DFI 9 Ubiquitous as pedagogy/kaupapa

Ubiquitous means 'able to learn anywhere, any time at any pace'. We place the learner at the centre of the learning when we not just allow, but plan for and act upon ubiquitous learning; learning doesn't belong to the school nor to the teacher, it is a viral context we are positioned in. What is not looking like ubiquitous learning in our kura currently? And why?

Lock down provided us a learning curve for how ubiquitous we really are. We had no lead in educationally, to covid-19 level four - the 72 hours we did get from level two to four would not be providing an opportunity to force one to happen with our rangatahi. We sat very nervously as a staff when the announcement was made, in our learning commons as it enabled us to spread out, listening to directives made by our senior leadership team, knowing full well they were having to invent the process as we went. Google Meet had already been allowed onto our systems by Harry our fusion technician that day in a pre-emptive move for us, as was google chat. Google chat was then discussed and disabled temporarily while we decided what our next practical step would be. All staff were initially instructed to have NO google meets with classes until we had ascertained a process to support our rangatahi and kaiako well-being. 'Unsure' doesn't really cover how we all felt going forwards. 

What am I proud of?

Having worked hard on my google site not only for my rangatahi learners but also for other kaiako to have as an example meant that I knew I had a structured and manageable way of delivering content. I was also in a fortunate position of knowing that my department staff were in fact using it as a model prior to this, so we had an aligned approach. 

What do I regret?

Before we went into lockdown, our rangatahi using their email with purpose and process was not there. We made these presumptions that our young people knew how to manage email and possibly even Google calendar, when in actual fact, some had never even opened them. Our/my first regret is right here. Students just didn't use email, yet a lot of teaching went there instead of on teacher sites with a directive to use these alone to access work. Students were up to 25+ unopened emails in some cases during this time from staff.

My second regret lies in what I could have done to affect how Google Meets played out; A plan at our kura was established for the first week of term two - following two strange weeks of learning from home with countless emails and shifted school holidays) to reconnect with rangatahi from a pastoral level first. All learning advisors and form teachers would contact each whānau one by one and check-in using google meet, getting us all used to this new technology. No formal teaching was meant to occur while this happened. Except it did, and it undermined that effort we were making to put well-being and front end curriculum first. Form teachers and learning advisors were not yet through google meeting with whānau, but class meets were being scheduled for curriculum - through emails generated by google calendar that many of our students did not regard as the norm. I did not make the decision to go with well-being first (though I adamantly agree it should have been top priority) and I didn't hold a position of authority over anyone who pursued this goal. It is a thing that happened that I couldn't control, but yet it impacted my charges - year 12 as a pastoral dean and later on, my curriculum area, as one that did not push the learning out in the first week, instead leaving the time until pastoral and well-being was sorted, as I saw it. Students were up to 40+ emails unopened in some cases by now. Keeping in mind MOE delivered chrome-books had not arrived in most cases. Those waiting on modems got them but often didn't have them connected up. My regret and frustration and brewing resentment was with the growth in inequity the scenario generated and the failure of others to see this occurring, rather there was that blindspot in empathy:

It appeared that telling staff NOT to do this was not effective, as it became a strange little competition to have the most engagement, without acknowledging the growing divide it was creating - it was like this fear of not being a good enough online teacher took over and one was not able to stand up on the balcony and observe the ball because one was too busy dancing in the competition. Once Google Meets for curriculum were all 'good to go', the ideal set out was for no more than one per week per class. Unfortunately, this also generated the competition again and no amount of persistence inhibited the several times a week in some areas that these were held.  It became overwhelming as a Dean trying to hold things together for the sake of whānau who wanted their child learning from home, teachers who wanted the engagement and young people who were just overwhelmed and over it all. I finished lockdown never ever wanting to go back into level three again. The empathy blindspot was perpetuated by the lack of physical nearnesss, as even though you can see someone in a google meet, you aren't truly connecting to their wairua through google meet. I defy anyone to prove me wrong on this; when you are physically present with another human, you are reacting to their wairua, you are adjusting your 'stance' somewhat to theirs and the relationship develops one way or another based upon this. That is not a possibility in a Zoom or Google Meet. You will see a controlled view of the other and a lot can be disguised or misinterpreted through the technology. Physical proximity is always going to be required, no matter how online we are. How often is a text or email or post on social media misinterpreted because of how each of us reads tone in written communication, rather than hears it from its author? 

