DFI Week 2

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

I need to rethink how I am using technology in my classroom with the students. I am one of those teachers who sits behind the screen and monitors what the students are doing rather than getting involve.d I mean, I do when they ask for help, but sometimes it feels like I never talk to any of my more able students. I spend all my time with the ones who need a lot of exta help to be able to function in the classroom.

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


Google Keep 

I didn't realise how versatile this tool was. It turns out I had used it once or twice when I first arrived in NZ in 2018. In all honesty anything that happened in the first six months of 2018 has long been lost in a fog of jetlag. It was good to discover this app again. I think that this is going to be really useful to me. Being able to record any image that I see and then use this app to pull up text or save me an awful lot of typing time. 

Some things that I'm excited about in terms of using Google Keep: 

• being able to take photographs and put them straight into notes 
• being able to edit photographs in Google photos and then use them in notes 
• being able to take pictures of my handwriting on the board and then turn it into text notes 
• being able to do all of this for Te Reo Māori - now that really is exciting 
• Being able to record voice notes and turn them into a postit note. 

I was wanted a dictaphone when I was a kid. They were far too expensive to buy it the time. So I just had to get a good at handwriting everything. But this is the sort of thing that could be really useful to me and ppta meetings as well as teaching. If I just summarise a little bits and pieces in voice notes and then I can type up the key bits afterwards. Or even I don't need to type of the keep it! the app can pull them out and turn them into text for me. This is really going to be a much better way of working smarter rather than working harder 

GMAIL Tricks and Tips 

I really like the idea of being able to set up different signatures for the different roles of my job. With taking on so many roles for the rest of the year such as trades and pb4l, not to mention the class teaching for several different year groups, and being a year 11 mental teacher, it would be really good to have different signatures for each one of those roles. I also really like the idea of being able to recall emails and messages when I send them to the wrong person! That shouldn't happen but if we’re honest it really does. 

Recording Google Meets 

It's good to know how to do this for myself. Up until recently this has been done by people who keep inviting me to meetings, rather than me having the time and effort to do my own meets and generate my own recordings. Now I know how to do this for myself. I am not comfortable setting up, hosting, recording and sharing material within my own meetings. This is a good thing to know. 

I also had a go at embedding videos into blogs: 

Google Read-Write 

I also had a go with speech to text using the Google Read-Write application on the chromebook. I couldn't get it to work on my laptop and then remembered that it's microsoft based, so it doesn't allow the apps to work in the same way. But having a chromebook still means I can make good use of it. 

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

I'm beginning to see how blogs could be used more in the classroom now, although I still think that recording videos and images would be far easier if our school chromebooks had a rear facing camera for students to use, so that they aren't reliant on cell phones or hard-to-book ipads (see comments in week 1). 

I am now confident that I can show my students how to:

* Use Google Keep

* Use Google Read-Write

* Post videos on a blog

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

A lot of what we're doing is stuff that I've touched upon before and knew that if only I had the *time* it would have a huge impact on my professional life. This is definitely impacting my capability in that now I have had time to practice a bit, I am more likely to use these tools one a more frequent basis. 

These all have huge implications for me as:

* A classroom teacher

* A tutor

* A Coordinator

* A secretary

* A branch chair

I was a little sad that I didn't manage to get to share my favourite song as well as my favourite place. So here's the video of that for anyone who stops by to see what I wrote today: 

"Never forget where you've come here from

Never pretend that it's all real

Someday soon

This will all be someone else's dream..."

The Ashton Memorial

Lancaster, UK

That's it from me. I'm off to think how I'm going to use some of this stuff during the coming week: