DFI week 5

In this weeks DFI our kaupapa focus was on having visible learning and the benefits this brings our students. It makes a lot of sense to me to ensure that my students feel like what they have to say is being heard and has value, and this pedagogy aligns well with my belief.

I like the multi modal learning pedagogy too. Having classrooms with a varied range of students, all whom bring their own unique experiences, abilities and understandings to the classroom leads straight to good practice being differentiated for all students. Having the technology varied for not only learning levels but also learning styles seems logical and important to me.

 It was really fun making my own google site today for learning based around friendship and the book "The Rainbow Fish". I relearnt a lot of small things about making a site from the beginning of this year, and how to ensure the settings are checked to give everyone access. This is especially important with lockdown level 4 right now and having all students accessing their learning from at home. I feel this is something I will use a lot in the future.

DFI week 4

This weeks learning has been about three different apps that I have not previously used much, if at all. There has been a lot of new information this week

I found todays learning fantastic for showing me ways to collect and analysis data from tamariki, fellow staff, and whanau. It has given me numerous new ways to collect and analise data for and from my class, in a much more efficent way. Im looking forward to setting up a self reflection for students at the end of the school day or specific lessons, to help them become more independant and accountable of their own learning journeys.

I am excited to try using maps to help my students compare distances and locations. I had not previously used this app before at all, so there are many possibilities I have not tried for learning opportunities within my class.

With another possible lockdown upon us and remote learning very likely to become a reality in this coming week, I am wanting to try usinf forms in a way my students can access to check in with me each day. I envision this being mostly about wellbeing, but I may also see if I can use this for clarification of students learning and as an opportunity for whanau to reflect back to me on quantity and quality of activities.

Blog analysis

DFI week 3

This week in the DFI course I have looked at media. Specifically options for using different forms of media in the classroom and on my class website, and how to effectivly embed this in a variety of different yet appropriate ways so my students can access pertinent information in an engaging and age appropriate way.

I set up a youtube channel so that I can safely control what content my students are accessing to support their learning. I learnt how to change the settings to keep it safe, and to create playlists of videos and content to access from multiple platforms.

I then spent some time working in google draw. This was the first time i had encountered this program, and I enjoyed using its features and settings to develop visual content and embed this into my blog. I can see many benefits to using this program, and in getting students to use it when creating visual content themselves. I look forward to adding this to the options students have when creating visual displays of their learning and understandings in my classroom setting. It was especially useful to go further into the features of this program in our deep dive session later in the day. I discovered numerous additional features and got to discuss a variety of ways i had not thought of to use this program in my classroom.

It was very valuable to spend time working through features of google slides. This is a program I use often, so to find shortcuts and extra features is fantastic. I can see many ways I will be able to use this more effectivly with my teaching now, in a way students can access better, and to help me work far more efficiently by saving me valuable time when creating new slide documents.

Ko wai tou ingoa

DFI week 2

 Workflow

Week 2 of the DFI course has been very informative for me. I have been bombarded with useful tips for streamlining my digital time and being more effective in my teaching and administration time.

I particularly enjoyed learning about being able to use google keep more effectively, including using the voice to text function, picture to text function, and the different label options to colour code, sort, organise and list.

It has been very helpful learning more functions of google mail. I now have a far more streamlined system to use, with folders, tabs, priority starring system, the ability to use the smart finish function to finish sentences, scheduling emails to send to students or whanau at specific times, and having an email signature that includes links to the school and class webpages, as well as the class blog, to hopefully encourage more digitial traffic.

I found it really useful to spend time reorganising my bookmarks, removing the longer labels, so it is easier to navigate quickly and is now far less cluttered on ym screen too.