What have I taken forward into the new era of schooling?

Pastorally, my communication to whānau is much more online following this. I was creating a video each week of lock down and sending it to my year 12's as a way of reassuring them that this would all end...soon... and ways to get through stuff. I wanted to carry the videos into level two and have one arrive in their inbox each Monday, but it has not been a thing I have managed just yet. I have however, made a weekly slide show with a small focus each week, which leading into our leadership-based next steps camp meant that we had rewindable content that matched up with the themes being imparted at this camp for year 12's. It was like a beautiful collision of pedagogy. 

I am not sure us Cantabrians take the threat of level three as seriously as we should; the idea that we would practice Google Meets just in case had not occurred to me and I doubt it had to many of my colleagues, unless of course they are holding back from bringing it up with the elearning leaders? On reflection it is not a silly idea to be investigating. Particularly in light of establishing and practising a tīkanga effectively before we need to rely on it. By having norms, rather than urgent need, we could stabilise the sense of competition that took over in a few areas if this were to happen again. A norm is something we have done before and are happy to practise, rather than a new directive that had to be made to get us going and feels foreign, because as Aunty Cindy says "you can say something 100 times, there will still be one person who never heard it". If it's the norm, that issue is removed. 

Questions this raises further for me:

What is good practice around ubiquitous learning in our kura currently? 

What is an interesting aspect of all of this so far?

What are our next steps around this?

At this point, I could provide answers to these questions but I think what I want to pursue is a solid framework around framing the elements of the kaupapa and pedagogy that exist already, with ways of stepping this forward further in the future. 

One of my biggest learnings through the DFI was about presumptions; just as we presumed our rangatahi understood email (when they didn't always and were just stabbing in the dark, or plain ignoring it), we presume the professionals we see interacting with a device are 'all over it' but there will be plenty of little things they don't know because they don't use. Is it because we are teachers that we presume we know everything? How cool was it for me to sit through a session about google docs, thinking, 'yeah I got this, what can I actually learn from this' and then a whole bunch of little things come up that improve how I function with it and what I do with a google doc?! Just because you know how to eat, doesn't mean you know how to cook. As those young people say 'mic drop' moment (the cringe this statement will illicit is absolutely intended). The DFI continued week after week in this manner - a lot of things came up that made me rethink ideas and challenged my stance and ultimately have effected not just workflow but pedagogy going forwards. A fully rewarding, worthwhile  experience. 

DFI Day six - enabling access - sites

From last time:

• Adding audio files that read the site out is helpful. Online voice recorder and a chrome extension specifically for slides - this is a work in progress and something I am implementing as my new normal
• Hapara parent portal - we have a lot of apps/mediums already. at this stage we want to know what it looks like as a parent and we are yet to see it, because we haven't had time to look! But it is certainly a part of our intention
• Challenging how visible we are as a kura, digitally - Wānanga teacher sites were not actually visible to our community. We have addressed this  however, the consistency between sites is very varies, even though there are really good guidelines and examples from our Wānanga leaders, Anna and Raewyn. 
• Promoting google class OnAir to staff as a resource - yet to happen beyond an email sent out. It is a start. A prompt to have our staff consider how visible our amazing aspects of our own practice are and what we can do about making them more so.
• Can each of our learning experiences be slotted into the multi-modal text database format? Should this be something of a requirement for any major teaching sequences? It certainly helps strongly address high leverage practices put forward by Woolf Fisher. Again, that is something our e-learning team need to take to the table and extrapolate out for staff as a model of practice (we have no staff meeting slots this term... that's a possibility to be changed). This one I have yet to consider HOW it happens.
  

