Beyond a Blackboard

This week we began our university summer school course with Rena Heap and Kerry Lee. The course is concerned with digital pedagogy, which is an area we are all involved with and passionate about. Our first task was to create a fifteen minute presentation based on one of the course readings. I chose to cover the NMC/ CoSN Horizon Report: 2016 K-12 Edition. I spent a couple of minutes covering the outline of the report and shared a slide show containing my notes with the class. For the remainder of my presentation I created a mini Makerspace featuring Google Cardboard and robotics. I wanted to give my peers the opportunity to experience some of the technology described in the text. We had a great time running the Edison robots around the track and experimenting with some of the Apps on Google Cardboard. I'm really looking forward to introducing this as part of the technology lessons I teach with my year 6 students, while the year 7's are at Tamaki College.

During our final PLG of the year we created sites to display our learning this year. It was a great opportunity to reflect on our growth over the year and consider how fortunate we have been to have had this support. I think learning (and creating) the digital component of the MDTA has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of the course, after teaching the children of course! We have had the opportunity to create several different sites, videos, to code and animate - things I may never had tried otherwise! Have a look at the site that I have created to see some examples of these creations. Despite not having our Friday PLG's next year, I will still continue to make a conscious effort to develop my digital knowledge and to continue my learning journey.

It can be a bit of a mission creating a PCT folder as a beginning teacher, but I have found my PCT Google Site far more efficient to use than an old ring binder! Once I set up my pages, I have found it fairly manageable to simply drop in digital reflections, observations, samples of student work and the like. In todays MDTA PLG we were given time and support to develop this website. I have followed the Manaiakalani template quite closely to create this site and have attached all of my evidence pages which can be accessed through the top bar. I have a page for each of the professionally certified teacher criteria and for other evidence of my practice such as my meeting minutes, reflections and release logs. Although the focus of this PLG was to ensure that this site was up to date, I found myself reflecting back on the year and considering some of the opportunities that we have been given. We discussed how much of our professional learning aligns with the criteria and I consider...

Are you teaching to accommodate you students learning preferences or simply teaching with your learning style in mind? This was a point of discussion in todays Manaiakalani digital immersion PLD which focussed on the notion that visible teaching and learning enables accelerated shift. We looked at this in the context of creating visible learning through our class sites, which must be both behaviourally engaging or interesting, and cognitively engaging which could be achieved through multi-modal activities. I believe that while my learners have learning preferences, they learn best when offered the opportunity to access information in a number of modes. While I have been successful at introducing topics in multiple modes and using a variety of multi-modal create activities, much of my teaching in reading has focussed on my learners first responding to a text orally and in written form.  However, our class site and 1:1 classroom environment allow me to go further than this an...

If you asked me during my high school ICT classes if I saw myself coding in the future, I would have laughed.  I felt overwhelmed and slightly uninspired when I was given the task to write a few commands in Javascript. However, when I encountered the Hour of Code last summer, I discovered coding in a new light and completed the 20 hour Accelerated Intro to CS course  out of interest! I also realised that this would be valuable knowledge to possess as a teacher, as coding is a skill that could benefit my learners in the future. In fact, thanks to their Computer Technology classes and previous teachers, many of my students are already competent coders. A proud moment for me this year was taking them to OMG Tech , and watching them create their own games through scratch, with little support from the facilitators. As we discussed future focussed learning in our PLG today, I was reminded of the importance of this skill and will definitely consider using the code.org and o...

Today I attended the 5th annual Manaiakalani Hui, which was a thoroughly enjoyable and informative experience. My (mini) live sketch note One of the highlights of the day was watching a student representative from each school present a piece of their learning. These presentations illustrated the various ways in which Manaiakalani students learn, create and share. There were presentations on a variety of curriculum areas and topics, although I think watching one of my own learners was most special to me. I felt incredibly proud to watch my student represent our school and share his learning. Using Twitter to share our learning #Manaiakalani It was also a pleasure to hear about the research that the MIT's (Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers) are conducting. A few of these teachers are researching about student achievement in writing, which I really enjoyed as I have been looking into writing for my University study. Research was presented from both Woolf ...

I have been idle on twitter for a couple of years, but it is only now that I have fully explored Twitter as a means of building a professional learning network (PLN). This morning we connected with James Hopkins  via Google Hangout, who shared a presentation with us regarding his journey with Twitter. I loved the notion of using Twitter as free PD and connecting with other educators who have different perspectives and experiences. It's interesting thinking about the different way people view change and technology in education, and how this is discussed through PLNS. After being inspired by James, the MDTA's began our first twitter chat, using #MDTAchat . Anne posed a series of provocations which we responded to and conversed with one another. I found this really interesting, although it was a little stressful! I hadn't considered the learning that could occur from something like this before and will be engaging in other chats, such as EdchatNZ more often.

