Learn | Ako Staff Hui Term 1 2022

In this term's staff hui we worked with school to develop the visibility and rewindability of their class sites. 

The staff learning was to explore and use tools to  level up something they had planned for their class in the coming week/s to make it rewindable.

When using 3rd party apps it is a changing landscape. This is exemplified by the paywall now on Screencastify. We have been strong and constant users of Screencastify over the years but this paywall changes things a lot. Having a 3rd party app Like Screencastify integrated into our Drive makes it so user-friendly for students - and teachers. It is a shame we have lost the functionality of this app.

Mote is another excellent 3rd party app that now has a paywall so we have gone back to suggesting the use of an online audio recorder for voice recording. There is some light at the end of the tunnel with Google developing a Screencasting app for Chromebooks. Watch this space!

Knowing this we included Loom as an option as well as Quicktime for Mac users. 

I subscribe to Richard Byrne's Free Tech for Teachers blog so I can keep up with what's the latest and greatest. Worth subscribing to for teachers.

DFI Day #9 Revision

There's that fabulous word - Ubiquity. If you look it up in the dictionary it says: the fact of appearing everywhere or of being very common. An example of this is that we talk about smart phone being ubiquitous. So what does it mean with devices in schools? 

Ax3
Anytime
Anywhere
Any pace

and from Anyone

Did you notice that any place has now become any pace? 

Any pace. Learning needs to be accessible to all learners across the spectrum of learning abilities. This is why we push Google Sites as they offer this. Teachers need to take the glass ceiling off learning.

The question was asked in this session of DFI - What will you be taking forward into the 'new era' of schooling? I really want to emphasise the importance of any pace.

Why do we have learners sitting around in class waiting for instructions or waiting for the teacher to hand out the learning. A Google Site can deliver instructions and all resources needed for learning efficiently and effectively. If all this is accessible for learners then teachers can then teach!

The learners can access the learning and work at their own pace. If they need to review material or instructions these should be visible on the site. If they work quickly and can be accelerated then the site can provide this. This provides learning for all learners across that wide spectrum of abilities.

Creating Portfolios with Google Sites, presenter - Emily Fitzpatrick

Google Sites are our bread and butter in Manaiakalani for visible and rewindable learning.  Our Pilot teachers build a class site to make learning visible and rewindable for their students.

While I am quite happy with how my use of the new Google sites is developing, this session was a good reminder of how to work with people new to Sites to get them to set up a site from scratch. As this is my focus for our Tairāwhiti Toolkit later in May, a very timely session indeed!

Emily's resources are here.

The other great resource for anything Google is Steegle.

Visit our Tairāwhiti Site which Maria, Renee and I build for our Manaiakalani Outreach Programme.