MindLab DFI 8 on Computational Thinking

Today's DFI session was held at MindLab in Gisborne. Our deep dive was delving into unchartered territory for many of us, computational thinking (aka coding - which if you were born before 2000's can be a bit of a scary word!) we were told to "Get Brave"... and that we did. 

The computational thinking & coding activity was hands on, physical and really well scaffolded.
First we watched the Josh Darnit video on the Exact Instructions Challenge to give us an idea of how specific and broken down your instructions need to be in coding.

The activity we did in teams where one had to be the robot, tester, and developer started with minimal instructions and we needed to collaborate to problem solve, and gradually becoming harder with less communication other than the 'code', bringing in the concept of 'procedures', and then swapping codes to see if we could 'run' someone else's code. This would be a great activity for learners to collaborate and build resilience, perseverance, problem solving, and a great gateway to coding and understanding the method behind coding.

Learning coding @NZMindlab @clusternz @Learnerslcs DFI on #computationalthinking building #Collaboration #resiliance #patience #perseverance #problemsolving #Coding #codingforkids #professionallearning pic.twitter.com/eA6xfnVBkO

— Stephanie Parker (@Sparketter) May 9, 2019

Next we were introduced to Lightbot. A free online coding tool for learners to practice simple coding skills. This is great for building perspective as watching the bot, you want him to turn right, but from his perspective, he's turning left. Again more problem solving for tamariki, and more opportunities to build efficiencies.

We also had time to explore CoSpaces today, an online tool for coding. Our challenge was to create a story, with characters from the roll of a dice. I rolled 'Vampire', 'Roast Turkey' and 'Leadership' I'm not quite sure if I ticked the leadership box but have a look at the scenario I coded in our 20 minute timeslot. Hint - click the skier, and the champagne bottle. 



I'm keen to see what the team  thought of today's session and how it has improved their practice and workflow, what connections they've made from computational thinking to their own learners and contexts. For example Joanne, who teaches New Entrants has thought of how to adapt the mornings activity for her class. 

DFI 7 Enabling Access with Google Sites

How awesome to be back in a collaborative professional learning space it was after effectively a four week break from the DFI.

Today we looked more into the why and how of Google Sites. How do we structure our class site to enable access for different stakeholders: learners, parents, teachers, the world to access the information that they need in an engaging and user friendly way? 






Two to three clicks! 
Colour choice, fonts, embedded multi-modal content. 
Purposeful, thoughtful layouts which make: 

• learning visible and easy to follow for our tamariki, 
• clear and accessible for whanau, and 
• shows planning and next steps for other educators and the world? 

After morning tea, we spent time being critical friends to one another, reviewing each others current class sites and then using the feedback to create SMART goals to improve our sites. The rest of the day was spent fulfilling these goals.

As it's been some time since I have been a full-time classroom teacher I have had limited experience using sites since the new google sites became available. The biggest thing I have noticed in the new sites is how user friendly it is. So simple and easy to create clear simple layouts consistently across pages. I really enjoyed working with sites and look forward to creating my next site with the new sites functionality. 

Our cohort have been working on their sites and developing their digital skills. Have a read of their reflective blogs of today's journey. BLOG LINKS 

Tairawhiti DFI Day 4

I've talked about the concept of ako several times, and today was certainly a day of that. As we were exploring blogs, google forms, my maps, and google sheets we were finding all sorts of tips and tricks and insights. As the confidence of the group progresses and the willingness to share grows we're finding that we're all able to contribute to the group. 
For example when using mymaps I was looking for the share button in the top right corner, as is with most google suite (forms, sheets, docs etc). Of course I couldn't find it there, meanwhile one of the group was busy sharing and showed me it's actually positioned on the left under the title of the map. 

Another tip I learned today was about embedding a chart from googlesheets, rather than going into File--> publish to web and then selecting the sheet, and subsequent chart, you can instead select the three dots in the top right of the chart and select publish chart. This is a much faster and easier way to embed the particular chart you want. Also by selecting 'interactive' rather than image, it becomes an interactive chart which when you hover over a bar the data appears, and if you were to update the google sheet, the embedded graph would also update. 


Today's learning also looked at google forms, and the ability to import data from a sheet, into mymaps. As always check our cohorts blogs and see what we've all been learn, create and sharing. 

Manaiakalani DFI Tairawhiti 2019

Today was the first day of the Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive [DFI] in Tairawhiti (a.k.a Gizzy - also my hometown). It was awesome to be back in my old stomping ground of Riverdale School where many many moons ago I was a J 1 & 2 Learner (back when it was still called J1!). This time however, I was co-facilitating the DFI for a group of brilliant local educational professionals from the Tairawhiti Cluster of Manaiakalani Outreach. 

The 9 week programme has been designed to meet these four key goals within a professional learning group.

1. Our teachers are supported to acquire fluency using the basic tools our young people use for learning
2. Our teachers are supported to acquire fluency using the basic tools required for effective teaching, planning, assessment and professional learning
3. Our teachers are supported to understand how digital technologies used effectively can have a significant impact on accelerating achievement outcomes
4. Our teachers are supported to understand how the Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa has been co-constructed over more than a decade to maximise the impact of effective teaching and learning in a digital learning environment.

Each week participants are asked to complete a blogpost to reflect on and share what they have learned that day. Have a look at our Tairawhiti Team's blogs below, follow our journey, and be sure to leave a comment!

Sherryl Gomm - Professional Blog 

Jo's Professional Learning Blog 

EEEE's Adventures! 

Robyn's Professional Learning Blog 

Susanne's Professional Blog 

Allie's Professional Blog 

Learning adventures with Jo

Musings of a Gizzy Sensei 

Jazz's Professional Blog 

David's Professional Blog 

Heni Professional Blog 

My key learning this week was how good the Voice Typing tool in google docs is. So many practical uses for it within the classroom too, especially for engaging unmotivated writers. Top tip: Remember to change the language to English (New Zealand) so that it picks up our accent, but also so that you can say "full stop" at the end of the sentence instead of "period" as required in English US.