongoing usage of this along with being more inclusive of this richness in our classrooms?

As always a great afternoon of thinking and learning.