Digital Fluency Intensive: Day 6

This week to connect with the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy we looked at the "empower" side of "Learn, Create, Share" which is on the outer circle but is of no lesser significance.  It links directly with visibility.

Dorothy described how for many of our whanau life is a struggle.  They rely on other outside "agencies" for so many of the things we take for granted such as housing and money for necessities and feel totally disempowered and do not have a positive outlook on life.

Our children start school disadvantaged in that they hear significantly fewer words spoken in their whanau.  Children are great imitators or modellers.  If they do not hear words or sentences to model their oral language on it will disadvantage them.  How can they ask for an explanation of a maths problem if they have not practiced asking questions like more advantaged two year olds do?  Research has stated that our children arrive at school already two years behind more privileged children.

Also there is approximately a turn over of a third of our students in a year.  The housing redevelopment is adding to the turn over where a whole street may be rehoused elsewhere while redevelopment takes place.

But this community is prepared to spent $3.75 a week on the purchase of a chrome book because they could see that it wasn't replacing a book with a fancy tool but it was providing their children with an experience and opportunities that were life changing and in transforming their lives they were becoming more empowered.  Children have a world of knowledge and opportunities at their fingertips.

The digital world helps to empower our community.  They can overcome some of their disadvantages because their focus is not just the local community.  Two examples of this is on line shopping and medical consultations such as those that Dr Lance O'Sullivan has pioneered in rural communities can be used to over come the problem of the lack of transport. 

It is not only children that need to be empowered but also the teachers.  They need to be able to deliver the digital curriculum and manage their own information and data.  Digital Fluency Intensity was seen as a way of empowering teachers, where ideas can be learnt and tried.

Gerhard showed us some tips, tricks and tools to manage our work flows.  Installing one tab to group similar tabs together sounds like a sensible way of managing tabs.  He also mentioned Toby and Toby Mini as well as bookmarks as other systems which create collections of tabs.  There is no right or wrong way to manage your work flow but by experimenting you can find to find the tool that works best for you.

We also looked at how to manage our Gmail and looked at our personal preference settings.  By putting unread emails at the top of the page you are more likely to deal with this mail and not let it sit unforgotten way down at the bottom of the page.  Gerhard talked about archiving mail and not deleting it, filters, grouping conversations, starring conversations and attachments.  A handy tip about labs was to be able to undo a sent email.  How often have you gone to hit send and remembered you wanted to check something before you sent it - this gives you 20 - 30 seconds to recall the email.

Organising your life with a calendar was really useful.  I set up a personal calendar as well as a class calendar for Room 16.  Having these to the side of your gmail is very handy.

Hangout was the main learning session today.  We learnt how to create a meeting environment which anyone can join.  It was all a new experience for me and we were lucky to have help at hand to link all of the group to share a place that is important to them.  After lunch we set up another hangout to share information on the digital curriculum.  I can see children would enjoy being able to see and talk with children whom they had blogged with through the Tui Mai Tuhi Atu programme or even share another classes learning experience.  Even within team one I can see the juniors would be excited to share their learning with another class via a hang out.

Digital Fluency Intensive: Day 5

This week Gerhard shared with us the "connect" side of the Manaiakalani  kaupapa and pedagogy which surrounds the inner circle of "Learn, Create, Share".   This connectedness extends from ourselves outwards from the school, community, country and on to a more global connectedness.

The Manaiakalani Clusters connects us to a powerful network of learning.  At a cluster level we are all close geographically, but because we are often all so busy there is not time for us to connect face to face.  In our cluster we are also a diverse group of primary schools, a kura kaupapa, a Special school, a catholic school and a high school but what we have in common is the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy. By keeping in touch digitally we are able to relate to others and it gives us a sense of belonging.

This network of schools and clusters has now grown wider to encompass learners from the far North to Christchurch and the West Coast in 11 clusters.  We all have a shared language which leads to an instant connection to a powerful network of so many teachers and learners.  Even though we haven't met personally we are all committed to this incredible journey together and it is this cohesiveness that is so important.  Teachers share resources, toolkits and PLD and have an on line facilitator.  Similarly students interact and connect with other students using their blogs and Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu where classes connect and comment through their blogs.

As educators we need to see the importance of blogging.  It is through this two way process of giving and receiving that we connect.   It helps us to stay connected and to be creative and not just consumers of content.  Effective connectedness can not happen in isolation.  It is like a jigsaw needing all pieces to be present to maximise the effectiveness of it.

It needs to be linked with visibility and be ubiquitous to empower the learner.  Once these 4 elements come together learning can be turbocharged.

A team from OMG Tech introduced us to the future of technology and what it means to our students.  The team wants children not just to have their faces turned towards a screen but to look outwards and use their curiosity to light up a pathway that will transform their lives. New Zealanders have a unique way of looking at things and this is reflected in how so many famous New Zealanders have gained notoriety for example Rocket Man, Weta Workshops, Britten Motor Bikes.

