Digital Fluency Intensive Day 1

Manaiakalani has such an interesting origin. It was eye opening the small amount of space in the Tamati Basin that housed so many people and schools. What a great incentive for the community to come together to provide devices and internet to the local tamariki. An important part of this introduction for myself was the quote "We did not come to school to teach teachers" by a Manaiakalani learner. I am probably a bit guilty of asking children questions about digital technology both at school and at home with my own children. I shouldn't need to do this and children shouldn't feel like they have to stop what they're doing and help me when this is their time to shine.

The shortcuts learnt today will make my professional life a lot easier. I can see a lot of time being saved knowing the little tricks for chrome, drive and docs. As I continue to use these in my professional life, I will discover more of what's available to use in the classroom.

My learners will love the quirks and time savers that we have looked at today. I don't have a digital classroom, so when I teach the children these in groups, I'm sure they will take the knowledge to their next class, some of which will be a digital classroom.

I feel like I can take what I've learnt this session and maybe understand more of what my own children are talking about when they're doing their homework or showing me various learning tasks. Hopefully I will be able to show them some short cuts, or how to improve the look of their document or how to access something easier in their drive.

It's been a great first day of the course and I'm looking forward to my future learning.


Comments

  1. NicolaJuly 25, 2019 at 6:17 PM

    It was great to meet you at the DFI Abby and I look forward to supporting you over the next 9 weeks. It is certainly a real eye opener to learn of the humble beginnings of Manaiakalani and to see the amazing effect it is having on our learners and I'm sure you will be even more inspired as you learn more about it each week. There are certainly some great tricks and tools that are available to us to make our lives simpler and more efficient and I am thrilled to read how you plan to share what you have already learned.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 4 already!

May 14, 2019 As I sit here on my PRT day, I just can't believe I'm doing planning for week 4 already! It's been a fantastic start to term 2 and the children are really responding well to our 'fix it' topic. They have brought some wonderful ideas to the table about what they would like to do, learn and share. This takes me back to the Toki Pounamu lessons we have been discussing. The children in Kōtuku have decided to make things out of recycled materials to help fix the recycling problem in the world. They would then like to open a shop to sell these goods to raise money. The money was first thought to go to feed starving children in the world, but someone asked if there's anything we need locally to 'fix' our town. This was the beginning of an interesting conversation. The children regularly come back to this conversation so no decision has been made as yet. I love teaching inquiry this way. The enthusiasm and motivation of these children give me m...
Read more

Term 2 Reflections

Term 2 Reflections - Abby Johnstone Te Tiriti o Waitangi Professional Learning During my PRT days, I have had the opportunity to read about things I’d like to improve in my class and how I can implement what I have read. Maths has been a focus for me this term, and I started with regular ‘Number Talks’ lessons each day after researching the benefits of DCIM (Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities). Because I started it towards the end of the term, I haven’t seen the academic benefits of Number Talks, but I’ve definitely noticed an increase in participation of the children due to the excitement of understanding different ways to look at things. This term I’ve also written reflective notes across my planning. This enables me to reflect on my practice to see what worked and what didn’t.   I have had two observations during this term, one from the principal and one from my mentor teacher. There were similarities between these observations and the feedback given...
Read more

Waiata

In the past two weeks I've been introducing te reo waiata into the classroom. Kōtuku class loves music and dancing and they've embraced the opportunity to explore more of this. I'm not familiar with many songs, having spent a long time away from New Zealand, but the children are more than happy to teach me. This 'side' learning has worked great at increasing the ako in the classroom. We are all up there copying the actions, pausing, going back, again and again and everyone is having a good time. Some children are singing the whole song while they're learning the actions, and others (like myself) are fumbling through the actions. Next term we are focusing on the local area and people. We will look at how Māori came to Lake Brunner and learn stories of the local area. I aim to learn more about the area and it's history. This will enable me to find out local waiata and work towards taking some sort of kapa haka group during lunchtime once a week. This may tak...
Read more