Supporting Connections, Learning and Whanaungatanga

Our Manaiakalani Cybersmart Learning includes supporting our young people to critically examine information online and we are enthusiastic to be piloting a media literacy programme Newshounds this term.

The programme includes a series of podcasts created and presented by Amanda Bower and Bryce Corbett. After five sessions we were excited, this week, to join Amanda online in a scheduled Google Meet. Learners shared feedback and also had the opportunity to ask questions, hearing directly from Amanda about her experiences creating the weekday news podcast, Squiz Kids Today. 

In this context it was important for Amanda to see the learners and hear what was being said in the room. All learners joined the Meet on their chromebooks and Amanda could see and hear learners as they spoke.

Being Cybersmart has empowered our young people to connect online, confidently making the transition to online learning over the past two years (see The Josh Smoothie a Technology lesson during lockdown 2020). 

This week's opportunity was also about thinking beyond video conferencing as a tool only for learning in lockdown. Using Google Meet to connect with Amanda, was an opportunity for our learners to experience how we can harness the technology to tap into the knowledge and experience of an expert. This exemplifies The Manaiakalani Programme's Learn | Ako pedagogy. Harnessing  the affordances of technologies to offer new experiences and opportunities not accessible prior to digital technology.

We often see our schools utilising local experts, parents, professionals and community members to help further learning in the classroom. How are we continuing to harness the connectivity digital technologies enable to connect with this expertise and knowledge at a distance? 

Visible and Connected

Harnessing online spaces to share and collaborate just makes sense to me especially when devices are 1:1. From 2006-2008 I facilitated in a group of schools in central Auckland and realised quickly that email updates were not going to cut it if we going to harness the digital to share and collaborate. 

As a cluster of schools we met regularly then for Cluster Shares, face-to-face opportunities designed for teachers to share their Teaching as Inquiry progress and to support digital fluency. We also quickly acknowledged the need for an online collaborative space that was visible and accessible publicly and would enable us to curate content that supported real time collaboration and rewindable learning for teachers... we even made the Ed Gazette! 

This same thinking applied when I joined the Manaiakalani Cluster in 2012 with  learners from Y5-13 shifting to 1:1 devices. Today sites are recognised as one of the KEY components of visibility. Teaching is visible and access to learning is visible ... any time, place, pace and from anyone.

Manaiakalani Google Sites for Visible Teaching and Learning

Sites support ubiquitous learning. Engaging and scaffolding how our young people Learn, Create, Share in a digital learning environment and enabling increased choice for learning outside the traditional 9-3 timetable of school.

The role of the teacher and effective practice remains a key component of teaching and learning in the digital environment. PLUS it warrants considering how as teachers we are harnessing the site in realtime i.e. How are you harnessing content on the site during your face-to-face interactions with learners, to elevate engagement, teaching conversations and scaffold the learning in new ways?

“We acknowledge also the purposeful approach to visibility of teaching, in ways likely to identify and promote effective practices.  Therefore, we recommend that this process continue, including the most recent observation data to consider the role of the teacher [highly effective teaching], the nature of the assigned tasks [SAMR], the nature of the sites accessed [rich multi modal opportunities] and the degree of student choice and collaboration.....” [options/choices (multimodal) for creation and presentation]

Rebecca Jessen (Woolf Fisher Research, Auckland University) 2014 

Tohatoha

This week we turbocharged our Share | Tohotoha pedagogy and invited educators from across The Manaiakalani Network to connect and share in our Term 3 Manaiakalani Staff Meeting. With registrations upwards of 500,  harnessing the affordances of technology and our network of connected learning communities across Aotearoa resulted in an awesome display of connected learners sharing.

He aha te kai o te Rangatira, He kōreo, he kōrero, he kōrero

The session was designed to be conversational with small groups formed in response to curriculum level and Teaching as Inquiry topics. This was an opportunity to connect and share strategies with educators who have been focussing on similar achievement challenges. We shared conversation starters and each group met online for 45 min.