Dorothy's session today and my thoughts going forward:

Connected - today's theme is connected from the Manaiakalani kaupapa. 

Today was more around how we enable access and inspire connection/connected practice to happen. Technical aspects as well as pedagogical aspects were discussed as well as more discussion around the origins of the Manaiakalani Trust and how that formation led to where we are right now.

Origins: Back in 2006 the network that was formed through Manaiakalani was diverse. This became, and is a strength. Most of us are at our best when we are connected with other people. We strengthen our own school by making connections outside of it as well as within it. Siloed practice just doesn't have a place in modern education. We know there are pockets of it remaining in our MLE school however. I wonder if there always will be or if there is still yet a way of pushing that out? Shared kaupapa is only possible when everyone has made the commitment to make our mahi visible. 

Technical: The Limit the links - document is a live document and has recently been updated. This is something we have discussed in staff. Sometimes it's really hard to keep it down to three clicks. However, if we are earnest about trying to, and it sometimes varies from that, it has to be better for our learners in the long run than not having made a statement about how many clicks teachers allow to evolve on their sites. 

Technical: RSS = real simple syndication. RSS grabs each blog post and puts it out there as a tweet to the rest of the world. Egalitarian in nature not popularity based - the most recent post is what is at the top. I have some questions about this as all of our rangatahi coming through are now on primary school based blogs, not HHS ones, so the feed is distorted and does not reflect High School blogging in Uru Mānuka particularly any more. Dave Winter then sent us the secondary RSS feed. It is all of the high schools across NZ involved in a cluster. 

Pedagogical: Connect - AKO - we connect when we use the ako/learn concept - we aim to make sure we know (or begin that process) prior knowledge of our students and we activate a shared vision to learn. At least our best practice versions of ourselves do this. I wonder if I know if that happens across our staff, or if I just presume that it does because I want it to? 

Pedagogical: Connected learners share. A connection needs both parties to share. Give and take. It cannot just be digital however, face to face opportunities are also a significant aspect. That is why a great deal of what we do is done in face to face meetings rather than solely relying on google meets and digital connections. 

Ways we as clusters have been working to connect lately:

- Tuhi mai tuhi atu. This is across cluster blogging connections. It is not something Hornby High School has put a lot into as of yet. I personally feel we are another year away from this with the changes in our curriculum (Wānanga time, Hurumanu across years 7 - 9, soon to be 7 - 11) and our new build previously. 

- Connections of high school teachers across clusters is being specifically addressed through Secondary Connects. Need to find the agenda for this one! Katie Tozer seems to have it somewhere. 

- Te reo Māori advisor - Mikaere, travels throughout NZ to visit our cluster schools to work on Te ao digitally.  I believe Mikaere has had some connection with our HoD Maori and Immersion Te reo Māori teacher, though the visibility of this is not clear. 

- There was a deliberate drive to forge connections from our end as teachers and as leaders with our audiences (staff and students) that was a necessity during lock down. 

Ways we can continue to push connecting:
Google plus has now become Currents. We need to investigate that. Using groups succinctly in school email so that we are more streamlined and knowing that LCS is a structure that we can apply to all processes of our school, including andragogically.

When we talk about Connected; We cannot cherry pick from the kaupapa about what we are going to use, connected doesn't work without visibility.

Hapara hot tips.
Student dashboard. More recent mobile friendly but not an app, definitely aimed at college kids. I think it is possibly more useful to environments that use workspace in an integrated manner? Surely using drive in an organised manner is just as useful. However, the information presented was interesting.

Summing this session up:

As an elearning leader; there was a lot that challenged my current thinking as well as plenty that reinforced my current thinking about how we do things. I do take for granted that many aspects are happening in the classrooms, which is given really when one only has two hours per week to be an elearning leader in the timetable; one of those hours is a meeting about why/what/how to do e-learning leadership. There is some irony in that. I continue to be aware of how much to push onto teachers, while still retaining visibility and encouraging connectedness in that role. 

