Devices

DFI Day 5- Devices

Each week of DFI I continue to increase my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy. Today our guest speaker, Lenva discussed with us that with Manaiakalani nothing is done by chance.  Everything is carefully planned and relates to pedagogy. Lenva talked about Manaiakalani's focus on being smart first and although being safe is also important, how its significance is second to that of being smart. Teaching kids to deal with living in the world while keeping their digital footprint the best they possibly can is paramount. We need to encourage students to ensure what they share will be positive and helpful for them now and in the future. Positive helpful, thoughtful is a total path of cybersmart programme. This should be embedded in everything students do.

The Manaiakalani  Kawa of Care was co-constructed between schools and whānau. This is an agreement that focus’ on responsibilities of students, parents and schools. The culture in the classroom rather than isolated incidents is what is significant in terms of the way we value what we have and how we look after our devices as well as the spaces we work in.

When it comes to devices I feel some confidence with the main device: My Mac Book Air, that I am currently familiar with. I am often challenged when presented with something different or new. So today came with its challenges. As a learner I am aware of the need to know more about what's on my computer and how to better use it.

Today's focus was about the devices our young people use and we experienced Learn, Create, Share using Chromebooks and iPads. Looking at these devices through the lens of the students helped me gain new skills and insight into what the students experience. We explored Explain Everything on Ipads and screencastify on Chromebooks. Both of which will help further on my personal learning journey. With Explain Everything, young children can easily get everything into one place.
Every screen is the same. Students should have their own drive and it should be clear which iPads students have. Labelling is therfore important as well as care. This app is suitable for all ages. Teachers create projects, students work through it then teachers can view what students have done. With screncastify we arre able to record and share work in a safe and easy way.

We also looked at Hapara. Hapara allows us to actively see what our students are doing. The dashboard is attached to the G suite and everything put in folders is accessible. The folder tab allows us to see everything in folders. The sharing tabs allows us to see everything not in folders. All docs shows us everything regardless of location. Students own their drive and can move things around. Hapara allows us to see what they have opened. Casting the hapara screen for all to see was a suggestion to help better supervise who is doing what and when.

Hapara is designed to support teaching and learning not simply a monitoring tool. Workspaces are ways to create units of work and share them out. Workspaces can be embeded into class sites. Hapara class is archived at the end of every year. Folders will disappear at the end of the year and new folders will appear. Archived folders can be accessed, however anything not in a folder will be lost. It's important that we tell students this.

We discussed various learn tips and tricks to support our learners. One significant support for me was in Hapara highlights. Using the activity viewer to see students current and previous activites. I particularly liked how students names were clearly listed and how this was easier to view. During our break, I quickly went back to my hub and shared this with my colleagues, who were also excited about this new knowledge. Something new I tried today was Sumopaint.  Here is a very rough image of an iPad that I created, using the paint.