DFI, 28th March 2019

A Fantastic learning day!  I'm so excited by what I've taken from today and I will definitely be using some ideas to take back into the classroom.

A key message I took away from today's session was: Create! Motivating our learners to engage with the curriculum. Never such truer words spoken and it's something we can so easily forget when we have so many boxes to tick.  This is my focus from here and beyond.

Live streaming - Hmmmmmm...seems like we are a long way away from this at Waitohu School.  I really see its benefits, but not sure if it is for me/us...yet.

I learnt a new shortcut today.  Ctrl K - insert link.  I will use this ALOT!

I signed up for my own Youtube channel today!- What a great way to embed playlists of certain things to make it safe for our students to watch without them clicking on something they shouldn't. Vicki showed me how to embed a music playlist onto my class website, so my students will be very excited to see this on Monday morning! I'm really looking forward to embedding more amazing things - like my animation below!

DFI - Thursday, 21st March.

DAY 2

My brain was working hard today!

Today was another day full of great learning.  Not necessarily stuff I would use myself as it's hard to break organisational habits of 41 years, but I'm willing to make at least one change with how I organise my week.  Google calendar.!  Who knew?!  I didn't realise that information sheet we get each week at our administration meeting was readily available to view.  Google calendar is now bookmarked (but not in a folder...yet).  Google Keep looks like another great organisational tool.  Not really into lists, but good to know it's there in case I get the list making urge.  How do I work?  I tend to put everything that's on in my week on my weekly plan, so I feel like anything extra would just be doubling up and increasing my workload.  I might be wrong.

A couple of shortcuts I learnt today were ctrl shift t and ctrl w.  Both have proven their worth today, as the first one restores any tabs you may have closed that you now want back and the second one closes down the tabs you are no longer using. Life changing!

We were introduced to TOBY today.  What a star!  Toby is an extension which can organise your browsing into one folder that can then be shared with others in a link.  This will be very helpful when getting kids to research specific topics as you can monitor what they are seeing.  No random google searches!  Win!


Google hangouts.  I'm excited by this.  We take part in Chapter Chat which is a national primary school reading program focusing on a book a term. This term it is Wonder. Each week we have a series of activities to complete, based on the allocated chapters we are reading.  On Friday, we tweet and share what we have completed over the week and the kids get to comment on other kids work.  This term there are over 200 classrooms throughout NZ taking part.  I would like to contact one of these classrooms and hold a 'hangout' with my class, so they can share their learning and activities  from the week that was.  LEARN, CREATE, SHARE!

Today's Learning

Today I am continuing my digital journey.  Week one of my Digital Fluency Intensive program and it really is just that!  INTENSIVE! My brain is full.  Lots of great learning that I can take back to my classroom next week.  Things I am going to try next week:

- Voice to text for a couple of my Priority Learners in Writing.
- Comment and tag in other learners for a reading comprehension response.
- Reinforcing the need to initial their documents.

I've tidied up my folders and my planning into curriculum areas which will improve my workflow and ability to find things with ease.  I will continue to do this and also reinforce this with the children in my class.



Our group of digital learners.