Site seeing - Pt 2

This is my 3rd year in a 1:1 digital chromebook classroom and it is the 3rd year with a class site. I am always up for trying new things. Usually I have my timetable written up on the whiteboard, but this year I have been trying to get my tamariki used to referring back to the timetable on the class site.

So nowadays, I just print off the class site for the week and stick it up on the whiteboard. I do this for 2 reasons: Firstly, at the end of the week I write reflections, scribble down what had to be adjusted and why, what's really not working in the timetable and so on. Secondly, when my newbies are stuck and are not sure where to go or what's happening, I can just point out on the timetable what I am referring to.

Below is a screenshot of my timetable all up until this week. It was way easier for my tamariki to just have the timetable up on the home page, so we got rid of the button that used to be above them. Now I just link all the pages and work I am expecting them to do for the day. No hassle, no beating around the bush - it's just one click and they're where they're supposed to be.



The timetable looks kind of weird doesn't it? with all the colour - I originally did this because I wanted to see visually if I was giving enough time to all my curriculum areas. purple is reo-a-waha, blue is reading, yellow is maths, pink is writing and white is topic, cybersmart, P.E, art, etc.

I tried something different this week. I got rid of the colour (ask anyone of Whaea Sally's student  - they will tell you that Whaea just LOVES colour.) I figured if I wanted my tamariki to refer to the timetable I had to do it in a way that is super easy for them to follow. And so came the new mahere ako...





So I didn't entirely lose the colour - I still find it very easy to see my coverage. I rolled it out today and because I had literally everything linked to the day the tamariki were in their seats following the timetable as we went along.  One of my students asked me at 10.15am "Whaea, can we have milk and fruit?", I replied "no" and when he asked "why?" another student told him that it wasn't time for fruit - he had to wait for 10:45am.

Another thing that went well was the morning - usually Te ara panui and Taumata gets a little crazy with the management but today it was pretty settled, we got on with the mahi and finished on time. Hopefully this is us for the rest of the year.

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")

Tuakana Literacy - Pt 3

What I have tried since the last meeting?

Spelling

I have asked the tamariki for words that they may need help spelling with. Now I have to write these words on coloured strips of paper. We had a big korero about the words we are using for spelling, one next step we are planning to implement are topic words as well as words from the essential list.

Writing

I have been doing 3 tier in class and blocking off writing time, I am glad to say that I finally have work from my class. Dana and Jess shared their R.W.L site for writing which I would like to do for my own class.

Next steps:

1. Word wall up in class.✔️
2. Start a topic word wall.
3. Spelling words - 5 x topic words + 5 x words from the list.
   5 x Maori kupu.
4. Sharing mahi - not whole writing, just 2 sentences.
5. Re-do my writing site.

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 eight continued - Hanging out with Google Hangouts

For the second half of our day - we were asked to explore Google Hangouts in small groups.  This was perfect as Toni, her team teacher Verbina and I are all planning to connect with a school in Auckland through google hangouts.  There were a lot of technical difficulties, the entire cohort was exploring hangouts so the bandwidth could have been affected, the microphones were picking up a lot of "noise" etc.  After speaking with Gerhard, he said that we shouldn't experience this issue when we connect with Tamaki Makaurau. I will upload a reflective blog after next week giving everyone an update on how the google hangout went.
Tips for teacher's planning to use Google hangouts:

• Practise with your class first, it is pretty hectic and pretty crazy - teach them how to mute their mikes, take turns, etc - let your tamariki go crazy on it under your watchful eye, then after the craziness settles, connect with others.
• Headphones make the difference - make sure everyone has headphones.
• No glass or windows behind the speaker - this creates a glare and your face is not clearly seen.
• Make sure the students on the hangout are not close by unless you are keen to hear a very annoying screeching sound.

Below is a screencasting of Toni, Dwayne and myself, as you will notice there is no sound, not sure why (could possibly be the muted microphone? I have no idea) and underneath the video is, of course, some funny photos we managed to capture during this exploration.

Above is a picture of Dwayne's screen whilst presenting his screen with everyone.



And this is Dwayne's Korero - Take one lol

Session seven - Site Seeing

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend our digital fluency intensive course today, But I was able to look through the resources available on our agenda.  I was also fortunate to connect with the guest speaker Clarelle and did ask her to give feedback on my class site.

Feedback from Clarelle:

• Easy to access the learning.
• Layout in writing, maths was well thought out.
• Headers and theme are consistent throughout the site.
• Really liked the idea on my spelling site.

Feedforward from Clarelle:

• Put my Treaty on my homepage, this is important.
• Reading site links to an outside site.
• Images are clearer than Google Draw.
• Gather feedback and feedforward of my class site with my students.

I really appreciated the critique from Clarelle.

My 2018 class site is the 3rd sites that I have had, below are links to my previous class sites and my current class site with a small summary of each site.

Click here to go to my Class site 2016
Adopted the site from the previous teacher and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, learned the ropes by "copying" others.  

Click here to go to my Class site 2017
Went absolutely berserk on my own site, creating multimodal pages, still copying off others.  Realised halfway through just how confused my students were because I had links everywhere.





Click here to go to my Class site 2018
Originally went into the year team teaching and my co-teacher originally designed the class site - when we separated into 2 classes, rather than make a whole new design, I reworked the site slightly to look similar to hers.  Thank Whaea Chloe 😼

Started off my site by looking at the senior class sites that my students were stepping into after me, is what I have on my site going to help set them up for next year?  Constantly asking my students if what I am putting on the site confusing them or making it easier for them.



I spent a few moments looking through some of my other fellow DFI colleagues and their class, and it's really great seeing how everyone's sites are developing.  I really liked what I found on Anna's class site - she has a link to homework and newsletters which I would like to add to my homepage next term - Thanks Anna.

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

Session five - Coding Crazy and Makey Makey Madness

Today we explored coding through code.org and Makey Makey. First, we looked into coding through a website called Code.org.  I really enjoyed this website because it was straightforward with teaching how coding works.  My tamariki have recently been looking into coding through the CSFirst website, but I feel that my students are quite lost when it comes to this website, maybe this is a more simplified website for them to explore.

Next, we were given a quick tutorial of Makey Makey.  This was a very hands-on activity which I also enjoyed.

Makey Makey important tips:

• If you don't connect to "Earth" - nothing will happen.
• You can connect your Makey Makey to anything that is conductive.
• Can be connected with scratch, code.org

Below is a screencast of me having a little tutu with Makey Makey.  Putting it all together was a little tricky but, once everything was hooked up it was very fun.  I could imagine my class creating their own game with code.org or scratch, and then using Makey Makey as a way to create a joystick of some sort.  I may revisit code.org later after I receive more feedback from my students about how they would feel about this.

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.