Capturing those Voices & Moments

As we have held our staff meetings this term and used Screencastify and Flipgrid to capture and share teacher's instructions on video, it is amazing how anxious and reluctant teachers are in making a video using their voice to give instructions. Teachers need to get used to using their voice outside the classroom walls. AI and voice recognition is a growing area of technology. Here is a blog post about voice recognition with summaries from a variety of experts.

In our staff meetings we have got teachers to make a Screencastify tutorial on how to use Google Voice Search. They then shared their tutorial on a Flipgrid (embedded below).

Screencastify is an efficient tool that teachers should be harnessing to use in their class. Teachers can quickly make tutorials to support student learning. Students can use Screencastify to record proof of their learning. More junior classes can use it to read and check for fluency.

There are many sites that give teachers ideas on how to use Screencastify. Here is a starter list from Matt Miller of "Ditch That textbook" fame.

Flipgrid is a tool that can capture voices in the classroom quickly and efficiently. It also enables replying. This badge popped up in my email today. Love the gamification aspect as well. This would hook students in.

Flipgrid Frenzy

This term we have used Flipgrid again to collect teacher work in a staff meeting.

I have also used it in classes to further model for teachers the power of this online tool. The younger learners loved being a "vlogger". By using the post-it to prepare their response it certainly meant the videos were better than talking off the cuff.

The older students in year 7&8 were able to navigate the tool very quickly and just like the younger students got distracted by the selfie camouflage area.

We were able to respond to some videos in later classes. This is all part of the "positive, thoughtful, helpful" mantra that we use in blog commenting. Its so good to have this common language across schools and across tools.

So much activity was recorded on our "Would you rather" Flipgrid yesterday that I was awarded this badge. So exciting! It just goes to show that we are never too old for gamification to appeal.

See our Flipgrid below.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 9 - Revision

The big day for the DFI'ers to sit the Google Certified Educator Level 1 exam. Preparation for the exam was the theme of the past week with people watching tutorials and practising the bits they thought they would need to swot up on.

Tim came prepared...and he did share. 

Willy baked a delicious banana/chocolate loaf which was shared at morning tea. 

Maybe he will post the recipe in his blog for us.

And Raquel baked this yummy slice.

There was plenty of sugar to keep us going for the 3 hour exam.

That recipe would be a good blog post too Raquel - hint.

thanks to the other offerings of lollies, grapes, chocolates and nuts

Because my Level 1 & 2 Google Certified Educator are current and I didn't need to sit the exam, I used the 3 hours for my own leanring with iPads and Explain Everything. Now that Cathy's NE class are moving along nicely I wanted to set up some projects for the start of term 4 to get them to animate and record their screens. In doing this I have become proficient in the use of the the Inspector tool to lock images as backgrounds, delete images and arrange images to the back. I also got really good at using the lasso tool then adding the images to my clip art library. I love the versatility of Explain Everything and have got the workflow in my head now as well to get the EE projects onto Cathy's class site.

Today's theme was Ubiquitous. We explored ideas about access to learning 24 hours, anywhere, anytime, anyplace and from anyone. Ideas that came up for us to discuss were around accessing learning through the class site for a range of reasons: absences, lateness, teacher absence etc. 

One facet of Ubiquitous that I am right into is rewindable learning. I have made tutorials for classes I work in about embedding Google slides, drawings, docs and videos into Blogs. I found that this is the best way rather than rely on YouTube clips. The tutorials I have made are linked on the class sites and available for learners and teachers whenever needed. They are short and to the point. 

In reflection this DFI has been a most amazing opportunity to get my head right into Google Goodies, the Manaiakalani kaupapa and to work alongside a group of dedicated professionals. Lots of learning and lots of networking. I have to thank the Manaiakalani team for allowing me to participate in the DFI and have these 9 days out of my facilitators role. 

Thank you fellow DFI'ers for your participation over the last 9 Fridays. My Fridays are never going to be the same again. And whether or not you passed the Google exam I'm sure you leave this last sessions with more Googley-goodness than you had before, just as I do.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 8 - Media

Matt joined us from Auckland and led us through a day of learn create share with media.

