DFI Class Sites - Day 5

Today was about exploring sites and developing your own class site.  In the beginning when I started my very own class site (using classic sites I created about 10 sites that didn't go anywhere) then I discovered new class sites (by accident) and went in and found myself navigating around and creating my very first first class site that I was super proud of (there was still WIP but I was more confident using new google sites than the classic sites).   This session enabled me to evaluate what was happening in Room 5's class site and make significant changes to suit my learners and the diversity in my class. 

Even though there is still room for improvement I am super happy that Room 5's class site is a collaboration of my ideas and my students.  We have tried to include in our site things that are valuable to each individual in our class.  We have captured the diversity and cultural richness that is embedded and authentic in our class through cultural events, language weeks and family links to our school community.  Cultural identity is very important in Rm 5 and this is reflective in our site.  I super greatful that what I have learnt in this session I have been able to apply and constantly make any changes necessary that make our site engaging.  Watch this space Rm 5's class site is 'moving on  👌up'

Computational Thinking: - Day 7

Today was really cool - we had a facilitator from OMGtech

come through and talk to us about 'The future of tech'.....We were able to go through future digitech ideas which were really cool but some of them a bit bizarre - The best part of the session was being able to test out our coding skills using the Scratch app.  I found this a bit hard but I think with more active use of the Scratch app I will become more and more confident.  One of the activities we got to do in small groups was creating a circuit (with a few supplied resources) that will help fend off 'zombies during a zombie apocolypse'.  It was cool having a hands on activity and the thinking behind it - getting the lightbulb to work was also a bonus for me 👀 Thank you OMGtech for a cool presentation.

Signed, Sealed & Delivered - DFI Exam Day

Wow - so today I get to say HOORAY, YIPPEE, DONE & DUSTED - today was 'EXAM DAY' 😀 and I am super proud to say that I passed (was a bit doubtful when I got up to the sheets part) but here is the evidence:

Although I had missed 3 sessions in total I still was able to go through the slides and do some revision so that I was not too far behind when I returned back to the next session.  It was quite nerve racking (and I can only imagine how it must feel for my students during testing time, or my own children sitting exams) at one point I had to sit on my hands because they were shaking so much (due to google sheets & youtube questions). During these questions I had 'nearly' made some vital mistakes but remembered what Dorothy had emphasised at the beginning of the exam 'READ THE QUESTION' - so after a few 'read the question moments' I am glad I chose the better answer/option.  With being a bit more digital confident and being able to navigate the google tools better I think this was also a major factor in me passing the exam.  The biggest hurdle was the youtube channel - a cross eye moment happened but then another Dorothy lightbulb moment was remembered 'this magic tab called **review later**' and that is exactly what I did - so glad 👌.  I found the class sites easy only because I have been using class sites more confidently in the last year or so, and most of the questions I was able to easily navigate what I needed to do.  Super greatful to Gerhard and Dorothy for all their support and help throughout this journey in shaping me to be a better practitioner in using the Learn, Create, Share model to enhance the teaching and learning experiences for my students.  Awesome collaboration Cohort 3 - we rock!!

Week 1: Niue Language Week 2019 'Tokiofa, Ofania, Mokoina e vagahau Niue'

Fakaalofa atu all - back into DFI after being MIA for a minute. Week 1 was a busy week at school with Niue Language Week getting ready to take off with Monday formal opening ceremony - with a guest speaker Faama Viliamu Co-ordinator for 531PMN News Niue, also a guest performer - Choreographer for dance troupe Fiti Lose Miss Shevalyn Poimafiti.  It was awesome to see some of our grandparents/parents there to support their children.  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday was tabloid traditional games during lunch.  Some of those traditional games were 'toume - niuean skis' 'sikeka-good ole stilts' 'olo fua niu-bowling using coconuts', 'volu niu-coconut scraping' and 'toho toua-tug o war'.  Great fun had by teachers and students.  

