DFI - Week 7

Devices! 

We had a opportunity today to experience life using a chromebook and an iPad from the perspective of a learner in a 1:1 digital classroom. 

First up was the chromebook, overall I found it easy to adapt to as a teacher who uses google chrome everyday. I thought as a classroom teacher it would important to go over all the shortcuts with the students, especially when they are just beginning their chromebook journey as I'm sure the children who have been using them awhile are absolute experts already! 

Secondly, we had a go with the iPads. I enjoyed using Explain Everything after not having used it in many years - it was a lovely nostalgic moment that made me think back to my first few years of teaching. I loved how Explain Everything can now be accessed on a laptop - I thought this must have been a real game changer for iPad teachers (as I can remember the frustration of uploading EE files to my google drive and not being able to open them to check I'd picked the right one for my learner's class site). Overall, I liked using the iPad to create using photos, text and drawings in Explain Everything to share what we had been learning. 

Ubiquitous learning.  

Ubiquitous learning is learning that can happen anywhere, anyplace, anytime and from anyone. 

I'm interested to see what this could look like in my new entrant classroom. I would love to be able to share our literacy programme with our whanau, as we have begun using a structured literacy approach this year and it is a way of teaching that is new to our school community. I know that creating a partnership with our whanau has always been crucial to the success of our learners and sharing this new way of teaching literacy with them is important. I'd love for them to be able to see video examples of what it learning looks like for there children on our class site so that they can continue this learning in the home. 

Lastly, this slide  about 'ubiquitous learning' also made me ask the question, if it isn't worth capturing... is it worth teaching?.... 

Nga Mihi 

DFI - Week 6

The theme of our session today was "enabling access". 

As a part of our session today we were given time to create or work on our own class sites. 

I have begun creating a class site for my year 0/1 class. It is a class site that is aimed at parents and the teachers (we will be becoming a collaborative space next term) in our classroom - rather than directly at the children as we do not have devices in our classroom... yet! 

I'd like for the children's learning to be as visible as possible (in a classroom without devices). I have aimed to mimic the site layout of a class site with iPads by using large icons for the main learning areas and will insert Google sides into each page that show what the tamariki will be learning in class each week. I've tried to keep it as clean as possible white background and a limited colour palette but also had a little fun with adding some bitmojis and photos as we are a class of colour lovin' five year olds!! I used bitmojis as I struggled to find images I like that matched each other (colour and style wise), were high quality and free. In the future, I'd love to use photos in my buttons BUT I think I would have to take photos with the buttons in mind in order for them to be effective. 

I still have quite a bit of work to do to get it looking right and reflecting the learning that happens in our classroom.. but it is getting there slowly. 

Click here to see my Class Site.

I'd very much appreciate your feedback. 

Nga Mihi! 

DFI - Week 5

 Collaborate - Google Sites

The theme of this week was exploring Google sites with an emphasis on the importance of creating sites that are visible, multi-modal, and multi-textural. 

 Exploring Google Sites 

The most valuable tip I learnt today about Google Sites, was how to plan a Google Site. We spent time with pencil and paper planning the layout and design of our sites before clicking "create new site". I found that this helped my site to come together easily. 

Here is my planning:

Here is the multi-textual and multi-modal site that I created. It is a site aimed at year 1/2 learners with access to iPads. It explores the theme of "keep trying" through the topic of Matariki. 

Rebecca's Matariki Site

In reflection, when I create a site for this purpose again I would keep the layout the same with an engaging home page followed by pages for "Learn", "Create" and "Share". Next time, I would use Google Keep to gather all my ideas and create buttons and banners before beginning to create the site. 

I am curious to know how other junior school teachers (especially those in new entrant classrooms) use multi-textual learning with their learners.

I am thinking of using quality picture books read by teacher with class discussion of the vocabulary and story. I also think using images, youtube videos, and songs would be effective ways of exposing new entrant children to new vocabulary, ideas and to make links between texts to deepen their understanding. 

Any thoughts?