I have been neglecting a rather jazzy icon in my dock for some time, yet it could have been used on several occasions this year. While I have fond memories of Garageband from my youth, its latest update is far more complicated than the one I remember. Fortunately, Rob Wiseman facilitated a PLG today and guided us through some Garageband basics. We began at the very beginning... Getting Started Open a new "empty" project. Select the microphone icon to record sound through a microphone and to use the preset sound clips. The keyboard icon allows you to create your own tunes using the keyboard on your computer, while the drum icon acts as a drum machine and the guitar works as an amp.  You are then ready to record or click on the loops icon (top right) to select the pre-made loops. After we had a play around with the settings and basic features on Garage Band (there is a lot to it and things can get pretty technical if you would like them to) we created o...

This morning I have been creating a Sketchnote in order to share my learning. Sketchnoting is a creative form of note taking that can be carried out in real time or after an event. It supports note taking as you are paring words and visuals in a structure that is easy to follow. When experimenting today I made a Sketchnote that summarised a discussion about how our students share their learning in the Manaikalani cluster. As I was sketching I did regret not planning my Sketchnote in advance as some of it was a out of order. I also created the whole thing on a very tiny piece of paper, which added to the difficulty of the sketching. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the sketching session and felt that it cause me to think quite carefully about my topic.  I can imagine myself using this when listening to lectures and completing academic readings. I can also see it engaging some of my learners and it would enable them to share and solidifying their learning in a creative mann...

As soon as we walked through the gates of Tamaki College, I was struck by the realization that I know very little about how New Zealand Colleges operate and how NCEA is structured. As someone who completed Cambridge exams, I need to develop my knowledge of NCEA and prepare my students for this as oppose to the high school that I attended. Fortunately, we were given the opportunity to spend our PLG day looking at other schools in the cluster. I spent my morning with a year 9 literacy class (lead by Vaughan Spudle ) and was really interested to see how the class was run. I was especially impressed with the accelerated reading program that they ran as I could see the benefits it would have with some of my learners.  In this program the students spend 20 minutes a day reading a book that is appropriate to their reading level. After completing books, they take a short comprehension quiz to determine whether they are ready to read a book at the next level. The students were all engaged...

I never thought that I would be camera shy, coming from a background in drama and the arts. In fact, I could not have secured my first job at 16 if I had not been able to act confidently in front of the camera. It seems that I had forgotten all of this when I stepped out to film my interview for the MDTA this Friday. The aim of this session was to plan and film a response to a number of questions about our experiences with the MDTA. We were encouraged to think quite deeply about these questions and I spent some time deciding how I might respond. Clarelle and I had decided to interview each other and went on a walk around the University Campus to decide where to film. We eventually settled on a picnic bench outside and I began to film Clarelle. I was feeling quite proud of the angles I had captured, but this confidence faded completely as soon as I stepped in front of the camera. I became extremely nervous and found it difficult to simply introduce myself! After a while I b...

After beginning my teaching career with a class site,  I cannot imagine teaching without one.  I have especially enjoyed watching my students engage in their learning outside of the classroom. There is so much that can be done with a google site and it can be a really engaging way of accessing ones learning. Over the past term and a half our class site has changed heaps; I am constantly finding new ways to display activities and will continue to do so. Ultimately, it is most important that the site is easy to navigate and that it makes learning accessible. My Class Site At this weeks MDTA PLG, we were learning about making screencasts. These could be used in the classroom as a way of recording part of the lesson - like a virtual modelling book. Apps like Educreations and Scree ncastify would best utilise screencasts in the classroom, as they allow the user to draw and write while recording.  However, our intention today was to simply create a screencast ...

As an adult it is easy to forget how much fun it is to be creative, to mould plasticine or create a story with figurines. During this weeks MDTA day I reconnected with my inner child and had a blast - this could be my favourite session yet! Our aim for the day was to create a claymation video to support an aspect of our students learning.  This term my learners have been studying the native bush and we recently went on a trip to Arataki. I decided that this would be a fun topic to use as the focus of my claymation. Here is the process I followed to create my video: Step One: Planning I started by creating a storyboard of my video to ensure that I had a clear idea of what I would be filming. As our learners have also been looking at narratives I wanted to structure my video just like a narrative, with an orientation, problem and resolution. I also included information about the type of shots I would take, the characters and scenery I would need to include. Here is an examp...