Then Friday came around and we were fortunate to have one of our relievers Mr Frank Haioti come back and organise a umu demonstration with a few students getting the hands on experience on prepping a Niue umu.  Our closing ceremony was just a good as our opening, where we had another guest speaker 'my mom' and a few of our niuean parents/families present at our formal assembly. We had class performances and than the grand finale by our Niuean Cultural group.  Our girls gave a beautiful performance and our boys wrecked that stage with the NIUE TAKALO 

(War dance).  The highlight though was the opening of the umu (could smell the food from the hall) and the shared lunch.  All the hot food was brought straight out of the umu straight onto the table 👀 We had so much food from umu foods (niue dishes), salads, freshly baked coconut bread, drinks and curries. 

We sat down to enjoy our lunch with Wesley Intermediate staff, students leaders, parents and friends.  The were entertained by our parents with a few traditional niuean celebration songs to end our lunch.  Although I missed session 5 I was able to use google sheets for our budget, google hangouts so that students could see what was going on at the umu site.  Overall was a awesome week - bring on 2020.  Massive shout-out to Wesley Intermediates senior management team who supported our week from beginning to end oue tulou!

DFI Session 4 - Multimodalling & Google Sites on the menu!!

Collaborate - Sites: Awesome day of learning today in the DFI world - session 4 done and dusted 👍 Today's fun learning was exploring google 'new sites' and creating our own site and some of the functions to enhance your site.  One of the fascinating functions for me on google sites was the 'insert buttons' 😆 It makes things more tidier and there is not adjusting or cropping required - INSTANT BUTTON!!
Another highlight was exploring Multi text Database and creating a multimodal site - although this is work in progress but I am excited to start this new journey in finding ways of making the learning for my students more engaging and meaningful - here is a glimpse of what I started with my Multimodal site: Multimodal Site (please note: Links are yet to be added - watch this space) I can definitely see the value in creating learning through multimodal. It was cool also to google hangout with the whanau from Gizzy who have just completed their DFI exam - we were able to ask questions about what to expect with the course exam and what we can do now to prepare for it - thank you Ubby and Josie for the tips.

PB4L Cluster Meeting

PB4L Cluster Meeting - Wednesday 11th September 2019:

Really cool attending our PB4L Cluster talanoa session at Rosebank Primary School as it had been sometime since I had attended one.  Great to re-connect again with my previous PB4L Coach from Wesley Intermediate Lou Reddy and teachers from Blockhouse Bay Int & Kowhai Int.  Although there were not many of us but some interesting and enlightening conversations were shared.  Listening to Burt Iosia BHBInt (newly appointed DP for Rosebank Primary) share his schools continuing journey with PB4L and Nick Epsom from Kowhai Int share his schools journey within the PB4L system is was clear that we were all facing similar highs and lows. 

Lou was fortunate out of our group to attend the PB4L Conference recently - which has the founding father of PB4L George Sugai as a keynote speaker WOW! Something that I took away from what Lou said George had shared 'we need to shine the light on those people who have a specific skillset'. 

All 4 of us had an opportunity to share 1 rose/1thorn - some of the roses shared: Removing 'detentions' from their system and changing it to a more reflective practise and staff buy in was improving.

1 thorn from each member shared were: Promoting of PB4L fell on one persons shoulders, and effort in bringing systems to the forefront were sometimes being ignored (this impacted on the 'Why').  Another thorn was school wide consistency with PB4L systems/practises and how sometimes the data does not reflect teacher comments, lack of data recording and data inconsistencies.  It was good to reflect on my own schools practises and systems and how we can improve on these.  After our discussion/sharing time we went on a tour of Rosebank Primary to look at signage. Ka pai! 👍Rosebank your signage was 'on point'.  My highlight was their wall of flags from every culture within their school!!!

