Session Seven: Devices

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

Dorothy talked to us about the Cybersmart aspect of Manaiakalani today. We need to use powerful, positive and proactive language when talking about being cybersmart. We are putting our kids out there on the world wide web and they need protecting.

Maniakalani's cybersmart curriculum covers a lot - Smart Footprint, Smart Relationships, Smart Learners, Smart Media, Smart Surfing, Smart and Legal, Smart Money, Smart Values, Smart Teachers, Smart Parents, Smart Teens. The first 3 (Smart Footprint, Smart Relationships, and Smart Learners) are revisited every year.

I really liked the notion that when a child slips up - make it a learning opportunity rather than coming down to heavy handed.

I need to remind our Junior teachers that it is important for our 5 and 6 years olds to see their teachers blogging (in a supported online presence) so as they move through the school they are developing their cybersmart knowledge before they have their own blogs.

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

As the Leader of Learning I am often challenged by parents about why little Johnny can't bring grandma's old clunky laptop to school to use so the sessions on why Manaiakalani use chromebooks and iPads as the preferred tools was good. I think it's great that we are not a BYOD school and appreciate the problems with equity that we would have in our school.

I loved this...

I really enjoyed the Deep Dig session on the student chromebook - it is good that I know how it works. Unsure why I have never actually had a play on one before.

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

I love using Hapara (and even keep an eye on things when I am working from home on my DFI days). My team regularly monitor our student's emails for unusual activity - like emails from instagram or Tiktok, that our Y5-6 lovelies have signed up to using their school email accounts. We have also discovered some websites that we have talked to our Manaiakalani facilitator about blocking due to age restrictions and chat rooms.

Although it was interesting using a student chromebook for our Digital Dig session, I found using a chromebook frustrating - it was slower than my laptop, the scrolling is different, etc. It was good to learn more about some of the short cut tools as I haven't taught Y5-6 before.

The session with Explain Everything was a good refresher. I haven't used it with Y5-6 students yet but I have used it with the Juniors. I need to make an effort to use it and I think it would be ideal to use for our Uru Manuka cluster focus on "extended learning discussions" as the students could record their discussions in Reading about a text (with a photo from the text on the page) or in Maths discussing what strategy they used to solve a problem.

This is my explore session with Explain Everything:

Our create session today was linked to our cybersmart learning this morning. We looked at some cybersmart lessons and I focused on keyword searches. It was great to think about how simple it can be to slot the cybersmart ideas into other learning areas. I created this using screencastify to explain the lesson on keyword searches and how I would use this in my teaching and learning.

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

I think integrating the use of screencastify and Explain Everything more in my teaching and learning would be helpful to improve my capability and workflow.

I am looking forward to sharing some Explain Everything knowledge with our Junior teachers.