The Pros and Cons of Summer School

This week I have been head down and back to study mode after a rather relaxing four week summer break. In saying that the first couple of days back at university in front of a computer screen were a rather difficult transition. 
The purpose of this university paper titled Digital Enhancement is to critically reflect and engage with pedagogy and practice to enhance the use of digital technology in education. 

Two days in and it has been a pleasure to share our practice and experience with each other. It's in immersing ourselves in these situations that we realise that we have in fact accomplished a lot over the past year and as a collective we have a wealth of knowledge to share with one another. 

One of the theories of learning which I can really relate to is that of Communities of Practice. As the MDTA cohort of 2014/15 we are a reliable supportive and helpful resource to one another. Through professional and informal discussions I am continually learning from these people that I am lucky enough to get to share my beginning teacher journey with them all. 

As part of our final assessment in this paper we are to critically reflect on our 2014 class site, compare and contrast to other effective sites and justify our 2015 class site for our learners. We then will present this analysis to one another to further learn and develop our practice. 

In regards to my experience with tertiary education, through my Bachelors in Social Sciences, my Graduate Diploma in Teaching and this Honours Degree, I have never been so engaged or included in the teaching and learning process. Sure this is a higher level course, so our competence and intrinsic motivation is assumed to be greater, but the course co-ordinators and lecturers have actually taken our needs into account and really tailored this programme to be relevant and immediately applicable to our practice. So even though I am mildly disgruntled that I am not out enjoying this week in the amazing weather New Zealand has been receiving, I am enjoying the insight and critical discussions which I am involved in within this community of practice. 

Thanks Team. 

My MDTA Journey 2014

As the year draws to a close it's important to reflect on the year that has been. We had our final MDTA [Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy] PLG [Professional Learning Group] last week and our Christmas Dinner last night. 

Looking back I realise that I have learned so much this year, from the jargon of teacher Acronyms and the technical skills of creating and modifying a visually pleasing digital learning site, blogging, web design, google draw and docs, iMovie, GarageBand, screencasting, camera angles and editing. All things which a year ago, seemed like another language to me. I've learned a variety of behaviour management and engagement skills and how to be a teacher rather than a facilitator. I've learned about my learners, what interests them, their strengths, weaknesses and adorable personalities. 

Watch below to hear my thoughts on future focused teaching in a digital learning environment 

I want to give a huge thank you to our number one supporter Dorothy Burt, our academic expert Anne Sinclair, my mentor and team teacher Elfrida Raj, my Principal Lesley Elia, all my colleagues at Glenbrae Primary School, and peers in the MDTA Programme, for the ongoing support, laughs, collaboration and ideas this year. None of which would be possible without the Manaiakalani Education Trust which my school, and others in our community have developed over the years to support us as teachers in our professional learning, and support our families and tamariki in their achievement throughout their education. 

Till next year team!

Back: Nicola Wells, Treena Brand, Petra Lawrence, Matt Goodwin, Greg Wong
Front: Aimee Harris, Stephanie Parker, Caleb Allison, Karen Belt (Absent: Troy Lunn)

Making Mashups

Found a great song, with uplifting and positive lyrics, for children? 
Make a movie mash-up, or even better, get your students to do so themselves. 

Featured here is an example of Will.I.am's Hall of Fame.... 

So... just how did we do this? 
Begin with a template table with two coloumns.
One for each line of the song, the other associated to a image, similar to a storyboard.
If you use the google 'Research' tool to search images. 
Then drag and drop them into the table it creates a footnote with a link to that image. 
Once you have your images, click each footnote and save the images to your desktop. 
Finally, upload the images to your iMovie with the audio and get mashing. 


For Example....

Once getting it into iMovie, add each picture to overlay in time with the audio. We found that most images needed the 'Ken Burns' feature turned off. 

 Ken Burns is a feature when it pans and zooms on an image. Sometimes this is a useful effect, you can change the pan and zoom angle and size in the crop options, or just remove it altogether by choosing 'Fit' instead. 

A huge thanks to Petra Lawrence for her creative input in making when we made this mash-up today. 

Happy Mashing everybody. 

Reflections of a MDTA beginning teacher

This interview is my reflection on the first 6 months of being a teacher and the Manaiakalani Digital Teaching Academy [MDTA] experience.



Process Reflection
As part of our digital teacher education we have been learning how to use iMovie, filming, importing, cutting, editing, cropping, adding sound, smooth transitions and making a (hopefully) seamless production. 
The full interview was 17 minutes of footage. This was trimmed to make four minutes, of which I then had to reduce further to 2 minutes. 
That was the easy part, trimming the footage, the difficult part was making the transitions smooth. I found that by adjusting the zoom, or overlaying footage it reduced the jarring. Finally choosing the appropriate music was really important, it needed to be positive, upbeat, but without being overpowering. As always, constructive or positive feedback is appreciated.