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.

DFI Week 6 - Sites & Enabling Access

DFI continued online this week with the theme of enabling access with Google Sites. We explored many sites and evaluated them in terms of visual appeal and user experience. These sites were from across the clusters and provided a range of levels for us to look at.

Then we explored the sites we have made ourselves and provided feedback for each other. We used this exploration and feedback to work on our sites and develop them more. A large chunk of the day was for participants to work on their own site. Having this uninterrupted time is significant for time-poor teachers and allows for focused working time.

I loved exploring and seeing the use design elements that make a site visually appealing.  I love sites that use art from the students and photos as design elements. Here are 2 examples...
Room 8 Wesley Intermediate - home page with a photo as a header
Te Ana Ako (Waikowhai School 2018) - photos used a buttons

We worked in our regional groups connecting on Google Meet which enabled teachers to share their screen to trouble shoot. We covered a range of issues including using Incognito Window to test sites, publishing settings so everyone can view the site, changing sharing properties of Drive folders, creating buttons on one Google Drawing and downloading as a PNG...to mention a few.

The theory behind Just-in-time learning (JIT) has been played out dramatically since the lockdown was announced. Even in days like DFI with a set agenda and times, there are times where we are working in groups and this allow for some of that JIT learning to happen. The immediacy of connecting in a Google Meet means that participants can present their screen in Google Meet and we can deal with their particular issues and queries efficiently and to completion. This reduces frustration and learning is in short bursts without distraction.

I have enjoyed seeing the growth in confidence and capability of the teachers in DFI so far. The sites I viewed by our participants from Tairāwhiti today are coming together nicely. While many teachers instinctively use design elements well, they have worked really hard on making everything accessible today. This all bodes well in this lockdown and means that learners and their whānau can access sites and see everything on the site.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 5 - Enabling Access

I live and breathe in Google Sites every working day in my role as a facilitator with the Manaiakalani Programme Outreach. I have access to all the sites of the classes I work in and add a Cybersmart page to the class site for visible and rewindable learning. So whilst I work on pages on many sites I did find today an opportunity to go back to some of the pages and check visibility and how accessible the Cybersmart learning is.

Everytime I explore examples of sites I find more and more gems to model and show the teachers I work with. I am particularly interested in Junior sites where they have 1:1 iPads. I found Kashmira  Lal's 2018 site today which is a treasure. Seeing a whole year's layout was good in that your can see how she has archived each term's work to de-clutter the pages. She really did stick to the "no more than 2 clicks" rule.

Today we were able to enjoy and appreciate the generosity and sharing of our Manaiakalani whānau as we explored and gleaned ideas from the many sites available. Thank you to you all for this sharing and caring mahi that is part of the Manaiakalani kaupapa.

I use a set of slides to teach from and add to the slides as we move through the term. I have slides for Year 7 &8, another slide deck for year 4-6 and one slide deck for the younger year 2-3 class.
Here is the year 4-6 slides...
I find that by having instructional material in a slide deck, I add to the slides as I plan lessons and knowing it is embedded in each Cybersmart page, I don't have to embed different sets of slides again and again and again. There were so many examples today from other well-established Manaiakalani sites of how teachers can work smarter not harder by having their planning on slides that fulfil both planning and visible learning aspects. I know as a leader in a school I would be happy to see this type of planning as the interface for learners, parents and whānau.

I had an experience this week of wanting to view a school site. Our grandson has just changed schools because they moved recently. He told me the other day, thanks to the power of Skype, who his new teacher is and the class number se is on. So off I went to the school site to get the gen on the new school, class and teacher. This is what I got to when I clicked on his syndicate's name in the menu...

Sigh! 

& enuf said enabling access

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.