DFI 8: Computational Thinking

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa today - specifically empowerment?

Being EMPOWERED - we want our young people to feel confident and EMPOWERED to drive their own learning.

How can we use technology to enhance learning and empower our students?

Decile 1 students on average have heard 30, 000, 000 LESS words spoken at school entry compare to those entering decile 10 schools.

To have a voice everyone needs to be empowered to be confident to use the technology as we move forward into an even more digital world e.g automated checkout, online voting etc.

EMPOWERMENT = Student Agency.
Agency is having the power or capacity to act and make choices. (NZC 2007)

http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-resources/NZC-Online-blog/Learner-agency

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 

What is Computational Thinking?
What is the Digital Technologies Curriculum.

Computational Thinking is being able to give a set of instructions that a computer could follow so that they can become CREATORS of Digital Technology and not just users.
Coding is at the heart of Computational Thinking and the Digital Technologies Curriculum however this is not where is begins and ends.
Its about kids creating their own digital solutions to problems.


We had a chance to try out some of the technology.  Meg and I used a combination of StopMotion, GreenScreen App and iMovie to create a simple movie where the focus was on us using the software so we can take this back to use with our classes.  Here is the SHORT clip we created.
We even uploaded to Youtube!



Monika from the Waitangi Center told us about a free app called FLICK which allows files to be literally 'flicked' from one device to another e.g ipad to Chromebook.  This will be AMAZING for timesaving and frustration in being able to share video files especially.  I am looking forward to trying this out.

DFI Session 6: Enabling Access

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa, pedagogy and enabling access/ visible learning?

Today was a great reminder about where docs and slides need to be filed in my Drive to ensure that people outside of school have access to what is visible on my site.
Lots of the docs would not show when sharing my site with others at DFI!


It was great to be able to have time to look at the sites of others and critique these before reflecting back upon my own site and making developments and changes to my site so that more of the Learning Intentions and Purpose for learning is shared throughout the learning areas.

https://sites.google.com/mangonui.school.nz/kowhai-2019

DFI Session 5: Devices

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy? 

Notes from the themes explored today include.......

Being Cybersmart: empowering our learners as CONNECTED and CONFIDENT decision makers.

Slide extracts from DFI Session 5 Full Cybersmart Presentation

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 

HAPARA

More Key Tips:

Class Info gives you student emails etc.  From here you can go to Open Class Folder to see eveyones Folders e.g Inquiry.  These however don't have their names on them so you will see 24x Inquiry folders.

• You can also "Email the Class" from here.
• In the HIGHLIGHTS tab you can share links with individuals, groups or the whole class.

WORKSPACE

Works best when used for topics.

CHROMEBOOKS:

Teachers should use a student Chromebook for a period of time so they can experience what the learner can and can't do.

Digital Dig should be done at the beginning of each year to refresh and give opportunity to practise any new tips or shortcuts that have come out.  

iPADS:

Set up ONE slide deck and folders for each area and then just duplicate the slides.
This session from Khismira gave me a lot of information to share back to my Junior colleagues.

In this afternoon CREATE session we were asked to Select ONE of the Cybersmart areas and create a movie talking through one of the lesson templates provided.
I have done q few Screencastify now for my students to talk them through lessons and as I have said in a previous post I want to make the most of the Blog kaupapa from Manaiakalani for the benifit of my learners, especially in writing.  Therefore I have created a quick Screencastify of the Cybersmart lessons that I could sue with my students to help set this up in the first couple of weeks of Term 2.

I also learnt another trick, which was using the draw tool to highlight what you are talking about on the Screencastify.

TIP: To insert a Screencastify into Blogger.  

Open Screencastify you want to embed.  Open in a new window.  Click 3 dots and choose embed item.  Then use this code to embed as HTML in your Blogger.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Nothing specific this week, however as I continue to get faster and more confident this reflects in my planning and prep time and its also getting easier which impacts on my personal life too!