The only way to get more people into the technology field is to educate our children to ensure they have a voice in the technology they use.  We need to care about technology today so that when the key computational thinking ideas in the technology curriculum are introduced by 2020, our children will be prepared to be makers and creators of technology that reflects our distinctive New Zealand values and culture.  And we as teachers need to be prepared to teach our students from year 1 to 13 the theory of how technology works and how they can use this knowledge to solve problems.

Using games was a great way for us, as well as for children, to be to introduced to the subject of computer science without using a computer.  A large chequer board was used to demonstrate moves of how to get from one position to another.  It showed that computers only understand exact instructions and can only do as they are told.

Sorting data into order makes it easier to work with and made a great team activity.  We sorted numbers from lowest to highest by doing 10 passes to get ourselves into a line from lowest to highest.

A sorting networks game was a great way for us to learn about "flops" and I could see that children would enjoy this games by working together to move at the same time.

The introduction to Binary and Data representation also had some exercises to do first using tokens to show that columns were completely full or completely empty and then writing down the binary number.  We then looked at hexadecimals and converted binary numbers into hexadecimals which children need to understand in year 7 and 8.

Learning about programme outcomes is a bit like learning grammar and the fact that you do need to understand how to use it as a tool before you can use the basic knowledge.  We then moved on to  "Scratch" and looked at the tools needed to build a maze and control an animal going through the maze.  I can understand the fascination that children find in creating games with "Scratch" thinking about the characters, the setting, sounds, looks, events, sensors and controls that one can build into a game.  There is a lot of thinking behind each instruction.  Scratch Junior for 5 to 7 year olds might be something to look at for our juniors.

Looking at the year one component of the digital technology curriculum, it has teacher led activities to develop an understanding that computers are built by humans to store and share digital content.  Using a simple drawing activity to get children thinking about what lies underneath the case of a computer or getting the children to draw how they think the internet works would be a popular activity.  We all need to use our imagination to think of what lies behind the case of a computer!

To aid our own thinking of what lies inside the case of a CD Rom we were able to dismantle a CD Rom.  Looking at the tiny motors a stepper and a DC universal motor along with all the other components and tiny screws was fascinating.  I think most of us would be fascinated to look inside a computer to see how it really works.  Imagine how engaged children would be going to Makerspace and fixing a computer!

We were also introduced to 3D fabrication, watching a 3D printer and using a 3D pen.  The pens were easy to use once you were able to manipulate the flow of the pen and could be used to create so many things.  I hope we can inspire our school's Makerspace to invest in some of these pens so that our children can be creators in the 3D world.

You never know, it may just be the thing that inspires, connects and engages the next New Zealand great engineer to create something to change our lives in the future.

Inquiry 2018. Term 2 Reflection.

My 2018 Maths Inquiry is based around encouraging children in the acquisition of language and using this language to participate in Maths sessions.

The DMiC lessons have been a great way to encourage the use of language.  Not only do the children have to work collaboratively to solve a problem but they have to communicate their thinking to a partner or explain their solution to the class.  This means they have to understand what the question is asking them to do, as well as being clear in their own thinking what the series of steps were that they took to reach a solution.  They need to ask questions to seek clarification and understanding.

We have been very fortunate in having DMiC mentors visit the school to help the teachers implement this new method of problem solving.  They are able to help us use appropriate "talk moves" and to discuss techniques that might work for our particular children.

When thinking about how my class is tracking I find they fall roughly into three groups.  There are those who are enthusiastic and attempting to participate fully in the lesson.  They are trying to use the correct language and put their thoughts into a logical order.  The next group are still observing and will occasionally participate but have difficulty in forming questions to increase their learning.  They are still learning how to work as a group and how to find out and remember what the question is asking them to do.  Lastly I still have some children who will not engage at all.

Trying to measure or quantify this shift (or lack of shift) into some visual form has proved challenging.  Two other colleagues were also trying to come up with some form of measurement and together we came up with a rubric that the children could also use to see what the expectation was in speaking and participating in Maths.

 Based on the colour coded 5 levels of participation I then made up a spread sheet of my class.

This gives me a clear visual indication of those children who are speaking and attempting to  participate in maths and for those that need further help to engage in the programme.  It is a broad indication and priority learners are monitored more closely by trying to look at talking, listening and responding.

There has been some movement but not as much as I would like to see.  Each day we use our maths wall in our daily Maths warm up as a reference point with discussions arising from changing displays such as subitize dot patterns, tens frames, finger patterns, shapes and so on.  Some of the comparative language of size has been used in their stories but it has been disappointing to see it used sparingly other than at Maths time.

During DMiC maths the use of questions is limited.  Even with constant modelling this is something that our children find hard.  When working with others, some groups get bogged down arguing about what drawing they will use to represent the numbers in the question instead of thinking about what the story is asking them to find out.

I am also finding it hard to use the correct "talk moves" to illicit thinking which will help the children see a method of solving the problem without giving them an answer.  We as teachers so often "teach", so it is hard to let children explore options.

We are still at the beginning stage of our maths journey but we are learning so much along the way.