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Friday 26 May 2017

Manaiakalani Intensive Session Four

Today's session was around sharing to learn, Chromebooks  (Screen castify) and Ipads (explain everything).  Dorothy discussed that sharing is not the end of the learning. We share to get further feedback to promote further learning; specific and focused feedback is "one of the most powerful influences of achievement" according to John Hattie (2009). Sharing also enables others to learn from our learning. TheManaiakalani pedagogy focuses on learning being; rewindable, visible, transparent, personalised and accessible. My goal this term has been around making the learning in my classroom rewindable; I have created online modelling books where students can refer to examples, learning intentions and success criteria. In my class, most students refer to modelling books every day, to either check what they need to be doing or to assess themselves against the success criteria. I am wanting to take this rewindable learning further and record lessons so that students can revisit key learning ideas, this would be hugely beneficial to my learners giving them opportunities to go back and re-listen to instructions or specific learning. My first screen castify is going to show students how to post on their blogs- this is new learning for my students and there are many steps involved, it would be a massive teaching tool to have a video showing students what to do saving my teaching time repeating the same instructions. 

Below is an example of me using screencastify, in the video below I am discussing the four elements of effective feedback. I mainly discuss focused feedback. The feedback I give my students in particular in the area of writing has been the most effective in terms of their achievement outcomes.  I have had PLD around feedback. We learned about connecting our success criteria to a model or an exemplar and annotating it so that students can see exactly what their success criteria is. I then give them feedback on their success criteria and if they have completed all components I provide generative feedback ( I make sure to keep them achievable) I am hoping to incorporate a buddy feedback and self-check effectively into my writing programme so that when I conference with students my feedback can be an additional next step that is going to promote further learning and hopefully provide some acceleration.  (This is happening in my class but they are still getting the hang of buddy feedback and making sure that it is specific and linked to their learning intention or goal). 


 Current annotated modelling books ( I am hoping to include a video with the lesson for some of my groups)



Friday 19 May 2017

Manaiakalani Digital Intensive Session three

Manaiakalani Digital Intensive Session Three

This week we looked at google mail, google calendar, google keep, google hangout and quicktime player.




The sharing of the Manaiakalani pedagogy around the termcreating’, made me wonder “am I allowing my students enough opportunities to create", and “Am I planning for creativity”?. I think this could be a focus for me over the next few weeks as I think I could be allowing for more opportunities. Ideas like giving students the opportunity to create drawings, videos, recordings .. etc. To find examples of creativity I am going to look at the creativity empowers learning link and gather some ideas. One idea I had last week after our Kootuitui staff meeting was to create stop motions so the students could create a scene demonstrating their learning and understanding of the water cycle/ or severe weather (Our focus last week). I am hoping to implement this next week or in week 5 (Time dependant).

Google keep is a great google app that will save me time in a personal and professional capacity. I am going to use google keep for my very long 'to do’ lists and for shopping lists. On a professional platform I am going to use it to take pictures of texts and putt them on a google document for students to answer questions to OR fill in blank words (Cloze activities) as this is a real need in my class but the time for me to create close activities was too long so it was put at the bottom of my to do list.


QuickTime recorder. I am hoping to use quicktime recorder this week to show the students how to use website that some of them are forgetting- Maths learning centre. It will also help new students become familiar with our class routines and activities- this would save me time and help them settle in quickly. I may also start recording lessons (rewindable learning) to help my lower learners if they need to hear the instructions or lesson again.


Tuesday 16 May 2017

Maths Programme

For the last year I have been running my Maths programme around a structure called the 'Daily 3'. It has been one of my most effective and successful curriculum areas. The approach focuses on giving the students the opportunity to work on Maths in three different way; Maths by yourself, Maths with a buddy and Maths with a group. Each area focuses on building particular skills around the Maths curriculum e.g problem solving, communicating using mathematical vocabulary. Each week students are given number knowledge questions to complete independently and strategy questions that focus on the stratgies they are learning in workshops. I have seen a huge improvement with how the students are communicating about maths and their response to our maths sessions. Student engagement is at a high during maths times. The success of my program can be identified through the structure and maths workshops I take. Each student will attend 2-3 workshops a week to focus on gaps in their learning- I use modelling books to record the sessions and upload them online immediately after the workshop to provide extra support when students are working independently. I have recently found a website called "Maths learning centre" this has been a great tool that I have used the last two weeks in my workshops- students have loved using it and it is a quick way to 'set up' support for a strategy - E.g the number line section (See picture below). Students are now able to use it independelty and it a great resource to support learners who need extra visual aids. 




