Unpacking the Tapasa document

Turu 1 is about teachers knowing and understanding that specific identities, languages and cultures of Pacific learners underpins the way they think and learn.

• Knowing and understanding of the impact it has for students
• Understanding the culture and the relevance
• Building on relationships and knowing the learners, families 
• Giving families opportunities to be involved and share their cultures to us and others. 
• For teachers to teach effectively they need to know their past and background and embracing their journey 
• Teachers being able to understand students learning processes

In practice, the teacher needs to utilise Pacific constructs to engage and collaborate in different and meaningful ways that empower Pacific learners, parents, families and communities -

• The teacher and school need to have knowledge of Pacific constructs - tikanga / ways of doing things 
• Teachers need to use resources, tools, references and conceptual models to enhance the relationships, learning, etc
• Teachers need to incorporate words, songs, activities, and artifacts in the classroom (engagement and prior knowledge)

Turu 2 alludes to the reciprocal notion of collaborative power sharing and relationships -

• The teacher and parents have a positively respectful relationship and work together - understanding and valuing what teachers are doing at school and what parents are doing at home - to empower the child to be their best, most-authentic selves

It is the schools and teachers responsibility to ensure the value of all ethnicities and that the system isn’t favouring and privileging a ‘majority’ culture and knowledge

Teachers should be reflective in their practice to ensure there is balance and power sharing is enhanced (collaborative relationships)

Turu 3 - Effective Pacific pedagogies

• Engaging in ongoing professional development and seeking support to further develop Pacific confidence(research and evidence based)
• Embedding Pacific world views,conceptual models, learning styles etc into teaching pedagogy /planning/ teaching styles
• Understanding Pacific learners as a whole adapting teaching approaches to cater to the learning needs 
• Working with Pacific learners /parents /communities seeking ideas and feedback- Making connections 

In my practice after looking into this document I feel like a goal for me in 2020 would be to make sure I give time to build on my students cultures and where they come from. Getting them to share where they are from and building those relationships at the start of the year. Giving students the opportunity to tell me who they are and what is important to them. This would set them up at the start of the year and let them know that I do care and that I am interested in what they have to say.

Te Reo Maori

This week in class we have read the story of Maui and the Battle of the Mountains. The story is about the mountains of New Zealand and how they ended up in the places they are now.
We looked at the story as a class and discussed the Maori words and meanings in the story.

We then created some art work about the mountains which we think are pretty great. Enjoy our Art as we keep learning about the Maori myths and Legends in New Zealand.

Inquiry Story Hui

Today I shared my inquiry with staff around the story hui format. I had 5 minutes to talk through my inquiry. What I have been doing at the beginning, middle and end? Giving myself a chance to reflect back on what learning is happening and what is working and not working in my inquiry.

As a reflection I got some student voice from my inquiry and asked these three questions here is some of the responses.

• What do you learn when you come and work with me? Am more focused during small group time, learn more things that we didn’t know, 
• Why is it helpful when you work with the teacher? Because sometimes you teach us something we haven’t learnt, would be hard without the teacher, teach skills and goals so we get better at our goals, we tell you the goals we need to work on and we focus on that during group time, 
• What do you think about working with me in a small group? Fantastic, do more, not distracted, so we can learn and sometimes we can learn something that we don’t know, bigger words we can learn, practise skills we didn’t know before, if we have a small group we won’t be bored it’s fun. 

I reflected back and think that I need to set up more models and vocabulary set up on the walls so that students can look back on this when they need to. 

Collaboration

What is collaboration?
Quick activity on collaboration. We had to work together with our buddy teacher to create a short presentation on what collaboration is.
Here is our presentation.

To be collaborate both of us needed to work together to achieve the same goal. We both had equal roles in this activity and were constantly discussing what was happening next. This was a fun activity as it reinforced what we needed to do to be collaborative. Our staff is beginning to work more collaboratively together and I find that I need to make the time to work with my buddy class more so that we can align teaching and learning. This is important so that we are both working around the same areas and also not planning the same thing when we can work together or share resources more.

Collaborative inquiries

As a staff we sat together and I lead a bus stop discussion around our student survey data. We decided that there were 3/4 areas that we wanted to work around and discussed what are the ways we can support our students to be more confident when talking, sharing and questioning around their learning. Here are our ideas.
We then chose one area each that we would like to focus on to work around with our class. I decided that one area I would like to focus on in my teaching is encouraging students to check in more with their learning goals and be able to reflectively talk about their learning. I need to give them more opportunities to be reflective and use the buddies in their class to grow confidence before they talk to me the teacher, their parents or others.

