Digital Fluency Intensive Day 3

In connecting with the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy this week we looked at the "Create" part of "Learn, Create, Share".  

The create side of learning is all about "the hook".  Engagement is so important as there are many children who cannot find any connection between school, learning and themselves.  In the local area prior to Manaiakalani and digital learning the children either left the area for secondary schooling or couldn't find a connection and left soon after compulsory education was completed without any qualifications that would lead to further education.  Now Manaiakalani schools focus on priority learners - the Maori, Pacifica and children with special needs.  The local secondary school is finding children are engaging and achieving which is a great success story.

So how has this been achieved?  Children naturally like to explore and create things and it is the harnessing of these creative skills whether it be culture, sport or art that "help students become better problem solvers, communicators and collaborators."  (Apple 2018)  In the employment market today employers are looking for employees who have these skills.

We are creative beings and if we do not use the creative side of our beings, we are not using our best learning tools.   Engaging the whole body will naturally engage the mind and learning will occur.  John Dewey's quote about giving a child something to do that is worthwhile not just a task to pass time, and if "the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, learning naturally results" rings true.  

 Creativity focuses on deep learning and original ideas.  An artist can sit in his own studio painting or creating by himself, unconnected with the world.  But how do we know how fantastic his art is?  Add in technology and this instantly turbo charges his artist ability because he is connected with a world wide audience or following who appreciate his wonderful artistic ability.  This is the same with our children who have an iPad or a digital device of their own to use.  They get the chance to be a creator - making their own slide shows, movies, raps or music to help with the "tough learning" and it helps them learn in a more meaningful way. 

Classes with the biggest shifts in their learning have been shown to be classes that have time to create, collaborate and have choices that empower the students when they have the opportunity to create.  It is the learning that is achieved through the process of creativity rather than any concern for the finished product that is important.

These ideas help focus on my own planning and teaching.  How can I make my teaching embrace more creativity?  We have discussed at length within our team that we need to put the fun and exploration back into learning.  This term the science based Inquiry topic and challenges have resulted in a huge engagement, with most children able to tell you many facts they have discovered about Simple Machines.  Now we need to remember to add the digital learning to turbo charge it even further.

Next Kent took the "visability" and "rewindability" to the next level by showing us how to create a live channel and live stream events.  Using a drone to take footage of an event allows a wider audience to take part.  Spectators can see the total cross country race from one vantage point on a screen even though the course winds out on to the reserve out of sight.  They feel more connected with the event.  Kent used a drone to show Pt England school making the Olympic rings last year.  This footage is on my class blog and the children like revisiting this event.  Footage can also be used for team training to review what could be improved or it could be used to make spectacular footage in a film for the Manaiakalani film festival!

Fiona reminded us of the protocols for digital learning and meeting our duty of care to parents, whanau and the Board of Trustees with blogs and accounts administered by the school.  Learners should be using G Drive for their blogs.  It is best to have comments going through a blog which is monitored through the Teacher Dash Board - being in the right place at the right time.

We also learnt how to build and add clips to a playlist to build a resource to support our teaching.  It is best to have it in your name so that if you move schools all is not lost as the channel stays with you.  Sharing with anyone with the link means teams can share resources.

The Goggle Slides component showed that slides can be used to enable learners easy access to their learning.  We use these on our team and class sites make a slide deck for each curriculum area adding a new slide each week.  This enables learners to revisit their learning if they haven't complete work or if they wish to practise a skill again.

Using a slide deck in my class site.

It is easy to share and embed a link to learning content, a text or tasks on the site.  Slides can also be used for the learners to create and not just be consumers.  We looked at some slides which had been used for quizzes,  introduction slides, to explain how to do a task and add facts.

It was enjoyable to have a go at making things move in a slide show and to learn some more skills that could be used in displays.  Command D to duplicate is useful.  To make an object move you need to set up your slide.  Select a background from creative commons or from Explore, then duplicate your slide, click on the object and move it slowly to make the movement as smooth as possible.  Repeat the "duplicate and click on the object" process as many times as is needed.  I can see learning this skill will be popular even with the year ones.

Digital portraits using the polyshape tool were fascinating but the fact that you needed to start back at the beginning if you didn't join it up completely the first time would make some children decide it wasn't for them.  It required patience and a steady hand and for those who had these two ingredients I can see they would be fascinated by creating a lifelike image of themselves, their friends or even to just add another dimension to their art work on a slide show.

We finished the day making our personal pepeha on a slide deck.  As this required thought and discussion to make it culturally appropriate it is still a work in progress and to say it correctly will require much practise.

A lot of learning was packed into another very intensive day.