DFI Day 2 reflection


Was just learning to record a google meet and embed the video into this blog post.

Fun!




Lots to think about today. I feel reasonably competent with google tools but there were lots of tips and tricks that I can take away to improve things.
I didn't know how to set 'undo send' in gmail so that was interesting. I try not to send until I am sure I am ready but occasionally I hit send and then think "Woops! How do I undo that?" I was aware of calendar notifications but haven't really used them much but I can see how they will be useful particularly for when other people who have access to my calendar enter an event for me. I will ask the admin staff to add a 10 minute notification to any meetings they set up for me.
I also haven't really used the feature of adding an email to a calendar post so that is something I will play with. I had used Google Keep in the past but had got out of the habit. I might play with it a bit more and see if I can see the value. Sorry Dorothy but I am not sharing the shopping list with the family. They will just add things and it will cost me a fortune.

Chatting in the group we talked about what has made schooling successful for children over the last few weeks and two things stand out for me. Firstly is the fact that children have the complete power to choose to engage or not. If they don't want to come to a class or group meet they just don't turn up. Nothing anyone can do about that so the power is all in their hands. Actually it always was anyway because although they might be made to attend a class they have control over whether they engage. The second aspect that we thought added to the success is the notion of rewindable learning. Teachers set a task and the instructions are there online and it doesn't matter how many times the student goes back to read the instructions. They might read, think about, read again, think some more, go for a walk, think some more, read the instructions again, eat, watch tv, play fortnite, read the instructions again and then start the activity. At school we often say, "Right! Got the instructions? Know what to do? Get on with it."

All in all a great day. Thank you Gerhard, Dorothy and all the team.

Comments

  1. Casper Kruger12 May 2020 at 14:59

    Kia ora, Paul. Yes, I think lockdown showed to us who the self-directed learners are. We also found that some students actually did better with remote teaching and learning. We took very small groups of children for their sessions on a daily basis and the online programme was quite individualised to the needs of the students. Some made great progress in this learning environment, but parent support was also very important. However, some students really struggled to be engaged. It will be interesting to see if there are paradigm shifts in pedagogical practices after the lockdown - especially at secondary school level.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DFI Day 8 Reflection

Agency vs Empowered - I like what Dorothy had to say about why they dropped the word agency and just went with empowerment. I agree that teachers often talk in fancy language with a whole lot of TLA's thrown in for good measure. Empowerment is an interesting word when we think about the things that children get into conflict with adults about at school. How often are the problems at school related to children not wanting to do what an adult has asked them to do? Mmmmm. Do they have agency? Maybe. Are they empowered? Interesting. Seems to me there is a nuance that might differentiate agency and empowerment. Both words are begging a word or phrase that belongs inherently in the meaning of any sentence you create with either agency or empowerment. It seems to me that "agency" infers having agency or authority over something while empowerment has a nuance of "power to do". Maybe I am reading to much in to this but empowerment seems to me to have more of a focus on...
Read more

DFI Day 9 Reflection

I am surprised how satisfying it feels to have passed the level 1 google educator exam. The course has been of great benefit. I thought I was reasonably competent with online tools but I have learnt something new every week. Huge thank you to the Manaiakalani Team for all the effort they have put in to this. Thank you to Dorothy and Gerhard in particular as the main presenters and Gerhard as my bubble group facilitator. Thinking about how our school responded to the lockdown: What are you proud of? I am really proud of the way our teachers stepped up to online learning. For some this was a steep learning curve but everyone got stuck in and did a great job. I am incredibly grateful for having Elizabeth to manage all the behind the scenes technical issues and the way that she supported teams with all manner of help and advice was incredible. I also think that our teachers had done a good job of preparing many of our students for online learning. There were reasonable levels...
Read more

DFI Day 7 Reflection

Devices Devices are often used for consumption or connection. Learn Create Share keeps the focus on Creation and Sharing. Good to have some time to play with both iPad and Chromebook. I get pretty familiar with my own device and don't spend any time on a chromebook and only use the iPad for viewing things never for creating. I don't find it at all easy to sit and create something on demand. I need time to think about it and plan what I am going to create. I can see how screencastify will be useful though so I will play more with that. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XdH9luwv8lntaDB7EeMdnMt6-cLBd-Pg/view
Read more