DFI- COLLABORATE SITES- WEEK 5

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

It was awesome to thoroughly go over the kaupapa VISIBLE. It was a good reminder that learning should always be visible for the learner, whanau, teacher and colleagues. I have just started with my class site and things seemed to make sense when hearing about Planning, Process, Outcomes and Assessments should be visible for the learner. I have always seen planning as something for the teacher but I totally agree that this journey should be visible for learners as it allows them to be the driver of their learning rather than being dependent on the teacher. I alos liked the idea that learning being visible online avoids the excuses such as "my dog ate my homework" or "my homework book got wet in my bag" etc. In saying this, learning online works well if students have access to devices which is something that our school are still working towards to being able to have this pathway to provide that opportunity for our learners. Being in lockdown this has been one of the struggles, students not being able to access to their learning and learning not being visible for them because of the restrictions such as learning devices or internet connection. I guess once we overcome this barrier then the kaupapa of visibility will be put to practice more.  

Visible learning is accessible, available and advance. This is done by having learning accessible and available for learners so that it can be done anywhere and at any time as well as giving it ahead of time for learners to be prepared. By having class sites, this covers all 3 (accessible, available, advanced). Hapara plays a big part with allowing the learning to be visible and creates barriers to keep students safe by allowing visibility for teachers to see what students access. I loved the idea that students passwords can be reset through Hapara and not having to wait for school IT admin to have to reset this which then allows accessibility for learners. If learning is not visible then students have difficulty connecting to their learning.

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

We looked into Multi Modal. What I really enjoyed about this is that I was able to create a sites page purposely for a topic. I definitely agree with making your sites page as something to hook in the audience/learner. I have to admit I am that sort of person who sometimes judges the book by its cover. If it doesn't look interesting I won't read it but I guess that is something we have to remember that some learners are visual learners and if we can not hook them in with our Sites banner, we have already lost their engagement. 

I always thought sites was purposefully for a classroom or a syndicate not thinking that it can actually be as simple as a website for a particular topic. DUUUURRRR!🤦🏾‍♀️ This actually made things a bit clearer for me because I was having difficulty trying to think about how am I going to add different Unit Topics into my class site without have too much on one page.  It just comes to show that sometimes it is important for us to go back to the basics because that just makes things much simpler. When exploring examples of Multi-Modal sites, something that stood out for me was the idea of using other Google apps on Sites such as Google Forms instead of just Google Slides. We often use these apps individually. I have mainly just used Google Slides on my Class Site but after being reminded about Forms and Jamboard this made me think about including Google Draw, My Maps and other Google apps we have been learning about on DFI into Sites. 

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

I really enjoyed learning about Multi-text database and really unpacking what this looks like. We got given time to explore the Sheets resource that was shared and honestly at first it was quite overwhelming  but the more we explored this resource, the more I understood it and came to love it. I loved when we went into groups to create a new Sites focussing on a particular topic. My group looked into Butterfly working with Cheryl where we got to unpack Multi-text more by finding texts and finding what category it went under. The more we got to look for different texts it became more clearer and I could actually see myself doing this and creating more sites like this for my learners. I enjoyed it so much that I actually wanted to spend more time working on it so then I could add this site to as one of the tasks I would do with my class. While exploring the Multi-database Sheets around multi-text it also gave me an idea around using Google Sheets as a reading log for students that they can fill in themselves throughout the week as well as a Vocabulary Dictionary where students put in new vocabulary they have learnt from reading and the definition. By doing this, it encourages students to take ownership over their learning and it encourages building their vocabulary knowledge.

Below is an example of the sites I created about Butterflies. I really tried to make sure the Sites I created was Multi-textual for cognitive engagement as well as it being Multi-Modal designed for behavioural engagement. I did this by trying to implement the different Google Apps we have been learning about.

 Butterfly Sites Link

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

Something I learnt that would improve my confidence in my workflow was remembering to plan before creating a new Site. I totally agree that by doing this it does save a lot of time when creating a new Site. It also makes sure that you have the content and tasks included to hook in your learners. When going back to look at what I created and referring back to the plan we created in our groups, I realised there were things missing that I hadn't included which is why having a plan is always important to remind you of what you should have in your Sites.

I also liked the idea of having a Media page/folder on the Sites you create to display photos of children learning that students themselves can look at and be proud of and as well as parents and families instead of waiting for SLC's to come into the class to see student work and learning.