DFI - Week 2

Workflow 

In this blog post I am focusing on three different aspects of today's learning. 

1.  The "Learn" phase of Manaiakalani's Learn, Create and Share cycle. 
2. Google Meet
3. Google Keep. 

Learn

Today we focused on the Learn phase of  Manaiakalani's Learn, Create, Share cycle. We learned about the acronym R.A.T  as you can see in the image below.  R.A.T. describes effective practice in the digital world.  I think an important point to remember was that what learning looks like is different in each school but effective practice will be underpinned by these principles. 

R is for recognizing effective practice. Examples of effective practice in my classroom are my implementation of the  Better Start Literacy Approach (structured literacy) and Heggarty (phonemic awareness). 

A is for Amplify. We can ask ourselves,  how could these effective practices be amplified with the use of digital technologies? Examples of this in practice in my context are the BSLA Facebook group, taking part in Zoom calls with teachers from across the country to learn how to effectively implement BSLA  or the sharing of resources on TKI (phonics plus books and teachers guides) or on websites like teachers pay teachers. I am interested to discover how technology could be or is being used by teachers with their tamariki in this BSLA context. 

T is for Turbocharge.  This means that technology is being used to create learning that was not possible in an old-school paper-based classroom context. This links in with the S.A.M.R model. Learning that is turbocharged charged fits within the Modification and Redefintion phases (or above the line) in this model. An example of this would be meeting with lecturers from the University of Canterbury online alongside other teachers from across the country. Something not possible in a paper-based or face to face context (especially in a pandemic). A question I have for my own classroom practice is, how can I better use technology in my classroom to modify and redefine learning for my tamariki? 

Google Meet

I found that the learning and exploration that we did today with Google Meet was most helpful as this was an area of Google that I haven't had much experience with. It is surprising that I have made it this far in a pandemic without running a Google Meet, but here I am!  I have only ever participated in other people's Google Meets, but today we were set the challenge set to run our own Google Meet. We had to create a meeting, use our Google calendar to invite the attendees, share our screen, and run the meeting. 

Google Keep

We were introduced to Google Keep. I am planning on using Google Keep to manage my workflow by keeping things organized and in a place where I can find them. I have added Google Keep to my bookmarks so that it is easy to find. I like that it is integrated across Google (Mail, Docs, Sheets... everywhere!). I have begun to collect all the website links and documents I use for my planning each week and organize them using Google Keep. Fingers crossed this makes my planning life just that little bit more streamlined and gives me back a little bit more time.  

Kia kaha!