As an HoD Visual Arts/teacher: I have moments of 'spot-on' teaching that are not visible. I want them to be visible and will often go home and recreate these moments as rewindable learning. Sometimes I wish it would all just happen without the level of work I put in. 

As Year 12 Dean: I work to keep what we do visible pastorally as much as I do with my teaching. Our slide shows for each community time are well planned and up on my site for that purpose. Our form teachers are often given tasks to call home to encourage the collaboration and connection when I feel like it's not actually happening like it could be, usually due to the fact that we are all extremely busy, so that is not a criticism, but it is an active step I take. When we eventually have Wānanga time across our school this is something that will happen with much greater ease. 

Mahi for this week:

EVALUATING EACH OTHER'S SITES AND MAKING SOME GOALS MOVING FORWARDS:

This was good, as it meant that we connected professionally within the room kanohi ki te kanohi. When I saw that another professional went everywhere I didn't want a learner to go it occurred to me that there was a way I had visually prioritised my pages and layout that was getting in the way of people seeing the good stuff I was most proud of first. 

Streamlining my site - removing redundant pages and renaming ones that seem confusing. I have also changed how my menu's up the top work - instead of it being a stepped drop down to find the classes and all other random categories across the top, I have reversed that; prioritising my classes over the random stuff visually. I also enjoyed helping others on the course too and the fact that allowed for me to connect on a professional level as well, beyond HHS.

How do we make our Wānanga teacher sites visible? They are not right now, it's a gap to be filled. I can fix that (and did) 

The Wānanga leaders had already made the google drawing, so this was not an arduous task. Hopefully, it was something I have done that means they do not have to do it. I have transferred ownership to Raewyn and Anna is an editor so that it can be updated as required. 

I have procured two chromebooks form the loan pool for relievers and although had a scheduled date and time to work with a fusion technician, they were too busy for me last week. Never mind! It is still a work in progress and I can continue to place tickets for it a step at a time. at this point it is not about setting our relief digitally on a google calendar (though that is exactly where I want to head) just making sure our mainstay relievers have sites access to the teacher's they are covering for. 

Next steps for myself:

Multi-modal encouragement and support - I need to sit down with Katie and we need a better plan around this. 

Secondary twitter feed - It is worth having this embedded into everyone's sites as it means that blogging is at the forefront somewhat. If it is what every child sees when they open a teachers site and they then see someone they know, then it raises the importance of it. 

I would like to get four students to screen-castify four teacher's sites and explain how they work/critique them. They must be willing volunteers on both ends for this to work! I can see this working as extremely good promotional material up on facebook too! it makes our learning process really visible to our community and beyond too. 

Making sure the reliever chromebooks get implemented. 

Encouraging our staff to be more visible with good practice - by promoting google class onair, and putting something of a thought challenge out there for staff to consider how we can celebrate our own spot-on moments, I do feel this is something that has the potential to accelerate. 

Aside from all of this we are also re-emphasising how our staff keep themselves safe online which goes beyond school and into our personal arenas. We are in the unenviable position of again having to reaffirm that we don't connect with students via social media and we do make sure any profiles we have on social media (not just facebook either!) are locked down. This aspect is possibly where we have to be aware that the practice and learning we do with colleagues needs to be more than pedagogical; its andragogical - steeped in adult learning theory which means the 'telling' you to do it aspect needs to be the buying into it by staff in the first place so they aren't needing to be told, they are self-reflecting enough that they do the  right thing. 

The end. 

DFI day five - Visibility

Last week I felt really empowered that I was able to use so much more of Google Sheets to see how a selected learner was tracking with writing mileage. One of the things I am enjoying is that the way we are progressing through the DFI has allowed me to reflect on my role as an e-learning leader just as much as a classroom practitioner. Most sessions whatever I learn or make can be used straight away within my roles back at kura.