Our last day of DFI

Just completed our Google for Education Certification Exam Yay!! It was good to see that all the things we have been learning about I could use my knowledge of these to pass this exam. I now have a level 1 certificate in google educator.

Today we also briefly looked through google classroom and how it can be used. I thought it was useful to learn about another aspect around google but I probably wouldn't use google classrooms as it is not as user friendly as sites and you cannot customize it as much as google sites.

Today was also a chance to look into the slide about ubiquitous learning. When learning is rewindable and can be accessible anywhere, anytime.
My knowledge around the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy has definitely changed my teaching practice. I now believe I am using digital devices and applications more successfully to aide in my teaching and have become more aware about what I am using in my teaching and why instead of just using it for the sake of it.
I have thoroughly enjoyed coming to learn more about digital fluency and feel that my classroom will benefit hugely one thing at a time. 
https://dfi.manaiakalani.org/connecting-with-manaiakalani/ubiquitous-kaupapa

Computational Thinking

Notes from today!! Had lots of fun playing around with the dash bots and learning how to use scratch!
Getting started with scratch

Green screens- allow for background to be edited or use the person and add a new background

Dash smart bots- Green screen background, code, app on ipads (Blockly)
Stop motion animation- pizza boxes made into green screen backgrounds, spray painted green, stopmotion studio (works on ipads and chromebooks)
Scratch project- online can even use yourself as a sprite: Upload yourself and remove background https://remove.bg/ Also a scratch junior for the juniors at school

Paint 3D- Windows 10 native application or www.autodraw.com

Sphero bots

(Get from pbtech, modern teaching aids)

Stand for ipad off ebay-manfrotto

Makey makey: https://makeymakey.com/

 Picture showing simple code instructions to draw images and the dash robot which can be programmed on an ipad.

Dealing with Data

Today's session has taken me down to Tautoro School in Kaikohe. We are going to be looking into dealing with data today.
My reflection from last week... So far what is working well in my classroom is having my class site set up and ready for parents and students to use and look at different resources. It is hard being in a new entrant class that has limited Ipads and students that are not as confident on their devices. So I have been working on this and just giving them opportunities to use the Ipads, take photos, record their knowledge and explore their class site. My class is really enjoying this and they are enjoying sharing their learning through devices.

Today I found really useful as we looked into google spreadsheets and google forms. It was cool to look at google forms and use it as a quiz after lessons or ways to quickly find information. It was also nice to look at spreadsheets as we went through a lot of ways to make it easier to use and analyse data. Below is a graph that I have embeded into my blog to show how spreadsheets data can be analysed and made into charts to view data.


Myself and my colleague have also decided after today that we would like to share back some of the knowledge that we have been learning from our DFI course. I learnt today how to create a google form and it require a breakout type feature. Here is my google form. I was just trying to make a quick form to use the tools that I learnt today :)

Quick Quiz on google forms

Enabling Access

This week we have looked at google sites and making them accessible for all learners. I found this week very engaging and interesting as before I was not able to access the class site for Piwakawaka. Now I have access, I have been working on setting it up so that there are resources and activities for parents and students to complete at school and at home. 

I have now set up links through my class site which take students/parents to different sites and activities. 

Setting up google sites

I have also been practising on the google fundamentals training, which is making me think more about the tools I use in my classroom and what I am using when. Hopefully the exam won't be too hard!!

Last DFI for Term 1 :)

Cyber Smart:

• Being Cyber Smart
• Empowering learners to feel confident online and have an understanding of experiencing what its like online. 
• Empower students to feel smart online and become competent online
• Experiences online that allow them to have their own personal voice

Hapara Teacher Dashboard:

• Making learning visible- focusing on the teaching not the technology
• Helps the learners focus and become organised online
• Personalize work through groups
• Visibility into what your learners are working on, so you can provide feedback in the moment
• Helpful hints- can see students work, quick to see comments/preview of work etc, organise 
• Highlights- can see what students are on all at once.
• Using Hapara Dashboard for the first time Deep Dive Hapara 

Manaiakalani 1:1 Journey:

• partnership, participation, protection these 3 words drove Manaiakalani's thinking
• 1:1 devices, having pedagogy behind it and providing teachers with the resources and confidence to teach successfully

Digital Dig Chrome books:

Lots of shortcuts that can be used with Chrome books. A good activity for students to complete at the start of the year to find easy ways to use chrome books. Digital Dig 2019

Ipads:

All Ipads are set up the same through Hapara. Using explain everything to create activities, answer math problems, write reading responses. Good tool for juniors.
1:1 Ipad Presentation
Ipad digital fluency
Cool to look at how Ipads are being used in a junior classroom and looking at a class site for 5 year olds. 

