DFI

 DFI Day Seven: Devices 

Ubiquitous

I really enjoyed today's session on the joists of the Manaiakalani  kaupapa, an the idea of anytime, anywhere, any place, any one. In that, not only does it make the teaching and learning rewindable for students, but it also allows a good space for our students to use our materials to become the teachers, whether that be for other students in the class, but also within their home and community. I was amazed when listening to tumuaki of Bay of Islands College, to hear that last year during covid restrictions they had the higest number of NCEA levels and UE they had had for years - that 100% shows the benefits and strengths of the entire kaupapa, but particually the idea of ubiquitous. 

Reflecting back on my readiness and as a result the readiness of my students for our first Covid lockdown, we were in no way shape or form ready for online learning in the slightest. When I think about it, I think what I am most proud of, is also what I regret. While we used some online tools and devices prior of online learning, it was minimal, and I had become use to the limited time we had access to devices across our teaching team. I was sharing 10 ipads with another class which used them more often, had begun really limiting the activities and tasks planned that required students to have a device and be online so that my students programme was not being interputed if we couldn't use them, to be honest we really only used them to research at the beginning of a new topic. Consequently, I had nothing set up online for students when we move to the online platform during lockdown and so together we had to learn on the fly - for me and many of my students we had never used google classroom beofre and suddenly that was how we were expected to do all our work. So while I am proud of how we managed that situation and the work quality and quantity of work that was completed, I also have big regrets about the fact that I hadn't already had this set up, having students know how to use it. I spent the forst week of our online learning time just helping my students and families connect to our online classroom, time that was just lost doing something that would have taken maybe an hour in class. In terms of what I have taken forward into this new 'era' of schooling, at the very beginning of this year I made sure my entire class was connected to google classroom (as we were still using this at this point), and that they knew how to use it. I was uploading class work onto it, and making sure that the devices we did have were evenly shared among the 2 classrooms so both class' had equal oppertunities to use them. 

Hapara Workspaces 

I had a go at creating a Hapara workspace this afternoon. I really like the different columns and the way that learning tasks, resources, and assessments could be colour coded. I didn't really complete a workspace as I was spent tp much time playing around with what could be added to the different sections and that kind of thing. While I really like the idea behind the workspaces and that students can access their work in their drive straight through this, I am currently trying to work out in my mind how to use this in conjunction with google sites and not double up on stuff, I think this will take some time and it will all make sense next year when I am in a 1-1 environment and I have had some time to see what works best with my learners. 

Digital Dig and Explain Everything 

Having had a few chromebooks in my class this year, I have taken the time to have students show me alot of their functions (they are pros at using them, and I was a complete novice). I enjoyed having the students show me all the shortcuts, allowing them to be the teacher. I did learn some handy tips while completing the digital dig though, one useful one that I will use is the sortcut to select all the infromation in the address box. It was also nice having time designated to just having a tutu around, seeing and using what our studnts use. I was not the biggest fan on Explain Everything, I was using the online version, as our ipads at school do not have this app, which may have contributed to it, but I just didn't find it any better than something like google docs, slides, or draw. However, I apperciate that on an Ipad, where those google platforms can be harder to operate, and with younger children , Explain Everything would be great. I don't think it is something I will explore anymore mind you as I don't think it would benefit our intermedaite students work in any way. Here is the little introduction and video I made on it.