Reading Practice Intensive - Day 9

 Connected Learners Share - this is one of the cornerstones of The Manaiakalani Programme. Day 9 of RPI was focused on Share | Tohatoha.

Blogging is the primary space for our young learners to share. As a facilitator this is the core work in terms 2 & 3 to set up blogs, roll the blogs out to learners and teaching them the skills of blogging and how to comment on other learner's blogs.

Class sites and blogs are the primary way that reading can be made visible. Blogs are how learners can participate in communities and share their learning to connect with peers, teachers, whānau/aiga and the wider world. Blogs offer the opportunity for visibility, feedback and reflection, collaboration & whānau engagement. Class practices for blogging need to be established and this is how facilitators support schools.

Giving feedback was a section of today that will give teachers ways to provide descriptive feedback. Feedback can be given in so many ways in a digital environment and these were covered today. But the descriptive feedback is critical to connecting the learning intention and providing feedforward.

Our local cluster has school blogging and these blog can be followed here.

Connected Learners Share - Term 3 Online Staff Hui

Term 3 staff hui are based around the kaupapa of Share | Hanga. The Manaiakalani Programme harnesses the affordances of digital technologies to connect teachers so they can share. This extends the idea that as educators we are also learners.

The online staff hui in term 3 are an opportunity for teachers across all clusters in Aotearoa to connect and share their Teaching as Inquiry with others teaching the same curriculum level.

Small groups are formed where teachers can share strategies and talk about academic outcomes for their students.

The hui is designed to be conversational and whilst Google Meet is used to connect, the session is not recorded nor is there any presentation required. 

I had the pleasure of facilitating 2 hui. One was focused on Well Being for years 1-3 and the other on reading for years 4-6.

In both session we were able to share strategies and resources. There were many takeaways for participants as well as affirmation that their Inquiry was benefitting their students. Perhaps it is in this time where we can sit and reflect that we can take stock and see what is happening for our students. In the busy and complex school environment reflection time may be very scant.

One school had a collective inquiry into forming a common practice method for the teaching of reading. I will be following their progress as I take part in the Manaiakalani pilot Reading Practice Intensive (RPI). The RPI starts at the end of August and I will be blogging each week of the 9 week intensive.

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.

Flipgrid: The Tool For Student Voice You Didn't Know You Need, presenter - Nick Brierley

Nick is a teacher in Sydney. Having only used Flipgrid once before it was great to have time to explore and have a go with this tool.
Nick's resources are here.

Ed Tech Summit - Wellington

During the term break, I attended the Ed Tech Summit in Wellington. This summit was 2 days jam-packed full of Google Goodness. It was held at Amesbury School which is pretty new and that was a delight to be in modern learning spaces.

In true digital immersion fashion, an App was used to communicate and organise schedules. The neat thing about using an app like this at these summits is that you can change your schedule whenever you like. This is particularly handy if you miss a great session and can pick up on it at another time.

The sessions I attended were...
Keynote #1: Let's Make Some Magic, presenter - Emily Fitzpatrick
Design Thinking and iExplore at Ormiston School, presenter - Michael Davidson
How to get the most from your Chromebook, presenter - Suan Yeo
Flipgrid: The Tool For Student Voice You Didn't Know You Need, presenter - Nick Brierley
Google and the 4 C's, presenter - Kim Sutton
Demo Slam

Keynote #2: A Māori Perspective on developing Resources to Support Te Reo Māori, presenter - Te Taka Keegan
Automate the Mundane, presenter - Emily Fitzpatrick
Keep it Together!. presenter - Rachel Duckworth
Creating Portfolios with Google Sites, presenter - Emily Fitzpatrick

I got so much from each session that I think I need to reflect on each session in a separate blog post with links to resources.