Why Blogs?

This question comes up all the time in our work as facilitators with The Manaiakalani Programme.

So why do we choose Blogger as the platform for Share | Tohatoha? 

Many years ago I visited Pt England School and saw the way blogging was used with learners. On return to my school I got stuck in and get students blogging. We followed a lot of the guidelines on Edublogs and joined in with their challenges. We also joined Quad Blogging and interacted with schools in USA and UK. It was fun especially when we had a competition to see who could get visitors to their blog form different countries and who could get the most visitors.

I read the Langwitches blog by Silvia Tolisano and she is a strong advocate of blogging. Not just blogging by learners but she advocates for teachers to blog FOR their students.

My main reason for learners to blog is the way a whole bunch of skills come together such as writing skills, reading skills, metacognition skills and reflection skills to name a few.

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Sharing by blogging is core to what we do in The Manaiakalani Programme. We have systems and processes to develop blogging with teachers and students and are able to provision this legally, systematically, and securely under the GSuite owned by each school's BoT so they can share with purpose.

So why should we blog?  I firmly believe that blogging gives the quietest learners a voice, a place to document their learning and to connect with others.

Amplifying our Practise - Giving to others

Continuing on from my previous post about getting from others - here is the second part about giving to others.

When you learn, teach. When you get, give - Maya Angelou

So my question is - how do you give to others? And for that matter - how do I give to others?

Lots of share in our own settings with colleagues. I know that once we became a Google Domain at my previous job that we were able to create and file and share easily. We did not have to re-invent the wheel and that made us really efficient in the admin side of our job which hopefully, left us time and energy for the real part of the job - teaching! Because we all understood each other and knew the context of your teaching we also had the confidence to share with each other. So sharing is easy in our own settings.

Sharing outside our own settings is enabled by the ubiquitousness of digital technologies. We have platforms that we can share and once we are active on these platforms we can get from others. 

Locally we have a Facebook group to share stuff that we find useful. Join us and share the good stuff you have. We also have a Google + community for out Tairāwhiti cluster to share good stuff.

Are you on Twitter? If you are pop your Twitter handle in the comments so I can follow you. You can find me on Twitter @GigagalGizzy.

Is there anything holding you back from sharing which could include documenting your learning? I sense a real lack of confidence and purpose in teachers when talking to them about sharing on a professional learning blog. This could be for many reasons including  a lack of time or technology. Self-confidence can also be a limiting factor and/or worrying about bragging, judgement, or not feeling worthy enough etc. If we lived in USA we would probably be shouting it from the rooftops - or form the laptop screen. IS this a cultural thing? Or is it something else? I need to ask teachers directly instead of making assumptions.   

My job as a facilitator is about giving to others. And yes - I get paid for it, but I believe the work of The Manaiakalani Programme Outreach has meant that more teachers have access to quality PLD in digital fluency that will mean better outcomes for the learners in our local schools. Apart for that I am able to immerse myself in my technology and use Chromebooks and iPads with learners all day, every day. 

Amplifying our Practice - Getting from others

As we plan for our term 1 staff meetings with a Learn | Ako focus, I am reflecting on offerings from  other educators on the WWW as they amplify their practice.

We live in a digital landscape which makes sharing and requesting very easy. With digital resources we can share and help each other.

When you learn, teach. When you get, give - Maya Angelou

There is a plethora of sites with digital offerings right across the curriculum spectrum. Buy oh! how do you sift through offerings such as "50 of the Best Chrome Extensions for Teachers". I really don't have time to sift through these.

I do like lists like this on in a Sheet from Eric Curts where you can use the control + F  function to search the Sheet and get to what you want.

Locally we have a Facebook group to share stuff that we find useful. Join us and share the good stuff you have. We also have a Google + community for out Tairāwhiti cluster to share good stuff.

I have a long list of educators around the world that I glean all kinds of information from. This ranges from global education issues to specific Google sites that provide information about Google Apps. I subscribe to their blogs, follow them on Twitter and listen to podcasts and ma thankful for the material they provide for us all to use. Who do you follow or subscribe to?

Once you tame your twitter feed this is a a place to go to. Hashtags help sort the material. List of edu #hashtags are available as a place to start. I use TweetDeck to help organise Twitter Feeds. I would be lost with out this.

Once we discover a source of material we then need to Cybersmart and use our critical thinking and literacies to determine whether the material is useful, reliable and/or applicable to our context.

One found you will then need a curation tool so you can find it when you need it. I use Google Keep, OneTab Chrome extension, Toby Mini Chrome extension and Bookmarks in Chrome mainly.

In our term 1 staff meetings we have been exploring Manaiakalani Class on Air episodes. If you want to see real teachers in action in real classrooms then this is the pace for you to go. The teachers document an extended plan which allows you to get inside their head and see how they have planned and reflected on lessons they teach and video for us to watch and learn from. This Sheet lists all episodes. Hint: use the tabs at the bottom to explore categories and cntrl+F to find specific search terms. This shared resource really does amplify teaching practice.