DFI Day 2 - 21 March 2019

Today we started off by exploring the Learn aspect of the Manaiakalani kaupapa. We think we know what learning is being teachers but in this 21st century 'learning' is very different depending on your context. As a Music teacher the learning that goes on is a lot more practical than in another area where there is more written work needed. I also teach Maths and we've just done some practical measurement but a lot of Maths is thinking and writing in a traditional manner.
I really like the step ladder approach of Build knowledge, Making meaning, Apply understanding. It is a different way of saying what it is that we are asked to do as teachers. We spoke a little bit about the SAMR methodology, which I have heard about, and how we can move between this and it is also like a ladder.

We have also looked at Google Keep, Hangouts, Email, Calendar and how to handle our tabs. Apart from Google docs and drive some of these we need to use on a regular basis and it is interesting that at college we have staff who use these regularly and very well and others who are still learning.

Today I imported my timetable from Kamar into Google Calendar. I noticed that the calendar can be brought up next to my email and this means that I won't have to keep moving between google and kamar all day. I was very excited about this. I do use a written planner but don't put a whole lot in it. However I maybe able to plan a bit better and use this in my google site so parents know what is being done in class. This would be very helpful in my Maths class where there is a lot of content to get though in a short amount of time.

I also set up a filter for my Musicnet messages which seem horrendous but there were only 108 of them, however as I check I can see that 2 messages have been directed to the folder which is great. I would like to learn more about Hapara and how to use this more effectively so I don't have to have students sharing their work with me every lesson.

After having a quick look at Google Keep I'm not sure whether I would use it in a professional capacity, but will maybe explore using it in personal way. I don't use my phone much for other than txt'ing, phoning, maps, playing games, etc.

The final thing we did today was explore and use Hangouts which is now renamed Meet. We learned to use our headphones and speak with each other in a meeting situation. Again in a Music classroom I'm not sure how I would use this. Here is the conversation I had with Maria and Kylie about some blogs written by students in the Summer Learning Project.