Who said learning wasn't fun?
Loved the day and loved the mixture of listening and doing with Shannon, Emily and Mac at Tōnui Collab (ex Mind Lab) here in GTown.
What a beautiful facility and the view is stunning on this sunny Gizzy day. It really made us realise that Spring is here. Sharyn talked about being away last week at a conference and hearing a speaker talk about bringing "joy" back into teaching. So I would call today as one filled with joy!
Apart from the setting and the Tōnui Collab hospitality, the content of today's DFI was engaging and motivating. I have heard of lots of this "stuff" but not had any opportunity to use it in a classroom apart from being with students when they have come to Mind Lab for sessions.
Computational Thinking needs to not be pigeon-holed - as all learning areas of the NZC. I wonder what is happening in schools in terms of the PLD offered for this revised curriculum and what teachers are being told. Anyway - the unplugged session was a great way to introduce this concept. All teachers can do this and have engaging and motivating entryways into computational thinking. Teachers also need to join the dots with this curriculum and other leanring areas. Patterning is algebra and is computational thinking and new entrants do this when threading beads onto a string. I could rant on about this all day...
I liked the models used today especially when working in groups and pairs throughout the day. This warms the cockles of my cooperative learning heart. I know this how Tōnui Collab work all the time with learners and love the model it shows teachers that teams/pairs can work on devices and share thinking. All teachers should be using social learning: aka cooperative learning, Tuakana-Teina or whatever model is used. Engaging students in leanring in small groups develops a whole lot of key competencies or "soft skills". Once again, I could rant about this all day... or you could read my blog post about this here
The last part of the day was working in CoSpaces. Here is the animation Perky and I made. Now this was fun of the highest order! Am I a nerd?
Feeling joyful after this full day of learning and am looking forward to reading the other blogs about today.
Great pics too Cheryl. At the moment I can't see your and Perky's animation from the google drive - you may need to sort out permissions?
ReplyDeleteSenior moment! Have changed sharing setting and now should be visible.
DeleteKia ora Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteYes, connections between DT curriculum and other learning areas. So important.
Great that you had fun today. A fantastic way to learn - by having fun. And you got your horse to rear up. Well done.
Maria