After weeks of filming footage of our inquiry project,  I collected my class iPad and connected it to my school laptop to unveil... a complete disaster. Various scenes had mysteriously disappeared, the audio quality left a lot to be desired and the video; we had several shots that contained the green screen and half of the action. Fortunately, my learners are resilient; they quickly learned from our mistakes and created a short trailer depicting all that our original movie had promised, in under an hour. And fortunately for me, my last two MDTA PLG meetings were concerned with the creation of videos, so I will be better able to support them when editing. In this weeks session we were challenged to film and create a short "Day in the Life of" video about learning in our schools.  I found it quite challenging to find the time to film my learners while in the midst of teaching, and only managed to take footage of a few of my lessons. However, it was great to learn from my mi...

Today's goal was to create to learn, with our "create" taking the form of an explainer video. I definitely feel that I learnt a lot about creating video's - I now understand why my learners become so invested in them and how challenging they can be (when you take on something too ambitious!). As soon as Fiona introduced our learning intention I immediately began to recall the number of groups in my class who are in the middle of creating videos at the moment. I am extremely proud of the work that my learners have put into these videos, particularly a group of my writers who decided to plan a story through drama, as they created and recorded an effective movie in a short time frame.  They also created some wonderful pieces of writing because of this. Due to this groups success, I asked my reading group to create an ongoing movie which synthesised the texts that we read in the latter part of term one around Victorian England. It is now term two and I still have had ...

Each morning, I open my can of energy drink in the secrecy of the staff room. This is smuggled inside of my bag and often drunk alone, the evidence carefully stashed in the staff recycling bin. I then move stealthily to my classroom, energized for the day. On this journey I will publicly advertise the fruit or health bar that I have brought for breakfast.  This spruiking of healthy ideals continues  during fitness, when I run the laps of the field with my learners, in silent reading, as I read alongside my learners, or at morning tea when I proudly take out my lunchbox filled with nutritious goodies.  As I teach at a health-promoting school, I am constantly discussing well-being with my learners: We have conversations about the benefits of physical activity before fitness each morning, while the school rules make special mention of the unacceptability of soft drinks and lollies within the grounds. The rules about sustained sile nt reading and book logs...

There are some things that we ask our learners to do over and over, so that they might improve. Each week we ask children to start a new piece of writing, 'moving on' from the work that they previously completed. Perhaps we put their best pieces on the wall, or bring out their books so that their parents may flick through when visiting. Is the teachers red pen an authentic audience? I can see why children become frustrated with this system, when they are writing their tenth story of the term, going through the process as their previous work sits unread in their writing book or worse, crumpled in their tote trays. I have even seen children recycle their own pieces of work. Of course, I understand that in order to improve in writing, children must write. It is the same with reading and maths.  I know that the intrinsically motivated child will continue to write until they see progress or feel like they have mastered a particular genre.  But can't we give them an a...

You never forget your first job. My professional journey began as a waitress in the hospitality industry, fresh out of high school and new to the working world. But before I headed to University to study education, I was already having experiences that would appear in my lesson plans. On my first shift, I was completely shocked at the amount of food that was wasted. We were serving a buffet lunch and dish after dish of half eaten platters were removed from the buffet table and dumped in to the rubbish. Even more mind-boggling was the fact that there was a homeless shelter only a few minutes' walk away. Yet when I asked my supervisor why food could not be donated, they explained that the company would be held liable if anything were to go wrong.This is the same argument that supermarkets make regarding the unsold food that they throw out.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_waste_in_New_Zealand I was intrigued when I learnt that France was proposing a ban tha...

Creativity is one of the fundamental ways that we, as humans, express our individuality. At this point in their lives, our children are beginning to define themselves as people within their friendship groups, the school and greater society. Essentially, creativity is a means for them to construct a sense of self. This is perhaps why the  Global Creativity Network asserts that creativity is the most fundamental of human rights, a notion supported by Manaiakalani - after all, 'Create' is part of ou r learning mo del.  As such, ou r students are given daily opportunities to express themselves in this way. The first thing that comes to mind when many people think of creativity in schools is art: painting, sculpting, drawing. This is the focus of my school this year and my students participate in art lessons a few times a week. This is, of course, a means to express ourselves creatively, but ultimately we teach the subject in a far more holistic and wide reaching ...