The frames section in the website has been useful for my Stage early 5 Maths group who are currently learning to 'manipulate numbers'. (WALT- solve addition problems by making a tidy 10). Students have been using ten frame materials and some students were struggling to make the connection- Yesterday when using the website on our large class TV I could see many students making connections. Perhaps the digital technology was able to clearly show them how to make a tidy 10. My next step for my maths program is to get students to use screencastify for their maths work; I am hoping to see an increase in maths vocabulary and see students articulating their ideas around maths and problems solving at a higher level. This will be great evidence for their learning and help me provide next steps for them. 


Friday 12 May 2017

Digital Intensive Session Two


Todays 'Digital Intensive Session' focused on google sheets and google forms. I have attached below both my google form and map to share my learning. The session helped enhance my knowledge in google spreadsheets and gave me tips on how to save a lot of time such as dragging down to automatically formulate numbers/ days of the week etc. I am going to try and create a spreadsheet for my student data as I now know how to calculate the average results, and condition the formatting to focus on a particular set of data. I saw google forms as a helpful app to gather whanau and/ or student voice. In particular I am going to use google forms in Parent interviews to gather more information on my students and how the parents view their learning- this will help direct my teaching focus. For my writing inquiry I want to use google forms to gather student voice- I could put the data into a google spreadsheet and track my student voice over the term to show progress and improvement. 







Friday 5 May 2017

Manaiakalani Intensive - Session Week 1

Session One (5th May 2017)

Learn
Today’s session focused on exploring google docs, google extensions/ add ons, harper teacher dashboard. Here are the notes below.


Main goals of Manaiakalani:
  • Was to motivate learners to engage with the curriculum.
  • Create an authentic audience (more than just the teacher)
  • Personal voice is valued and powerful
  • Raise achievement outcomes


Lead teachers of Manaiakalani achievement was observed. (Large shift in N.S results 2010 compared to ‘normal’ classes not using the learn create share philosophy.)


-Internet into students homes??? Kotuitui
-Whanau- need to be active partners- Could we do a whanau/student- chromebook share? On top of what G. is doing?? -Could the students take part and present as part of next years induction?/ could students present what and how the chromebooks can be used for?
-How can whanau support their students at home?( Is this monitored?)
- School collaboration - Primary/ College.
-Parents can constantly view students work.
-Purpose of this - Intensive programme about supporting teachers outside of the classroom.


Google Save (Similar to bookmarking but a visual display a large amount of content)
Google Drive- Organising folders.


Am I teaching my students what I learn here? Think am I building my students tech capability? Can I give suggestions throughout my lessons?


Google Docs
Create headings and a table of contents (Each heading has its own link. So you can send your document and it will take the person to the specific heading/ part of doc you want them to look at).
Figure out how to put it into my site!
Google Voice typer
  • Using google typer (Next week could do for follow up for reading) - English NZ
  • Reports/ reflections.
  • Get students ideas down.


Publish to web- becomes a mini website.


Addons
  • Easy accents - Maori accents for words
  • Docutube- (Keep students on a specific video)
  • LucidCharts- About charts and diagrams.
  • Move it” - Get students up on their chromebook (Chrome Extension)
  • Hyperlink
  • Doc secrets
  • Word Cloud
  • https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/  - (Shared document, PB4L- then create a wordcloud).
  • Talk and comment ( to support low level readers and ESOL) ( Allows you to voice comment on a document- students can listen to the comment if you want to discuss something in depth.


Teacher Dashboard
-Drop and drag to move students.
-Can show more than 5 items.
- Parent dashboard?
-Password- Maybe students have their own?
- You can email students all at once.

Create



Share
I was able to take away new tools and skills for myself and for the students. As you can see in the venn diagram I have many tools and new skills that I am going to implement in the next few weeks. The comic about the kawa of care will help me pull in my digital skills and also support my students in caring for their chromebook. This session has helped enhance my confidence with google docs, harper and the learn create share pedagogy. I am hoping to present some ideas back at my school and cluster in particular for my school inquiry ( Writing) using the voice typing add on for google docs- this will help my lower writers get their ideas down on paper. ALSO the extension of type and comment will help me give more detailed feedback that students can listen to again and again- opposed to me saying it once (Rewindable learning). Could also use the type and comment to give students instructions.