We believe sharing is fundamentally about people making connections. Early feedback - the opportunities to connect with teachers and school leaders, specifically to hear how schools are approaching their unique contexts, was valued.

This week's DFI also focused on share and how our young people are harnessing their class and individual blogs to connect with an authentic audience across our network of schools. We were reminded that sharing is also an opportunity to understand the importance of completing a task... an important life skill...

PLUS seek feedback on progress (being ready to share at any stage of the learning process) and the opportunities this can attract when sharing online... (versus cultivating celebrity status in a social media soaked world. I've written about this in the past...

How are you "harnessing your ecosystems?" How are you scaling up your connectivity and attracting the people and resources you need to find your potential?

Enjoyed the Dealing with Data sessions which provided inspiration for stepping up my sheets game with Data Validation and Conditional formatting to manage our Summer Learning Journey project. Learning how to harness the extension Autocrat has definitely been a bonus (thanks Dave Winter).

Using Google Forms as a Writing Frame has been a great place to start and further conversations in our DFI bubble today helped me to think about further opportunities to personalise learning (thanks Herman and Lars)

Google Maps have always been a favourite. If you're new to using Maps with your learners start here with one of our Summer Learning Journey activities.

Hanga

Thinking about creativity today and reminded how being creative also encourages collaboration and problem solving. 

I have shared on the Blogger platform for many years. In 2022 our young people moved to edublogs to share their learning. 

Creating a media gallery is a smart, image formatting feature in edublogs and a time saver. 

I was able to set this up while editing, however the formatting would not save when published. 

A problem shared and thanks to Lars from my DFI Bubble a solution!

This requires activating the CSS plugin and updating with the following:

.gallery > figure { width: auto; }

Getting creative with Google Slides and Drawing

I demonstrated today how to create an interactive poster to share in a blog post.

While Google Drawing is a great go to App to create a poster or graphic any hyperlinked content will not be clickable in a blog post.  Google Drawing Resources

An option is to create an interactive poster using a Google Slide.

Example: Using a Google Slide, embedded in a blog post, enables hyperlinks to remain active.

This option includes removing the Google Slide navigation bar.

Examples and instruction links here

Note to self:

Read: Elwyn Richardson and the early world of creative education in New Zealand' by Margaret MacDonald. Recommended Robin Sutton What a gift - being creative in selling the 'creativity' message

Rent: The HeART of the Matter

Ako

The Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy recognises effective practice in any learning environment AND the digital learning environment.  Why is this important?

The last two years have highlighted how critical this has been for learning and effective practice in any context.

We know for learning to accelerate, our learners need to be able to access learning beyond a physical location and time (McNaughton 2018). This has meant new tools for learning and a new pedagogy to support learning outside of school.

In Term 1 this year we were challenged again with schools open and learners either onsite or learning from home.  Listening to a podcast earlier this year, and the following from Derek Wenmoth resonated for me...

"All schools are now being challenged to consider -  “What happens when we need to think about learners/teachers and the learning/teaching independent of the location/place? How do we make participation in learning accessible when not determined by physical location”  

For our schools the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy (Learn, Create Share) is how this happens. 

For teaching and learning beyond the physical classroom and traditional school day, including harnessing tools for ubiquitous learning e.g.  Sites, Hāpara Workspace, Blogs, Being Cybersmart.

We have over many years harnessed our kaupapa to understand and explore how to harness the affordances of technology.  Our Learn pedagogy prioritises recognising effective practice in any learning environment PLUS the digital learning environment to amplify and turbo charge learning.

Our Learn pedagogy prioritises recognising effective practice 

Existing practices enabled us to move to distance learning and during this time our focus on Limit the Links - Kia iti ngā kuputoro has served us well. 

 

Decision making and actions were guided by our existing practices as a learning community. This includes, pedagogy, workflow and our understanding of how we design learning that is visible, accessible and rewindable.

