Manaiakalani has the goal of not only empowering learners but also empowering their teachers. For a teacher who does not currently work in a 1:1 space, but has been working through DFI this term, I have experienced this by feeling alot more empowered about how I can use these newly acquired digital skills to make my way of working more efficient and begin to introduce more of these concepts in our classroom. I can only imagine that if you were working in a 1:1 space and were supported with these skills and facilitators it would be even more empowering! This type of digital fluency is not just important for teachers/learners, but also for other staff within the school. So many of these skills we have learnt during DFI are appropriate for the operational side of schools, improving communication and organisation.
It was also interesting to hear about the equity that has arisen over the Manaiakalani journey, and how they empowered their community by improving access to both internet and quality devices. I have no doubt that this would have been a complicated process but it opens so many doors for both teachers and learners.
This website had lots of great resources - in particular I loved the toolkit around Kaitiakitanga, as this is our school overarching theme for 2020/2021. It had great ideas for local connections appropriate for all age levels and differing levels of devices in classrooms too. I will definitely be sharing this with my Team next week.
Coding:
I really enjoyed having a go at the early coding games! I can see that there are sooo many opportunities to integrate this into our current classroom teaching, especially with directional learning in maths. Children with particular interests in video games such as minecraft would love an opportunity to teach other children and be the 'specialists' with in the classroom space too. Even as an adult it was fun to create a 'Flappy Bird' game - I haven't had a go at coding myself since high school in the old computer labs!
In the second part of our coding today, I joined Phil's group to create a simple programming practice using google draw. I chose to integrate our classroom behaviour chart, and the child themselves for motivation. The child had to direct themselves to the starbox while collecting five ticks along the way, which we could use more simply with showing it on screen in class or on a grid drawn on the courts and using verbal instructions. Even New Entrants would love the opportunity to choose their own characters and
Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteI love how you have identified ways in which you could use computational thinking within your classroom setting and ways that it could be completed unplugged also! There are so many opportunities for us to include computational thinking in our classroom, and often, we already are without even realising.