Today's focus being on visibility, tools wise, we had a lot of time with google sites.

Notes from Dorothy's Session:

Visible is the theme today - this is from our kaupapa. Can you see it or can you not? At school and in the home. Visibility between colleagues is just as important. Passing and failing has been the way we have done thing previously. Fail dominates some whānau because we have kept most of the learning journey hidden for so long. There can also be that cyclical nature of schooling - if older whānau struggled, the mindset could be repeated in future generations without an awareness of how that is impacting success in other areas of life. The education sector needs to shoulder this. The learner who has the ability to read the teachers mind is the learner that succeeds with ease - is that fair? So, when a child has cultural capital they are likely to succeed. What about when the child doesn't have this background of success?

Visible learning is the whole learning process - planning, process, outcomes and assessment.

This point comes back to when you set up your teaching folder in google drive for the year - setting the default to visible. There is very little that needs to be private. Dorothy dares us to change our settings so that we change files to private, only when you need to. Our teaching and learning process becomes highly visible to anyone who bothers to look at this point. It is not advocacy for making private student notes and records visible, it is advocacy for a change in mindset as to how we allow others into our practice.

Removing password barriers is worth a further discussion in areas where these could inhibit cultural capital developing. What actually needs a password? 

If a child's education is wrapped in the bubble wrap of passwords and different apps and nothing clear, then when the child goes through those difficult moments and shuts down, whānau is truly shut out in an even more profound manner than when everything was on paper with a pen. Dorothy used the example of when her own son went through that stage of responding to everything with a grunt. She could still always go through his backpack and books and see what he was learning at school as a way of remaining connected to it and monitoring his own cultural capital development. what happens to our digital learners when this happens and our kaiako have put up so many barriers and passwords for safety? Whānau have no way in. 

There is a parent portal into Hapara and a student app. We are not using it. This is a big gap in my knowledge. Both tools would provide visibility potentially, but we may be bound to kamar as the parent portal is something that we push out. How much more one is effective over the other is something I don't have knowledge over. A quick google search suggests that its use is quite different to the Kamar app and to me it seems a shame that both cannot be one. 

Kamar allows a parent to keep updated with absences, notices, NCEA credits. However, Hapara is about seeing the actual work a child is doing in class. I would like to know more about what it looks like when it is working effectively in a school. 

Manaiakalani google class OnAir is another way our practice can be made visible and shared with other kaiako. Towards the end of this year, start of next year, Manaiakalani will be sending out a pānui for teachers who want to participate in being a class OnAir. There is a full te reo Māori kura class in Ōtaki is happening through this as well. This is all around sharing good practice and making good practice also visible. It is another opportunity worth promoting to our kura as both viewers and participants. 


Hapara hot tips - in Dashboard<Sharing

When you think that a doc is gone for good, you can usually find it here under sharing. deleted docs allows you to see when a child has removed a doc from their drive. you can also see docs that the child has forgotten to put into your subject folder in the first place under 'unshared'. 

Treat students filing their documents as a routine part of tidying up. just the same as tidying the desk. Lots of their stuff just ends up in the front of their drive - we shouldn't be accepting that just the same as we wouldn't be accepting them keeping a physical workstation a mess. make it routine, part of our tīkanga. 

Multi modal deep dive:

This is the ability to transfer information in a variety of ways. Kids have so many highly interactive spaces and information transfers going on. Are we competing? Are we inspiring? Do we want to compete or just engage? I think its something of a balance and again we are providing some training wheels, not unlike our use of blogger over something too cool and likely out of date in 6 months time anyway. Multi-modal should be present within all teaching sequences at our kura; for example:

Our Level one 1.1 programme is taught in a multi modal manner:

The standard as the main text:

The theme for us is Developing a kaupapa level one art, this is something we have set as our purpose to all learning for the year in senior art - develop your kaupapa before you start your practical work for any standard. The research standard here is a good way to start this and keep the purpose in the research as well. 

