I enjoyed the circle activities as I got to exchange ideas with other staff who were not in my department. It was also good to catch up with other staff, talking about the holidays, and talking through issues.
I like the idea of one PD section, and having support for staff that 'walks beside you'.
Teacher only days always leave me feeling overloaded by lunchtime, so perhaps some activities which are not too 'top heavy' could be planned for afternoons?
Today's theme was revision, and we were finally going to sit our exam!
My mind has been preoccupied over the last week with other issues, so I have not had the time to revise or prepare for this exam, but I went through a few of the issues I have been having with Google Sheets, as this was the area I felt like I needed to focus on if I were to pass.
We quickly went over Google Classroom today; I had been using this programme for a while so was quite used to its features, which helped me in the exam. I am considering creating a workspace on Hapara, but had been put off by the format, which I didn't quite understand.
We then started our exams, I tried to move quickly through the sections, double-checking each set of instructions to be sure I followed them accurately. I managed to finish with over an hour to go, which I was pleased about, and passed.
This week we were focussed on Computational Thinking. We have been preparing for this in our curriculum for the last 6 months or so; the original talk and definitions seemed to be limiting computational thinking to coding only, but the recent talk has been about any sort of formulaic thinking, such as a recipe, or structure of thinking to problem-solve. This is much more like what we do in the Social Sciences, and it will mean that we are much more likely to be able to match what we already do to the new curriculum.
At lunchtime we had the chance to experiment with some of the tools which students are using for story-telling. I made a quick movie with a stop motion camera, this allowed me to see how it could be simply set up in class to tell stories by students which relate to the topics we study.
In the afternoon we were asked to tell a story using one of the digital tools which we had experienced earlier in the day. I chose to use the dash robot tool; I thought of topics which I am currently teaching and learning about, and the story behind chocolate leaped out as an idea.
I thought of a series of tasks and sounds which the robot could do in order to tell the 'back story' of chocolate. I was able to record myself about 10 times to add these voice recordings into the presentation at the right time. It was a bit basic, but hopefully it has told the story in a different and memorable way!
Using this tool to tell this story did not seem very authentic; I think if I had had the time, stop-motion movies would have been a better, less 'gimmicky' way to do this.
Below is a recording of the dash robot presentation:
Today we were focussing on media and how to use some of the other tools on Google.
It was interesting to see how we could set up youtube playlists. I had been sharing links with 3 of my students via Hapara Dashboard only a few minutes earlier, but was now able to set up a playlist containing all the links I had shared with them, and then embed this on the subject website.
This will allow me to set up playlists for each learning intention within each subject, and the students can use the site as it was originally intended, as a "one stop shop" so that all relevant information is on there.
We also looked at how to livestream to youtube; this might be good for school events, but you need plenty of equipment for this (perhaps we could ask for more money in our budget for 2020?)
We then had a tutu with Google Slides. After seeing a few, we were able to start thinking about creating an animation of our own. I chose to do something simplistic, which may amuse my own children, but I can see how this may be something which our students could do (probably more as a starter activity at the start of a topic, than as the main presentation, but possibly it could be used for this purpose).
The last task of the day was to create a new drawing as our 'About Me' section on our blog. I used a tool called colourpick eyedropper; this meant that when I'd copied the school badge, I could use this tool to find the exact same colours used, and then turn these into my background colours, so that my photo matched the school colours, linking my photo with the school subtly!
Today our focus was on using devices.
We experienced using iPads and Chromebooks - I use Chromebooks during staff meetings as I don't have a laptop, but I didn't know all the Chromebook shortcuts; it felt today like we were learning a language which was similar to the one we know, but had lots of little 'twists' which were confusing at first. Once I found the shortcuts for Chromebook it was easy to use them to get the same results as I do on a laptop or desktop.
I had never used an iPad before; it was initially daunting, but I kept asking questions of those around me and the instructors, and was able to pick up how to do things quickly. We used this to make presentations at a Primary level; this seemed to be easy to pick up and apply.
The last main thing we did today was to create a screencastify. We were tasked to create one about an aspect of being cybersmart; I chose to create one about smart surfing, as this is something I am currently focussing on with my Year 9 and 10 classes. My first effort was 9 minutes long, so I tried to cut this down to 3 minutes; I was not entirely successful as my second attempt was 5 minutes, but it was a reduction in the time the first one took! One of our staff uses this tool a lot with her classes to create 'rewindable learning'; this will be good for students who are auditory learners.
My 5 minute effort is below:
Today we spent time going through our current websites, checking them, developing them, presenting them to get feedback from the others in the group.
The biggest 'glitch' today was finding that many PDF files which I'd added to the site were not viewable by those outside the school. After a fair amount of time, and some trial and error, Kerry and I found ways to make sure these files were viewable. Despite the shared settings seeming like all files would be viewable, they were not; the only way to fix this seemed be to be embedding the files, or deleting them and re-adding them, which will be a lot of work, but I may just wait until students tell me they can't see the file, then I can quickly edit the site to make the link work. Over time this will fix the glitches!
Just trying to embed the screenshot below of the website revealed that it may be a glitch in the laptop, rather than something else. I think if I log in to this laptop while the laptop is physically plugged into the school system with a cable may fix all the issues!
The more workable the website, the easier it is for students and whanau to find their way around, and the more obvious the learning. This will lead to improved educational outcomes for all.
Today was all about creating sites.
The pedagogy behind Manaiakalani was reviewed, and multi-modal was reviewed as a foundation of how we should be setting up our sites.
I had set up a departmental site approximately 5 years ago, which has been transferred onto the new google sites, which required about 5 hours of 're-jigging' to get it to work. The main idea with this is to put all resources and information on, so that students can go onto the site in order to review/refresh their learning.
We were asked to create a site; this was a challenge as I couldn't immediately think of something which I wanted to make a site about. I settled on the school trip to Cambodia in a couple of weeks; this site can also double as an exemplar for Year 9 students when they are studying other cultures during either the Migration or Kiwi Culture units.
It was a bit of a 'refresher' for me, as it was a while since I'd set up a site; I have been editing and adding to my current site, but it was good to go back to the basics again and remind myself how to do things.
I'm not sure if I will go to the bother of creating a new site for every topic I plan to teach - this seems to be a bit of an overkill at the moment. I will probably create a new section onto the departmental site, in order to keep expanding the choices available to students each year.
