Empower Learners to take responsibility for their Digital Footprint

Creating a blog profile is an opportunity for learners to connect with and understand that every time they share online it is contributing to creating their digital footprint. They need to make smart decisions about what personal information they share when creating their blog profile.

Learners with a new Blog

• Have learners connected with the Kawa of Care and elements of the  Responsible Use Agreement? e.g. Exploring Blogs, Exploring Online Profiles,
• Have learners created a blog profile?
• Have learners prepared to share The First Post?
• Identify multiple opportunities for learners to post existing DLOs from their Drive, with your support, to build confidence with the components of a blog post and the process of posting.

Lydia @ Tamaki Primary School

Learners with exisiting blogs

• Have learners updated their profile for 2019?

• Would it be helpful for learners to Explore examples of online profiles and consider different formats for creating a profile e.g. webpage, screencast, short video

• Use the featured post gadget in the blog layout to display a link to their blog profile. For example

• Profile post labels: If learners have profiles from previous year include the same labels. This creates a single link to all profiles to compare and contrast e.g. empower learners to understand they are responsible for their digital footprint.

For more blogging tips: Tuhi Mai Tui Atu

Celebrating Being Us

Heart warming to see our young people responding to the theme for #PinkShirtDayNZ on Friday... "Celebrating Being Us". Lots of awesome connections with our Manaiaklani Cybersmart kaupapa.  All about elevating the positive and empowering our learners to connect with what they can do to share aroha, kindness and kaitiakitanga... The Love You Give.

Ruma Kea @ Kokatahi School using cybersmart language positive, thoughtful and helpful to design their own pink shirts. Ngā Whai @ Taipa Area School created kindness chains for their classmates and student leaders at Pt England "Love the Difference", celebrating our uniqueness.

He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata

Empower your chrome-bookers, to amplify and turbo charge their learning.

Screencastify for Chromebooks
Lots of options for learners to record sound and action when creating and sharing Digital Learning Objects + a versatile tool for peer and self reflection.

If you are new to using Screencastify see the Cybersmart site for setup plus recommendations and support for the following...

• Scaffold learners to be confident with workflow and plan for opportunities to Create to Learn
• Screencastify 2D Digital Learning Objects e.g. Creating Learning Stories
• Practise and self assess reading and oral language e.g. Build Reading Mileage 
• Share screencasts on blogs + peer feedback via blog commenting
• Record demonstrations and explanations, with narration e.g. Create a screencast
• Collaborate to create e.g. record a conversation, interview

For more blogging tips: Tuhi Mai Tui Atu

"Give them something to do..."

From Rockets to Rock Stars ... 170+ Manaiakalani Teachers Create to Learn 

This quote from John Dewey incapsulates the theme of our Manaiakalani Kāhui Ako, Create to Learn Staff meeting this week. Our goal was to focus our thinking on what we can learn by having an opportunity to create.

Through creating we want to remind ourselves of the origins of Learn Create Share and Creativity Empowering Learning. Opportunities to create, hook our young people into learning.... to create engagement and awaken curiosity, excitement and passion (Create to Learn Dorothy Burt).

When we approach Learn Create Share in a linear fashion, the opportunity to Create is often the culmination of extensive learning and teaching e.g. Our Manaiakalani Film Festival, Annual Fia Fia, and Art Fair.

Lots of awesome learning opportunities here! However, if we recognise the cognitive engagement that ensues when young people are creating to learn, this staff meeting's focus was advocating for increased opportunities to Create to Learn.

Ideally when we identify and plan for opportunities to Create to Learn, creating does not need to be a Peter Jackson production.

It can be quick and scheduled at a stage of the learning where it will have the most impact.


"Creating provides students with an opportunity to reflect on, synthesize, and come to a deeper understanding of what they read and know – or think they know" (Dr Rebecca Jessen)

The Love You Give ♥️

Message for our Manaiakalani Schools
This week, 13 May - 17 May, sees a nationwide event that at its heart aims to celebrate who we are and spread aroha, kindness and kaitiakitanga.

Our young people will be seeing and hearing messages in support of these events via the media and online and you also may be considering supporting Pink Shirt Day on Friday 17th in your school.

Please take some time to consider the principles of the Manaiakalani Programme's Being Cybersmart, when engaging our young people with these themes.

Especially if your learners are creating and sharing content online, in response to next week’s events.

Words, images and actions have power. The more we hear them, see them and use them the more we elevate them. This includes on our screens.

If we are “speaking up and standing together”, what will we see and hear people doing? What will we be doing to celebrate being us?  Whakanuia Tōu Āhua Ake! 

Focus on those actions and imagery that empower our young people to elevate the positive:

• Often learners will respond to the the negative with a negative. In conversations, acknowledge their contribution, then immediately follow up by encouraging them to connect with and describe or model actions they will see and hear if your school is spreading aroha, kindness and kaitiakitanga.

• If learners are creating and sharing, both offline and online, do their words, images and actions elevate the positive? Empower learners to create DLOs that represent themselves and their actions as positive, thoughtful and helpful. This is particularly powerful when creating a positive digital footprint and developing smart relationships online. (Being Cybersmart)

For Example: Do actions, words and imagery empower learners to connect with positive, thoughtful, helpful?

The walls of your schools and kura….

What and how we share online and kanohi ki te kanohi...

Our young people on the big screen... confident, connected, life long learners. 

Note the themes and imagery in these films. 

A final word resonates because of its strong connection with the principles of Being Cybersmart...

"But with that memory comes a responsibility. A responsibility to be the place that we wish to be. A place that is diverse, that is welcoming, that is kind and compassionate. Those values represent the very best of us… 

...We each hold the power, in our words and in our actions, in our daily acts of kindness. Let that be the legacy of the 15th of March. To be the nation we believe ourselves to be"

(Jacinda Ardern, Christchurch memorial)

Image Source

Manaiakalani May Toolkits: Harnessing video to tell and share stories

Participating and contributing to the annual Manaiakalani Film Festival is a highlight of our year. Films are premiered at Hoyts Sylvia Park in November and need to be submitted by the end of Term 3.  To prepare your learners to participate and contribute in the Manaiakalani Film Festival it is essential to identify opportunities to Learn, Create, Share  throughout the year. From planning and presenting to storyboarding, editing and filming, identify opportunities for your learners to harness video to tell and share their stories as soon as you can. Increased opportunities to take ownership of the process early in the year will empower our young people and build their confidence to participate and contribute to the film festival.

Our May Toolkits included strategies and recommendations for teachers and opportunities to learn the skills our young people will utilise when creating their film for the festival including Creating a Learning Story, Creating a Short Film and Create a One Shot Film