DFI Week 1

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

The biggest thing for me that stood out was the way of thinking about students using chromebooks being like a pen instead of a book.

I have always viewed Chromebooks as a 'book', using them as a 'pencil' has changed the way that I think of the student interaction with the technology, and will reframe a lot of my conversations with students about how they are utilising this technology in class.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

Little tips will make a big change for me, such as how to colour code folders in my Google Drive. I work in several different roles at school and being able to spot those folders at a glance will make a big change for me.

The tip about having initials at the front of documents to see who they belong to in tabs was great. I wonder if Hāpara can take that into account - they always append the student name to the documents, could they put initials at the front when students open their own copies? Not sure if that would mess with the filing system.

For me, this is very much about credit for my current knowledge and finding hints and tips to work smarter rather than work harder.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

For me, a lot of the useful skills were for making resources FOR my learners. I need to readjust my thinking to how THEY can use it in the classroom.

I make a lot of websites, resources, worksheets, documents, slides etc for students to access, but the 'create' side of the pedagogy is very much rooted in me rather than in them. I'm not entirely happy with this, but the technology that we use does have some barriers.

As a maths teacher, we still work on paper to record workings - writing on paper, or whiteboards, to allow for flexibility in using mathematical symbols and language which are often autocorrected or hidden in 'symbol' menus online. It would be great if students could photograph these and then write about their work, but the truth is our technology isn't up to the job yet. Or at least, not the versions we have at GHS.

Chromebooks are a great tool, but one of the things they lack (for my point of view) which ipads/smartphones do really well these days is a back facing camera. It's really difficult for our students to record their work as video, or photograph, when the only camera on the device faces them rather than what they're looking at.

Yes we could use cell phones, but...

* Our school are trying to cut back cell phone use

* Not every student has one...

* Those that do don't have data...

* ... and student wifi is only available at break/lunchtime for phones

Every student has a chromebook and it is frustrating to have this as a barrier, when other technology has solved the issue.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I am already confident in using this sort of technology but any resource or tool which saves me time or increases the professionality of my work will be very useful.

Highlights from today:

Remove.bg Making transparent images. Love it

'Replace Image' to find similar sized ones. Some needed resetting and resizing, but it did prevent images being pasted so large that they obliterated the page.

Using a table to insert images into docs. Very simple but effective. Hadn't thought of using it that way.

Removing margins to maximise digital file space.

Changing the colour of folders in Drive

Encountering so many extensions for adding to Chrome. And my school's technician has unblocked all the links so I can now install them all!

Document made with inserted images today