Week 3 Create

This week going over create has reinforced for me as a new learner to actually creating digitally rather than just marking and commenting on those creations from students has been an eye opener. I realize how easy it is to get stuck on one idea or way of creating because that is what you know rather than exploring new and more interesting ways. This takes time that we don't necessarily give or have in class in one given year. So my thoughts are this needs to start earlier when students are in the junior school so that we are empowering them to be more creative each year.

I feel more confident already on being able to develop better digital creations which also means I feel I can be more helpful when it comes to empowering our students who may struggle in this area. The time it took me to do one simple create which was a Pick a Path was a learning curb. Do we give our students enough time to be creative or are we just wanting something done. while doing the Pick a Path I struggled with a plot. So I had to Google story plots and once I saw one that attracted my attention the writing was much simpler. This is a reflection for me on our students who may be good at literacy as this doesn't mean they will find ideas a simple task.

Blog you next week.

Week 2 Reflection DFI

Welcome back to week 2 of my DFI blogging.  This week we were focused on the learn part of Learn-Create-Share.  The most important part of this discussion for me was, empowerment.  It was a good reminder to  make sure when I am working with students that I am doing it in a way that empowers them to take control of their learning and be a successful learner.  Sometimes in the rush of everything going on and work needing to be finished this can become a bit lost.  But a gentle reminder of this every now and then helps me to re-focus as a kaiawhina. 

Taming my tabs and pinning was a great way to clean up my laptop to make it easier to switch from student to student or topic to topic without too much drama.  This will be very helpful during class time, especially when you  have a queue of students wanting work checked.  I have also set up Toby on my computer to organize groups of tabs, this has been very useful so far and speaks to my need to 2 organize in general.

Google Meet - I struggled a bit here due to technical difficulties unfortunately but managed to organize a Meet with a colleague eventually.  I find I push my face into the screen so need to learn to sit back and relax.  The setting up is still a bit confusing but I'm hoping that with practice next week I will nail it.  

My goal is to set up a Google Meet with a student I work one on one with, to encourage him to be able to work from home if the need ever arises.  I will keep you posted as to how this goes.

Day 1 Digital Fluency Intensive (DFI)

 Hello to the world of bloggers.  This term I have taken on the task of upskilling myself digitally.  Starting out the day before I had many feelings about what I had gotten myself into, anxiety, fear, pure disbelief that I am the one to blame for putting myself in this situation!  What do I know and what am I going to retain?

Here I am at the end of day 1 and phew, I survived, very dramatic I know but the relief is real.  What an easy going group of people and the tutors were clear and easy to follow.  Everyone was friendly and their was absolutely no judgement on each others abilities.

I learnt a lot of skills that I can apply in class on a daily basis such as using voice typing, which I am excited to try and what you can actually do with a Google Doc.   It is also really helpful and interesting to hear different opinions and ways of structuring learning in the classroom from others in similar or completely different situations and roles.

The following DLO (Digital Learning Object) is my first and was done by me on a Google Doc.  My focus for this DLO was our class blogging and what I am trying to encourage our students to do without thinking so that they can be successful.

Looking forward to Day 2 in Kaitaia next week