DFI day two

What I took and used from last week day one:

Something I took and used straight away was google docs in making a poster. I applied this to year 9 Art and taught them through it slowly a step at a time, which gave me a chance to see their comfort level with docs in the first place too. All but three students got a poster that begins their Hannah Hoch Research off to use as a DLO on their blogs, hopefully today... at least that was the relief instruction. Using it to quickly whip up an infographic/more visual list of instructions/expectations in general, has also been a useful 

Lovely Chris in my Year 9 class completed this example:

I also began a google group for the Art department. We have one teacher as an editor and the other as a contributor along with myself as owner. I do wonder if I should change this to both being editors so that anyone can start up a discussion. We will see how this works over the next few weeks. 

The Mindmeister app should be a useful one to work from for our upcoming Next Steps Camp at Year 12, so this possibility is being explored, now that we have come to an agreement that students should and must bring their chromebooks with them (rather than using derelict ancient iPads we have still yet to trade in or recycle, as has previously been the case). 

AKO - Learn 

What does learn look like in our school? I feel like I know what it is; Ako - activate - to know. what do we already know? I personally feel like it is well thought out and works in SOLO really well. Interesting quote - if any teacher can be replaced by a computer then they should be because it is cheaper. Some of our colleagues may have made this point by relying on logins for commercial products rather than actual teaching. It feels like I consistently talk about ako in the way I see it to staff from a professional and informal point, but then at times, it feels like its not something that is reflected back to me from staff at something close to 100% and I am consistently wondering how to improve this. 

RATE - acronym. Can you see your teaching through this lens? 

R  = recognise - what you do that is plain good teaching no matter what - content that is meaningful

A = Amplifying effective practice. 

T = turbo charging effective practice things that weren't possible in the analogue age. It's the new stuff that impacts our teaching. top two elements of SAMR - modify and redefine. Harnessing the power of the technology. 

E = effective practice. 

Google Keep 

- is probably a revolutionary product in that it can replace any form of organiser and/or diary. Probably it is better to use Keep over the Tasks function and use Calendar to keep track of overall stuff. I would like to explore this more. The chrome extension for google keep seems to have functionality that could be useful in linking URLS to a particular note. Checklists, collaboration, reminders etc all mean that you could almost use Google Keep in place of a department management system, and I wonder if that is worth experimenting with. 

The interchangeability of keep to docs is very exciting. I like that it can do more than any kind of organiser I have used on paper or online (though the 'Buy me a pie' shopping list app will be staying!). 

Taming your tabs 

- Teaching students to learn how to read their tabs effectively. 

command (or control) shift T opens back up the last tab you potentially accidentally closed. 

Toby mini looks organised. 

Do I actually have a problem here that needs to be solved however? Probably not. Nothing actually stops working and I don't feel unable to manage my tabs. And then I considered going through Hapara to see all seven mark books that constitute one class of seniors in Art and realised it could be useful to set up preset collections in Toby mini of all seven mark-books worth of blogs, so I could open them all at once and go through them with quicker pace, less frustration:

This is ONE senior class on Hapara. And it is a normal aspect of our junior classes now too, with mixed level and mixed discipline teaching happening. 

My only issue is that Toby will not let me create an account. I remain a guest user, though my first collection is still visible. 

My homework tonight will be to explore Google Keep and it's functionality and set up my senior classes for Toby mini.