Toolkit - Independent Learning

 After attending the workshop on Independent Learning, I realized that we are not far off with what we are currently doing in our studio. Something that I would caution the presenter about is going back to the Teacher creating loads of slides or documents which takes hours to make. So I took from the workshop what I could. 

A reminder that independent work should not be new learning, but the consolidation of work already learned. 

It should be relevant to their learning needs. 

It can be individual, with a buddy, or a small group of 3 or 4. 

Teach students how to solve problems: not interrupting teachers when teaching groups, possibly ask 3 before me, however, it will be better if they don't have to ask the teacher at all. All students are experts and they should be able to help each other without interrupting the teacher. 

The facilitator had weekly contracts that she created. Basically a choice board. What I did like, was the Morning tea ticket out. Students have to have read and entered into their reading journals in order to be able to go to MT.  The other nice idea was to add a house point value to each task completed. (However, I am cautious of not creating an admin heavy job for teachers). She keeps Fridays as catch-up days on contracts. 

Work that is expected in the contract has been taught prior. There is an exemplar in the modeling book with clear expectations. This will help with keeping work to a high quality. 

Toolkit - exploring iMovie

I took the opportunity to upskill myself in using iMovie. I used Maria Krauses' slide from Manaiakalani. I've used iMovie quite a few times in the past, but could only do the basics, so wanted to use the opportunity during lockdown to extend my skills. 

This is my Practice Run (please note, I did a few things in the movie to show my learning, not necessarily looking good)

What I learned: 

- how to change the theme

- change filters (I used black and white)

- to add a voice recording in a specific place

- add a sound effect

- fade music in our out at different places

- extend the length of a photo to match the music or sound effect

It took a bit longer than I thought to figure out how to export my movie. (I ended up googling this part) Just to realize I needed to give the movie some time. So tip for next time, when exporting, watch the little timer instead of clicking all over the place to try and understand why the movie is not downloading. 

Manaiakalani Programme Share Staff Meeting

 Today was our first share meeting with the focus on being on helping kids with additional needs. I joined this group as I hoped to get ideas on how to support students that struggle to stay engaged when working on the devices as well as hoping to get some magical solutions to students going on the wrong sites via the guest account. 

The meeting was very informal and teachers introduced what they were hoping to get out of the meeting. Most of the teachers in my group have much higher challenges where they work with non-verbal students and students that have high behavioral needs. 

What I took from the share meeting is again reiterating the value of the Tuakana Teina model. I would like to explore how we can set this up in the studio for students that struggle to stay focussed on their task and especially when new students come in, how to navigate on the Chromebook. 

Ambassador's refresher course

What is Coming Soon?

Seesaw Lessons:

It includes kids-friendly navigation. Lessons on letter formation, number, and key competencies. During the lessons, kids can click on links to take them to activities, and then students and mark off activities that have been done. The lessons also include instructional videos and multiple learning experiences (including hands-on activities). In the lessons, there will also be the opportunity to reflect.

Product Accessibility:

Another new feature is where you can add captions in different languages to show when a video is playing. Just change settings. 

Bulk Updates:

Bulk updates can be made via CSV sheets 

Messages:

A new Messages dashboard (Yay) will be coming soon. Teachers will now have the option to messages individual students, parents, or whole classes. Students will be able to start a message to their teachers that are connected to their studio. They cannot start conversations with other students, school admin, parents, or teachers outside their class. 

Progress View

An overview of the students' progress according to either their activities or their skills. These can be filtered by students, groups, or activities. 

It's always good to do these refresher courses, I am especially excited about the Messages feature that will kick in soon, so I signed us up for the pre-trials. I love connecting with my parents and feel like that has not really happened this year due to a number of factors. It will be so good if we as a studio can lift our positive messages home. And with the Message feature, parents don't have to wait for the teachers to communicate with them first before they can contact us. They can send us a message at any point in time. 

Seesaw PD

Today I had an opportunity to present a PD session on how to increase student voice in our classes using our Seesaw platform. 

My focus was to help teachers see the value of student's voice and to share practical ideas on what that will look like in the classroom. 

I was very aware that my colleagues might have been tired after already being in a PD session during the day and wanted to keep the session practical with lots of teacher's voice instead of my voice. 

Did I achieve my goal? 

I was very happy that everybody participated in the discussions and that we could walk away with some solutions to our barriers and challenges. Especially around the noise when recording and the bridge between year 3's and 4's. The solutions from our discussions were to create recording stations with clear signs to make everybody aware when recording is happening. And to create opportunities for the current year 3's at the end of the year to be introduced to Chromebooks at the end of the year in a tuakana teina model.

The examples that I presented to my colleagues demonstrated that collecting student voice does not involve complicated posts. It merely teaching and practicing with our students how to present their opinions and perspectives on topics. Initially student voice will be academically and focussed on teh work they do in the class, but a step further would be collecting student voice on topics outside the classroom, e.g. on the colour run, or whether we should change our uniform or not/ 

From the blog posts, it seems like most teachers took away something from the session that they could implement in their class. 

I look forward to closely following their student's posts on Seesaw to see if the information we gained today, transitions into their teaching practice. 

For myself, I will think of how I want to consciously teach my students to use their student voice to share their thinking. The meaning of a quality post slightly shifted for me. A quality post is not just on how your students present their work, but more on how they share their understanding of their learning. I want to teach my students that hitting a roadblock during our learning is a crucial part of our journey and explaining how we got around the roadblock adds value to our learning. When sharing this in our posts on Seesaw,  other students can then learn from our experiences and form their own perceptions. 

 

 Slide

Multipmodel Activties