DFI day 3: Media

 Today's session focussed upon a wide variety of media. The majority of this was very new to me. The linkage I made to Manaiakalaini kaupapa was around 'share' and making the material fit for the audience concerned.

I could see an immediate use for the youtube channel we created in terms of sharing selected content to my teaching team or learners. The drawing app was also good value for creating new buttons and links in the first instance. The key to this was being able to gather images from the net and adapt them. 

Slides were an interesting space today. I gained a better insight into Google slides and how they could be used for not only presenting but also as jump off points for learning. I gained a lot from the app creation in slides. The copy below is not finished as yet but I can see the app I created could be used by our students to assist with check and connects during the day. This may encourage positive self-management and give an option which encourages students to talk to an adult earlier rather than later. It also links nicely to our new journey with PB4L as a school.

Overall I enjoyed today and feel that the content has enriched my own knowledge as well as giving me some new tools to use with my students and my staff team.

Workflow

Today's sessions were all about improving workflow using t he Google suite for email/ calendars/ meets and tabs. I found my emails to be well organised based on what was shared today.

Connecting with Manaiakalani today linked very well with the new professional development our school started this week relating to Assessment For Learning. During our first AFL session we began to explore student agency and one of the key messages I stored was what does learn look like at St Patrick's? So this will be a future area of exploration for our team. The work we covered on the learning pit  triggered my thinking around this.

Our school also runs very well on the calendar- our mantra is if it is not on the calendar it does not happen. Recently I have been using the colour option to greater effect as the calendar is very busy.

In future, I would like to use the video option on meets to share massaging to our students following today's session. I also realised I have much to learn about the Hapara interface.

The Tab management is a new space for me. I am lucky as I have 3 screens so don't tend to run out of space but I will certainly be looking to explore the tab features more closely.

Overall this was a very good day with lots of new areas for exploration and further learning in the digital space.

The video clip below was the result of exploring Google meets and calendar invites. From this w were able to invite colleagues and record and share the meeting. The item I explored was related to a year 8 Blogpost about writing blogs. As I was working between 2 devices I was unable to share the student's blog in this video example:

DFI day 1: Core business

It has been wonderful to start the DFI course today. 

On reflection it was interesting to realise my prior involvement and connection to Manaiakalani listening to Dorothy. I realised that I have absorbed a reasonable amount of insight during my years as an RTLB without being directly involved as I am now. I now have a fuller understanding of the Learn, create, share approach our school is using and why. I know we have Hapara at our school but as yet I have not used it so this will be added to my to do list.

During day one I have become more familiar with with the features of the Google suite. In particular the editing functions in documents were very helpful. The work we did around titles and subtitles as well as explore were previously unknown to me. I have also found the voice to text works for me best in the UK English version!

Previously I have used the colours in the calendar but did not know how to do this in folders. During the day it did seem my file format is well set up. I think colouring the folders is probably the next step in refining and improving my system for the future.

My creation for today involved me using some of my newly acquired skills to begin formatting a dual school leader poster and interactive guide to assist our school in implementing our PB4L rules and student leadership roles as well as enhancing playground behaviour.

This term our school has started our journey with PB4L. My hope with the above idea is that the students can create hyperlinked content to support developing school leaders in their roles. This is particularly important during break times. 

As yet we have not refined our school rules but we do have our strong faith values which will underpin them. With the poster I intend to switch out clip art for actual pictures of students modelling the key words. 

In time i'd like the students to create video clips that we can hyperlink to each keyword. The videos will demonstrate students exhibiting the required behaviours. Any extension of this could be video guides to playground games and activities.

Today has provided me with a greater insight into the Google suite which will assist me at home and here at school. I grew up using MS office and whilst over the years I have become more familiar with Google it has been fantastic today to have time to explore it more fully with our expert course guides. I have been conscious for a while that I needed to upskill so this is a great opportunity.