The complementary texts provided to the students are the word banks and vocab lists presented with these resources:

The scaffolding text is a series of slideshows that illustrate significant teaching points for the selection of 'must do' artist studies:

Our challenging text is a stepped up version of how we can analyse art works, that goes beyond the tasks set out in the instructions for the standard

Learner Selected text starts to spell out how this work is formational for the year's body of work. Students have choice, but it is curated; another example of digital training wheels. 

Additional texts for students to examine are the checklist for the standard and screen-castify videos made to help students see their assessment in parts, over lock-down in April, in order to complete the work away from kura. 

I strongly feel that if a Visual Arts teacher can curate a multimodal exemplar of a teaching and learning resource, then it is something all areas and levels can come up with, as it represents good teaching practice. there are a range of modes involved, the information is presented more than once and reliable supporting and student selected resources accompany the sequence. 

It is a way to capture as many learners as possible, without pigeonholing anyone as a specific 'type' of learner. it means our learners get the opportunity to digest learning in a variety of ways, which has to be broadening their educational experiences, is no-judgement when we present it for rewindable learning 

Te Ara Tuhura cluster data suggests that multimodal works for engagement.

CHRISSIE BUTLER from core ed, UDL. all about avoiding the idea that one size fits all. We often revert to this when time is stretched. Acknowledge from the outset that there are multiple ways of understanding and perceiving information before the learning cycle starts. Presenting it in a range of ways. We often start with learning in mind for ourselves - the default is 'me', yet that is not our classroom default setting or at least it should not be.

Some learnings I can take and apply/extend: 

• Adding audio files that read the site out is helpful. Online voice recorder and a chrome extension specifically for slides.
• With the high engagement using multi modal, conversation and discursive practice cannot be left behind. That is another balance point. 
• How can we use the Hapara parent portal effectively? Added to agenda for our elearning meeting
• Challenging how visible we are as a kura, digitally
• Promoting google class OnAir to staff as a resource
• Can each of our learning experiences be slotted into the multi-modal text database format? Should this be something of a requirement for any major teaching sequences? It certainly helps strongly address high leverage practices put forward by Woolf Fisher. Again, that is something our e-learning team need to take to the table and extrapolate out for staff as a model of practice (we have no staff meeting slots this term... that's a possibility to be changed). 

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!). 

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Day One

Digital Fluency Intensive (DFI) is a one day a week for nine weeks, a course intended to deepen understanding and application of a digital learning environment for practitioners. As an e-Learning leader already I wasn't sure what I would be getting out of this and did wonder if I was taking up a place that someone else could have used.  Fortunately, there is differentiation and depth within the basic skills that mean it is easily accessible for beginners and experienced practitioners.

Ako - Learn - to know

What did I already know that helped my understanding moving forwards today? What made it possible for me to gain momentum today?

My interpretation of LCS is as activation (to know), developing and refining (to act), followed by valuing the learning experience (to value) (Heick, T. 2017)  based on foundational, meta and humanistic knowledge bases. 

The first part of our day has been based upon what we know and if not, what we ought to know about the kaupapa of Manaiakalani. Making connections with those around us provides a relational base for what we will continue to do over the following eight weeks. 

Fluency in how tools work for learners is as important as fluency in how to use them in delivery, which is as important as evidence that they work and likewise leads back to how the Manaiakalani pedagogy is intended to gain positive momentum in a changing and now digital world. 

Foundational, meta and humanistic knowledge bases should not necessarily be an 'order' to learn in, rather they are interlinked and cyclical, not often strictly linear. That is how I see Learn, Create Share. It will be digital when it needs to be, and can and was analogue long before that. My classes are often inter-relating and back and forth combinations of LCS, which is like the balanced diet version of a good education as I see it. 

Waihanga - Create - to act

What specifically did I learn and create? 
How did I best retain the information? How can I use it in my practice forwards?