I will be adding this to my wish list for Wesley 😅 Their staffroom was something else also - enormous signs of motivational quotes, school values, Pacific/Maori representations on the walls, it was AMAZING!! Added this to my wish list also *wink, wink*.  Overall great morning of reflecting and sharing - bring on the next one...hosted by the one and only Wesley Intermediate 😂😁😀😎

Google Earth - Seeing the world without having to travel!

DFI Session 3 - Google Earth/Youtubing: Did some exploring of Google earth and had the virtual opportunity to travel to the Pacific Islands and Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.  It was great to see aerial shots of different areas and for the students to see where their parents are from.  Students were able to explore around their chosen country finding out interesting facts - With the Rugby World Cup coming up I will definitely be using Google earth to do mini inquiries about playing countries and interesting facts.  Next on the agenda for my homework is creating my own youtube chanel 😄 this will be fun!!

Day 2: Workflow

Another day of DFI done and dusted 👌 Pocketed a few takeaways that I will trial with my class first ie: Google hangouts 👀 Arrived much earlier this time (7.29am early), so yay did not have to sit in the front of the class!! Increased learning today navigating different google extensions: One Tab/Toby Mini.  Highlight for me would be using Google hangout - used it before but this media can be be used so much more effectively especially for a group hangout meeting 😉.  

I liked the google app 'Google Keep' which is a note keeping tool - I was able to download this to my phone and add a few notes from today's session into my DFI label.  It allowed me to create a range of labels (this helps keep all our notes organised) so I created a few personal labels ie: Weekly shopping list & Pacific Language Weeks.  I was able to add notes to each one which I can quickly access for dates or those FYI moments 😌 By pocket of gold was a statement shared from one of the Google slide presentations:

Reflecting on and applying this to my own teaching practises, I would definitely be finding ways to promote and encourage 'rewindable learning' with my students and myself. Watch this space for the session #3.

Day 1: Digital Fluency Intensive **Google Chrome**

Day 1 done and dusted - Well not familiar with the area I ended up somewhere other than where I was meant to be - that was even with studying google maps on directions and getting a actual print out of directions from my Principal 👀

The day started with a bit of background information about Manaiakalani and how the organisation was organised.  We then got into 'Google Drive' which for me was awesome because if you were to journey through my drive, you probably would get lost trying to navigate your way through the many folders that I created for the sake of creating.  What I learnt and will definitely apply to my own drive is having a organisation and files are in their relevant places.  I also learnt that you can color code your folders 👌 who knew, so that is also on the agenda.

We also went through using Google docs and some of the functions which was pretty cool and there was a few moments where the lightbulb flickered - one of those aha moments for me 👍 One of the features that was cool was using the Normal text function to change your doc with just one click.  A highlight for me was the levelling up part - I chose to sit in on the add-ons/extensions session which was cool because I got to learn about all these really cool add-ons that I know will definitely help me and my students.  One of the add-ons that was cool was Flaticon - using emotions in google docs.  

'Flaticon can be used to turbo-charge your docs' (this was taken from the Add-on slide).

Today I created a google doc that had a range of links that were specific to the Pacific Language Weeks that we celebrate at my school Wesley Intermediate School and also appears on my class site.  Creating the google doc I was able to use some of the tips and tricks that we picked up today to make enhance our doc.  I used the explore function to access images, png at the end of my image search to show images without a background and I also used the table of properties function where I could change the background color of the table cells cool 😄 Here is the finished doc:

Each image is linked to a site 😎 on interesting facts on that country, I also included one of my go to sites for anything Pasifika 'Coconettv'.  Definitely looking forward to the next DFI.

AKO HIKO PLG Smackdown

Great session today at the 'PLG Smackdowns' - Really enjoyed seeing the variety of links, resources, information that each practitioner shared in their slides relevant to how they are embedding culturally responsive practises into their teaching.  One of the 'gold nuggets' that I got from the session was the Mindful template that Jacob has started to use with his students.  Short plug in for my favourite site Coconettv - if you are wanting to show any of your students some Pacific flare. (This is my smackdown slide) Talanoa is key....Language is key...Identity is key...