Screencastify:

We used screencastify to record and share our learning. I did a quick lesson and recording of how to use ok Google. Fun new tool to search using voice. This was great learning how to use screencastify.

Google Keep

Last week I looked into using Google keep more when working online. It has helped with keeping me on track to what I need to complete and I like using it to take notes that can be attached to documents. This week I feel like I have been also working through the google training for Google Training Centre Fundamentals. These are becoming easier and I feel that I will be able to pass the course at the end of the DFI days to get my badge :)

Create, create, create!

Reflections for today :)

Today I learned that it is very important to create things that are unique not just copying from the internet. Part of the Manaiakalani kaupapa is to create something so that you can share with colleagues, friends and students. I created a google slide which I found very enjoyable as it was something that I hadn't done before and I feel this will be fun to teach students.

I also looked into setting up a youtube channel and organizing playlists, etc. This can then be shared and you can embed into your blog or linked to share with others. I enjoyed using google slides today as I found there were many new areas/tools that I could look at to create different, new and exciting activities!
Here is something that I created today:



This is a slideshow I created learning how to link slides to images so that students can have a multi choice to click on images which will then send them to another slide with a correct or incorrect answer. You just need to make sure that the image has the link for the slide you want to be taken to and then make sure these are at the bottom of the screen.

Session 2 Digital Fluency Intensive

Session 2 DFI

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

I learn't today that you can share learning through google hangouts by letting your screen be shared with others. Google hangouts is great as you can record your screen moving, pointers etc. I feel that this would be beneficial in the classroom as students could have more detailed descriptions and visual cues of how to complete tasks.

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

Gmail ordering, google calendars, how to set up google hangouts. With my mail and calendar now being organised it will make my life easier to find information and organize all of the resources and events that I am involved in.  

• What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

Today we looked through a few different sites around google such as google hangouts which you can take recordings of the screen to show students or hangout with other colleagues during discussions. This could be used to share new learning with students about how to complete tasks as mentioned above and I feel students would enjoy this more as it is not just on paper but more interactive. 

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

As I wrote above I feel that because my professional workflow will improve from being more organised then I can use these in my personal life like my own mail and calendar. 

Today I enjoyed learning about organizing my gmail and having different labels to organise information. I feel that it would've been great to use the google hangouts if the internet would've let us. But our group have organised to meet another day to continue our learning around google hangouts.  

Session 1 Digital Fluency Intensive (DFI)

Today was our first day at Paihia Primary School for our digital fluency intensive (DFI).
Time to reflect and share with colleagues:
What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

• Reminder for me on all the info around google docs, apps sites. It was great having refreshers around the things I use all the time like google docs but then being shown how to use it more efficiently. I learnt today about using headings in google docs and ideas and ways around using them with a class. I really liked the idea around having each child create their own google doc named Writing Term 1 and then having the headings as each of their writing projects. So that teachers can then easily edit and comment on specific pieces rather than searching through docs from each student. This reinforces the Manaiakalani Learn, Create Share pedagogy. 

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

• I felt that today in general was good as I learn't a lot of small quick tools to make my life faster and easier when working online. For Example I found that you cannot just copy and paste it is more helpful to copy and then paste things without formatting. 

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 

• One thing that I was reminded about that I feel could be used with my learners is the voice typing on google docs. I feel like I could use this hugely with the reluctant writers in the class as this would build their confidence and allow them to dictate what they write. I feel like I wouldn't get them to use it everyday as these boys are still learning to write confidently but they could use it to reflect on texts they have read and even publish new pieces of writing. 

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

• I have learn't that I can pretty much create virtually anything onto google docs. Today I created a poster using google docs and I feel like I could again use this in my personal life when creating thank you cards etc. This is exciting as I enjoy to create these things when I am out of school. Today was very useful and I am looking forward to learning, creating and sharing with my colleagues.