Day 2 DFI - Workflow

Today was the second day of the Digital Fluency Intensive.
We began by learning more about Manaiakalani Kaupapa and Pedagogy. Dorothy explained to us how digital technology accelerates learning through the acronym RATE (recognise, amplify, turbocharge: effective practice). Recognise - meaning that teachers recognise effective practice and teacher actions promote student learning. Amplify - meaning that technology amplifies teaching and learning opportunities by making it connected, visible, ubiquitous and empowering. Turbocharge - meaning that technology transforms the way we teach and learn by making experiences more creative.

Today I learnt how to organise my Gmail better as well as my tabs. I'm not an overly organised person so this was very useful. I have now pinned a lot of my important tabs and have some useful tab tips up my sleeve to make my workflow smoother. I now have a list of the chrome extensions for tab organisation and will try these out over the week to see which one works best for me.
I also found it useful learning how to use Google Keep more effectively - for example how to use the recording tool and the location tool. The location tool will definitely come in handy as I am a forgetful person! Google Keep will be useful in my own every day life.

The main Google Suite tools that we learnt about today were Google Meet and Calendars. I learnt how to create a Google event or Meet and how to invite students/colleagues to it. I also learnt how to RSVP with a note. We had plenty of hands on time learning how to present our screen on Meet and record the meet whilst discussing a student's blog post. During lockdown, I had Google Meet videos with my class every day so already had practice doing this but it was still useful having more time to play around with it to be 100% confident in case we need to do distance learning again!

Below is a video of today's task:

Day 1 DFI - Core Business

Today was our first day of the Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive. We are doing this online using Google Meet over the next 9 weeks.

Today we learned about the origins of the Manaiakalani story and how the use of technology in Manaiakalani schools has benefited our children. I enjoyed learning new the tips and tricks that help us to be more efficient on Google Suites for example keyboard shortcuts, how to pin a tab and how to use Google Groups. These tricks are going to improve my workflow a lot. We were also reminded to organise our Google Drive - which is what I need to do!

Today we spent a lot of time learning how to use Google Docs more efficiently. As I am teaching with iPads this year, I found it a bit tricky at first to think of how to apply what we learnt to my own teaching (I mostly use Explain Everything on the iPads as it is easier for the year 3's to navigate). However I thought that the 'Eyes On Text' activity was a great idea and I am going to adapt it a bit so that it can be used on Explain Everything. This will be an awesome independent reading task to increase mileage and I'm looking forward to starting this with my class. 

We also learnt how to create an infographic using Google Docs. I usually use Google Slides or Canva to create posters as I don't find Google Docs as appealing on the eye when doing this but we learnt some great tips that made them look better than I expected. I especially enjoyed learning how to use remove.bg to remove the background from an image because I've tried other websites and photoshop to do this before but remove.bg was so easy to use. Our facilitators recommended that we create an infographic that we can use in class. My students have been learning a new morning routine and this visual is going to help them a lot. I will stick it to the front door for when they arrive at class in the morning.