Posts

DFI 9 - Last day

 Well I've just listened to the exam comments from our bubble group - it sounds like there were more than a few challenges that required some 'out of the box' thinking - which is the point of this whole DFI exercise! It's always interesting to hear how people problem solve, use innovation and creativity, with a heap of patience. Great to hear 'hiccups' are fed back to Google, and that they respond.  The American Paris fieldtrip situation and private messaging students were way outside the scope of what we consider appropriate in NZ, but are interesting differences to consider. It's been a good opportunity to go back to the agendas, check my notes and pick up on some of the learning. I redesigned some of my class website to include  multi-modal platforms. I'm trying to work smarter so I have time to include engaging resources, that don't have to be reinvented for each group - just accessible by using screen castify, and other tools we've used in D

DFI 8 Computational Thinking

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  What a blast this was today. I am not sure I ever thought I would become so absorbed in Minecraft, Flappy Code or Kodable to the point of not wanting to close the tab and get back into the main meet. I'll make the most of the code.org site and the tutorials, videos and planning on How to Plan Your Hour of Code    It was good to have another dip into The New Digital technologies Curriculum. The TKI Technology on line resource was really good, (thanks Kerry) and it's a relief to have the links between DFI programme, Digital Tech Curric,  and TKI for us and our students. The plethora of resources shared with us today links into work we've begun using Bots, Scratch Junior and non digital computational thinking projects. Once again the biggest issue is time, although the upcoming 5 day break may be an opportunity to dig deeper. What will I use with my class - definitely Hour of Code - super brilliant to have such a great resource!

DFI 7 Enabling Access

 Well, I played around with Mote again today (instead of Screen Castify!) on my very basic slide about accessing Google Apps. Vicki very gently reminded me would Screen Castify would work on any rewindable learning I wanted to share with my akonga.  Ok, that's my next step! Time to give it a go, as it should cut down the time I spend revisiting and reassuring my students who are still not confident with Google apps. Of course it will be great for rewindable learning too. I noticed last week while watching the others who have shared their work, that the placement of the video on screen needs to be done thoughtfully so it's not covering important aspects on the screen. I suspect the voice over is probably going to be my "go to" for rewindable learning. It was awesome to dig into the Cybersmart resource this week too. I have a better understanding of how to use it now. The sandpit time was great - time to read and delve into the support docs and videos.

Accessing apps - really basic

 

EE experience

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I'm sure this will be a usefull tool for ipad users who have the paid version. 

DFI 6 - Enabling Access

These days are a bit mind blowing - there's always a pile of interesting snippets thrown in alongside the main events as well as references to cool tools from the last few sessions, e.g. the drop down button alongside the agenda, Jamboard replacing Padlet, and the reminder to go back and raid the slide decks and prior sessions for more information. I'd taken notes about the Reading to Text activity but had parked that in favour of getting a couple of multi media slides onto my class site. Thanks for the reminder Jason from our bubble and Sharon Gibson (work colleague) who commented on how that was going well in their classes. The sandpit time with class sites was brilliant today. It was helpful to listen in as Meryn and Fatima got tips, it helped to get me a little further along the track with this. There's still a heap to do! However, I have decided to just focus on literacy this term. Planning, building and getting a clear well functioning site is my goal. It was great

Updated website

  https://sites.google.com/paroagrey.school.nz/takutai2021/home