Cluster Schools video

What a long way we have all come in 2016. When I watch this video, I see children and young people happy at school, learning with each other and with their devices, showing their parents what they are learning, teachers working together and learning from each other and the origins of the Trust and its logo.
I also reflect on my learning journey over the year. Being a newcomer to Google apps, I have had a huge learning curve and I continue to find out more each day - Google apps, Google Admin, Google site-building, blog creation and blogging, Hapara Teacher Dashboard, extensions, add-ons, a You Tube channel, more web tools and apps, the Manaiakalani Cybersmart curriculum.....the list continues to grow.
All this with thinking about how to use the affordances of the digital age and the pedagogy of learn-create-share in new ways that were previously unimaginable but personalised, authentic and relevant to the students of our community.
Onwards to another year of clustering, teaching and learning in 2017.

Animating Google Slides

I'm testing the animation and transition features of google slides. I discovered that the Research Tool is now called Explore. I found the pictures fine but I'm not able to search by licence - I presume these are all images that are labelled for non-commercial reuse. It was straight forward to do this and I hope my three classes on Friday enjoy it.

Well, the three classes loved making their own animations. Although all used the honey bee and ant storyline, some embellished the story by adding other text and relevant backgrounds. One student showed me his animation with the story taking place in a field, another on a flower - what great imaginations the students have! Most students posted proudly to their individual blogs. I suggested that they might now offer to teach another class in the Outreach (through Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu) these new skills.

Replying to Comments

Today in class we learnt about how to make good replies to blog comments. "Positive, thoughtful and helpful" are the buzz words here.

This is an example sentence I gave students to put under their DLO, "I found this interesting because it will help me write good replies when I receive comments on my blog".

In modelling this, I was also reinforcing with students how to embed a slide presentation on their blog.

My Quality Blog Post Learning

Here is an example of work that I was doing in a year 5-6 class on learning around making a quality blog post. The class had a discussion of the word 'quality' which is a word they said they don't use very often. It is more a 'teacher' word they told me. It just shows what we as teachers expect our students to understand sometimes without checking it out with them first.

Quality Blog Posting: Word Cloud

Here is a word cloud I created using http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds, an easy app to use.

It was really easy to create by adding information and then to change the size, colour, layout, font. Then I saved it to my desktop and uploaded it to this blog.

This is another example of a word cloud DLO creation that I did with a class with an explanation of what and how I did it as a model for students. The class were year 4-5 so quite young and in their first year of 1:1 learning so there is a need to go at a measured pace and show them what your expectations are for the finished blog post.

Embedding a Slideshow into my Blog

This was quite straightforward. I made the slideshow from an event I attended a couple of weeks ago. Then, I accessed a 3 minute tutorial made by one of the Core Ed facilitators and followed his instructions to accomplish this task by using the file button and 'publish to web'. I know I am going to use this a lot with students in the future.

Students' Digital Footprint and the 'Cloud'

      It came as a revelation to some students this week that everything they do online is 'visible'. We have started working with them on their digital footprint and this has raised some questions and discussion. Some students think that everything they write gets saved only on the computer they are working on and if they destroy it, then their activity will be gone. We explain that it is the opposite and that nothing they do on their chromebook is actually saved their local hard drive. All of their commenting, drawing, slide-making, and blogging etc is stored on a huge cloud, which by association is somewhere up high in the atmosphere, away from anyone being able to delete or destroy it. In reality, everyone's data must be stored somewhere though and the 'cloud' storage is on large servers in large rooms of large buildings on large campuses of large IT corporations in large countries.
      I was fortunate enough to visit one of these cloud facilities in August 2015, where I was shown the new Z Series computers which operate in the cloud. They are just huge black cabinets with lots of flashing lights, electrical leads and fans to keep the machines cool. There was tight security so just nobody could gain access, but they could be destroyed by natural disasters, fires and malicious damage. In addition, storage media can fail, large corporations can get hacked, and data can get deleted just as easily on a server as it can on anyone's computer.
      Even so, it is important to realise that living in a world of connection through any device, at any time and from anywhere in the world, necessitates that users understand the implications of both their passive and active digital footprints being able to be stored and accessed. This may be through the tracking of our IP addresses, web browsing, facebook, twitter histories, and leaving comments on blogs etc. Have you ever realised that data about you has been collected via the internet without your knowledge? Every time you answer a quiz, buy something online or use social media, machines, and by default people, are collecting information about you and this information can be packaged and sold was IP addresses, mailing and telephone lists. While this can be used for good and things you need, want and care about, other less desirable uses, from pestering to bullying to breaches of your privacy could result. Children need to understand the need, skills and tools to safeguard their online character and reputation in their ever-expanding digital world.

Working with students at Park Estate School

Today I worked with three students who wanted to write a post for their class blog. They decided to write about recent art work they had done. Only one student had finished her art so we took a picture of that to add to the post. Here is their post:

We learnt to do concertina art. It was fun because we got to colour the strips using colouring pencils. It was difficult because we had to put the picture of us in order and the strips in the right places. It was fun to see our finished art.

By Lile, Zidane, and Tamisha

Chromebook Care Collage

This morning, I learnt to take photos, make a 4-picture collage and then add captions to demonstrate how to care for a chromebook. The students did their own collages and I sat alongside my group making mine. Thanks to the wonderful students of Room 9 at Ruapotaka School. I shall definitely do this when I have classes of my own.