Here is a good example of where those delineations between Learn and Create cease to be, or at least are flicking back and forth consistently; time is given for exploring content, levelling up on what we may not have known, while others did, diving deeper into a tool, and gaining resources and skills that are adaptable to a range of subjects and levels with a bit of thought. 

Having prior knowledge whether it was provided today for the first time, or from where I already was at, was key to not becoming lost in the 'tips and tricks'. PLD provided as a bunch of how-to's without this would be difficult to retain and even harder to apply in my practice. It would lack the context. 

Aspects that I would want to extend on with peers and learners

Systematic understanding of the affordances of Google docs

Most of us in teaching now started out using products such as Microsoft word. Docs is the 'online' version. So when I approached it, I just looked for how it did what word had done. Possibly if I had begun using it as a product quite separate from word, I would have learned to use it very systematically and picked up some of this already. What I liked about this part of today was that I came into it thinking I wouldn't learn much and finished up with 'wow, I didn't know I could do that!'. 

Being coached through making a document that explores the tools specific to the product while acknowledging to us that 'yes you likely do know lots of this stuff' was aa good technique and meant that we finished up with a concrete piece of evidence as a reminder of how and what it does.  This translates well into other adult learning scenarios as well as in my classroom. I can see many applications for how I would approach teaching peers and students alike from this and emulating the approach at the beginning of a unit/topic/year would be a preferable way of managing digital assessments for me in the future, as it would allow more time for students to practice their skills with a purpose. 

Google groups

I am a part of a group through leaders of Learning, however, I just saw it as an email chain.

I also didn't really see any benefits to using groups as an end-user in this way as I didn't understand the affordances it provided. There are significant benefits; its something of a cross between google plus and email - to work from groups means that all of your topics and correspondence in regards to the one particular set of colleagues, such as a department are rewindable and stored on the one location online. when you go back to them it looks like a list of blog posts. when you are interacting with them it is no more difficult than responding to emails. It eliminates the fuss of having to search your emails for specific topics and/or contacts, if you are organised in the first place. Understanding this concept is far easier with prior knowledge of how email works, and how google+ aspired to work. I do wonder how easy this concept is to pick up and run with for someone new to a digital learning environment. I am possibly overthinking that. 

A Google-based scavenger hunt 

Such a simple concept, yet when presented like this, so hard to argue not to do this when you want that immersion into these digital tools for students, and so easily adaptable to a different subject or level. In order for me to adapt this, I would have to have a reason to use it fairly soon or it will be one of those things I never look at again as it fades from my poor memory.

A broad-brush look at a range of add-ons and extensions that improve workflow on google.

This is stuff I loved, but again, unless I actively figure out how to employ them within the week, I fear they will fade from memory. 

The tools I will be attempting to work into my own practice this coming week are:

TLDR (Too long, didnt read!) 

doc to form

eZnotifications

Docutube 

MindMeister

Tohatoha - Share - to value

Why does it work? Why should I? What do I envisage happening with learners in my class if I apply specific elements? 

The value of completing a course like this is that I am constantly reflecting on how I could use this information in my classroom and practice. I enjoyed taking a day out of classroom practice to focus on this, rather than troping over to a staff meeting following a day in the classroom to try and absorb some information, knowing that all the while I was forcing my eyelids open, and deliberating over whether I would eat the last of the lollies/slice/nibbles on the table there to share.  

My fear still remains that I may not apply what I have learnt due to time, good intentions and all. 

The two I am confident I will apply are google groups, which may be because we used that tool for the delving deeper section, so I know more about it and stronger structure in how I set up using google drive and docs with my two new junior classes this term. I will be integrating the scavenger hunt into this. 

Our weekly department meeting for Visual Arts would be a great place to pick out apps and extensions and teach to the department, challenging them to use these tools meaningfully over the next week. 

Cluster wide PLG's 2019

Terry, Marina and I lead two groups of teachers from three different schools in the same geographic area of Christchurch through the theme connected guided inquiry. It is one of my leadership roles in our kura.