Kent beamed in from Pt England School and gave us his dreamscape about live streaming. It blew my socks off! What a great way to connect school with whānau as events happen. The possibilities are endless. Whoever is selling drones in Gizzy might have a wee surge in sales following Kent's session.

I am a Google Drawings evangelist and use this app constantly with learners in the classes I am in. We do everything we can in Google Drawings from simple drawing & publishing, shape-o-grams, drag & drop activities, blog profiles, vector drawings, fridge magnets, posters of all sorts and infographics to name a few. The links go to some learners blogs as examples of the ways Google Drawings can be used.

And as for Google Slides - well, this is the Swiss army knife of the Google Suite and can be used widely in all learning areas.  We had a play with animation today. Learners in classes love this and it captivates them. I gave a year 3 class a wero this week to animate in Google Slides. They had a lot of fun and enjoyed seeing each other's work.  Some of the older students have been creating a maths quiz in Google Slides. Click here to see Riley's maths quiz.

Create: my efforts today went into creating my pepeha on Google Tour Builder. One thing I can't do is embed it so the link to view my pepeha is here.

Then I discovered "view in Google Earth" so the link for that is here.

Still lots of clicks involved to move locations and view photos. So...next job was to Screencastify it. Here it is...



Next week is Google Certification exam time. Phew - mine are still current. Good luck everyone else!

Maps and Google Tour Builder

After DFI Day 7 and working with Maps, a teacher asked me this week about how to make a map and fly into a place. he had seen it somewhere and wanted to be able to do it for their up-coming trip to Mt Hikurangi. Great timing!

So we looked at pinning Mt Hikurangi on a Google map and adding photos but that wasn't the whole deal of flying into the pin.

Serendipitously (is that a word?) I came across Google Tour Builder. Please don't ask me how or where I found it because I think I was down a rabbit hole.

Anyway - here is my attempt at using Google Tour Builder with the aim of "flying" to Mt Hikurangi. It was fun doing this and getting some nostalgic photos on here especially of Ūawa and the place I grew up. Looking at the terrain I'm not sure I will ever get to the top of Mt Hikurangi so it was cool being able to zoom in and see the maunga in detail.

This tool is workable for learners to use so I will update in term 4 and show the work the learners do after their trip.

Mt Hikurangi topped with snow 12 September 2019

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 7 - Dealing with Data

Another full on day. Forms, sheets, My Maps, data, data and more data.

My Maps was fun. And what a range of destinations we have in our sights. Ahhhhh! to have the holiday time (and money) to go to them all. In one of the classes I am facilitating in they are right into the Rugby World Cup. I already have in my mind a My Maps tasks to do with this hub of learners.



Sheets are such a versatile app. We use them for everything in our role as facilitators. My next learning is to link data from another sheet into a new tab I already have a target sheet in mind.

Forms are another versatile app and we use them lots for students to turn in links to work completed e.g. comments made on other student's blogs. Yes, we can see comments on our student's blogs by using Hapara, but once they comment on another student's blogs at another school and click Publish, as we do in Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu, we have no way of moderating the comments from our end. So a Form is a great tool to use for this. I have the Form embedded in the class site so it is accessible for classes. An example is here. An if you embed the Response sheet as well then the 2 parts are together.

Analysing blogs stats is a great way to get student's into ownership of their blogs and to use Sheets as a visual representation of their blog stats.
I looked at Quasia's blog. Here is the number of blog posts over 7 years - the first year being the setting up of the blog ready for the following year.

Just found out I could embed the graph. So here it is embedded...

Thinking about Sheets, statistics and graphing the hub I am working is that is right into the Rugby World Cup could be using Sheets as the competition begins. They are in teams so a collaborative tasks would be a great way to explore Sheets and graphing.
When I did the stats for the number of visitors form countries I copied and pasted the data from the blog page of stats and then deleted the columns I didn't need. Much quicker way of getting the larger numbers into the Sheet rather than trying to remember and type in separately.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 6 - Computational Thinking

Fun! Fun! Fun!
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.