If you can search for your school website … one link to rule them all!

Our kaupapa and pedagogy continues to provide a common understanding for learning design. There is value in thinking about this strategically -  as a school and a learning community. This enables coherence and consistency for learners and whānau to navigate and access learning.  For teachers it offers opportunities to transform the way our young people learn.

I valued the opportunity to share with Jemma today in our online DFI. We used Google Meet to create a screen recording of our conversation about a learner blog post and how the technology has been harnessed to both amplify and turbo charge learning. 

Set Up for Success

The Team

I am participating in the Digital Fluency Intensive online this term.  Superb organisation and support from Vicki and the DFI facilitation team, with 40+ educators joining online from around the regions.

Today's session title "Core Business" is all about building our knowledge and understanding of how to confidently utilise some of the  foundational Google Workspace tools both in the classroom and in our professional day-to-day lives.  

Today evidenced how important empowering our teachers to harness their device is. Harnessing the affordances of technology enables us to do more, faster. It also follows that teachers are better positioned to empower their learners. 

When a teacher is issued their school laptop (or is new to your school) how are they set up for success? 

Created in Google Docs

Summer Learning Journey Top Ten

Warm up this winter! Try the Summer Learning Journey Top Ten from Summer 2021-2022

 

It's Cool to be Kind 

Discover who is blogging in your school and other schools. Leave them a comment.

Remember quality comments are Positive, Thoughtful and Helpful

See who is blogging

Hanga - Creativity Empowers Learning

Opportunities for kanohi ki te kanohi as a community of learning have been challenged during the past couple of years. We valued this opportunity to harness the collective creativity of our teachers this afternoon to connect with Create as a vital element of The Manaiakalani Programme. 

"The idea that creativity fosters wellbeing - and as a result improves learning - is backed by a large body of evidence" see recommended reading

Over the past three years our community of learning Create staff meetings have focused on reminding ourselves that creativity can be an opportunity to hook young people, to engage and awaken interest and curiosity. It need not be a Peter Jackson Production 😉

Plus we know opportunities to behaviourally engage our young people can be enhanced with digital technologies the ability to create with our heart, body and mind is not new.  

Thanks to teachers who have shared workshop resources online 

The Manaiakalani Kawa of Care

The Manaiakalani  Kawa of Care has been co-constructed between schools and whānau. This agreement covers the responsibilities of students, parents and schools. It ensures that students will get the best use of their device during their time on the programme, and that schools and families understand how they can best care for the devices.  

Being Cybersmart provides an authentic context for our young people to connect with  the elements of the Kawa of Care as a lived experience.  

Cybersmart learning is designed to engage our young people in online behaviour and thinking that elevates positive actions and the use of positive language, digital media and texts. 

How are you empowering your learners to connect with elements of the Kawa of Care and responsible use agreement? 

We recommend teachers take time to familiarise themselves with the Kawa of Care and identify how best they can empower their learners to make connections with  being Cybersmart.  

• Take time to familiarise yourself with the elements of the Kawa of Care of your school or cluster.

e.g Manaiakalani Kawa of Care

• Be cognisant of the vocabulary you are using to describe being a cybersmart learner e.g.

I will respect my chromebook by always looking after it and keeping it safe.

I will always be in the right place, at the right time when I am online. If in doubt I will ask my teacher or parent.

Tū Atamai i te Ipurangi

• Be consistent when using cybersmart vocabulary and empower your learners to do the same.
• Focus on elevating the positive i.e. korero that describes/highlights what we would see and hear from cybersmart learners.

Smart Parents

Summer Learning Journey Prizes

View outstanding blog posts and prize winners from the 2021-22 Summer Learning Journey 

Well done to everyone who contributed and participated this year.

The Summer Learning Journey activities remain accessible on the blog and can be shared with learners who have not yet tried. Great for holiday blogging and for learners to actively pursue topics of interest.