Today's task was to bring our two Extended Learning Conversation groups together and brainstorm what our DLO's could look like for presenting our 'golden moments' from inquiry so far and to support and inspire each other in how that looks.

I made the suggestion that I felt that the teacher's voice and following on, the students voice seemed to me to be the most powerful 'tool' in making a DLO that is centred on conversations, and that I wouldn't be adverse to just holding up a cell phone and listening to everyone tell us their moments directly. Given that no one had a strong idea of what was expected today until 24 hours previous, this would be a lot to take in and may not be an idea that flies anyway. Though I still see it as the strongest as I am not sure lots of trick and gadgets is absolutely necessary, as this is about some of our more introverted tamariki and rangatahi finding their voice.

I will leave that concept to the side, as it may or may not be a reality.

Once we had clarified the expectations of the DLO each participant would send to the leaders and that the leaders will then pull 5 minutes of something rewindable together for the Uru Mānuka site, we moved on to zooming our individual focus in to one student and/or moment so far that we felt showed a shift in engagement through developing their extended learning conversation skills beyond wherever they started at.

The notes I took while our participants were speaking revealed some underlying themes from new entrants through to high school:

- The process is educationally significant and positive for the introvert - the type of personality a school is not really developed for (Stade, Linda. Knowing Girls. 2018) (Matt, Ali, Abi, Kate)

- Feed the Language; Language needs to be given before it can be used - 4 comments to one question is a successful strategy in doing this as it helps provide modelling of learning language first. (Julie, Rovenna, Megan, Georgia, Matt, Kate)

- Reflective open questions need to be provided with academic take up time (Warwick, Kate, Sheri) which will be longer than we are used to. Intervention, not interference (Heather). The adult needs to learn when to shut up.

- Relationships for learning are required before any of it works (Abi), these are not always formed within the formal classroom - extracurricular (Allan).

While I have felt like I am swimming badly in the deep end facilitating a group that runs across education levels I am not an expert in, today was my gold, in that I heard first-hand themes that run across education from new entrant through to senior high school.

The gains I made in understanding were valuable and something that I will continue to ponder. Without this model of inquiry, I wonder if I would have this new lens to see my learners and my teaching practice through.



[Free image from Pixabay]

Notes on what my tai is focussing on

Rough Notes from meeting with Deirdre and Terry. I have chosen not to tidy them up for the purpose of authenticity. 

LEARN:

Focusing Inquiry

“What is important (and therefore worth spending time on) given where my students are at?”

My hunch:
how language is used is important to maintaining a positive trajectory.

my hypothesis: that Language - how it is crafted to deliberately empower those using it.
Singular to plural. the language of possibilities
inflecting your voice at the end. Some of what I have read recently debates the language of possibilities. Ronald Rebore 2002. So I know I need to flesh this out further.

Terry observing the planning process between myself and Katie Tozer.

Observing the outcome as a staff meeting with distributed leadership present.

Guiding people 
- Say what you think, say why you are using valid information. (data is any valid information not just numbers, no anecdotal stuff though)
- Check in for others thoughts around what you have just said and why. Argryss and Schon. Invite critique back.





Getting another staff member for a day to observe when I could be doing these things and when I do them well.
Some specific examples of where the language was used well. Purpose of asking Liisa to observe for . day is to be more consistent about how I craft language to enable and empower their responsibility and collective accountability.

Is this a smart goal? How am I going to measure it?

Impact on myself -  see above

Impact on my colleagues - use the leadership dimension as a feedback tool 

Impact on my or our rangatahi - 

What does it look like?

Students understanding of LCS in practice. 

Could select a range of classes across the school and measure their understanding now and then following the meeting re-measure based on what impact I might have had 

Teacher Only Day September 2017

We were so lucky to have Dr Lucy Hone come in and talk us through resilience training.

Everything she said was with genuine relevance, and it has made me really reflect on how we continue to operate relationally as a school