Mini lessons with GIFS - Prt 2

I was supposed to try taking a toolkit for the KEN col this term. My toolkit was about creating GIFS and how we can use them in the classroom. Unfortunately, we cancelled them and opted for online toolkits instead. 

I didn't want to waste a perfectly good toolkit so this past week I have showed my class how to create their own GIFS. Just for practise we decided to create our very own profile pics for our individual blog pages.

I ran the lesson just like I would have if it had been a toolkit with teachers. The kids laughed when they saw the GIFS I used for the instructions. Some of my student worked completely on their using the slide as a guide and didn't even need my help. Maybe 4 or 5 out of my 20 students needed guidance.

Now that we've made our own GIFS for profile pics, the tamariki want to make their own online ebook using GIFS instead of pictures (not to myself - add that to the GIF slide under "ideas for students")

Another thing I am hoping is for some of my students to create some more mini-lessons for google basics instead of me (note to self again - add that to the the GIF slide under "ideas for teachers")

Session nine - exam time

Well, today we had our exam for our Google Certificate, and I was not successful. I was pretty gutted I didn't get a pass, and I did have a huge long story of my why's - keyboard issues, frozen screen, etc - that would have sounded much better with a sad violin playing in the background.

  However, the journey has been pretty epic, through the Digital Fluency Intensive course I have met some amazing people, heard some inspiring stories and most importantly I went back to basics with google drive, sheets, forms, docs, eg.

My biggest take home from this course was looking back into the 

Manaiakalani Learn, Create, Share Pedagogy again.

My highlight of the course was - the people.

P.S  I will re-sit this test ... will post about it later

Session six - Making our learning visible

Today the keyword was "Visible", and we had the lovely Danni Stone from Point England School in today to talk to us about the power of visible learning.  I really enjoyed listening to Danni as she shared her story with us, a lot of what she had shared reminded me of my first year in class.  A lot of what I have picked up from google sites I owe to my colleagues and some of the other wonderful schools in the Kaikohekohe network - shout out to Ohaeawai Primary School & Paihia School.

Danni touched on the Tuhi Mai, Tuhi Atu blogging programme that some Manaiakalani schools are currently involved in - this is a platform where 3 schools connect with one another through their classroom blogs - In 2016 & 2017 my class participated in this programme and my tamariki absolutely loved it.  I am definitely signing up for TMTA Term 3 now that my students have their blogs ready to go (Thank you, Tania Coutts & Mrs Henare).

Danni also shared a tip on how to get increase traffic on your blog.  She mentioned another teacher who posted prompts on her blog page and encouraged children to share their ideas in the comments.  This is something that I am definitely going to explore.

We explored multimodal sites and had a go at making one ourselves in groups.  I was grouped with Shelly and Deborah and together we started planning and looking into a multimodal site based on "The science of gardening."  I managed to finish the homepage, but there are 3 other pages that have been created, maybe we bit off more than we could chew? - so I guess the best tip I could give someone who is creating their site (especially with a time frame of fewer than 2 hours) is KISS (keep it simple, sweetheart).  

 

To have a look at the site click here

Some things that I will definitely try in the next week:

• Post a Prompt onto our class blog, to encourage more writing in my classroom, and maybe get more traffic.
• Post a reflection giving an update on student agency forms and voice typing.

One last thing - something else I have been doing is visiting other blogs from our Taitokerau DFI members - and tonight I visited Vanessa's blog, I was so happy to read that she completed her google educator level 1 exam.  You can read about it here

Beginning my digital fluency journey

This morning we began our digital fluency course with introductions at the beautiful Taipa Area School.  I am really looking forward to working with the Northland Cohort as we grow together in Gsuite and all the other amazing things that technology has to offer.  I am also looking forward to travelling back to my old Kura - Northland College every second week.

Check out my introduction on slide 16 and click on some of the images.  It takes you to my class site, this blog page and other things my class and I do

Here are the Label's that I will be using while I have this Professional Blog.