DFI Week Seven: Devices

Manaiakalani is empowering students to be successful digital citizens, with ever increasing connectivity and access to the internet. As schools using devices it is part of our responsibility to help keep the children secure while they interact on the internet. I like the way Fiona really emphasised how this is taught to children by positive role modelling and language rather than the negative/scary side of the internet as it shows the learners all the benefits of being smart online instead of feeling anxious or nervous. Even though the children in our space do not use devices at school, I think it would be beneficial if we at least began talking about the early stages so that when children reach the teams in our middle and senior school they are really familiar with the language that is being used around cyber safety. Fiona also clearly connected this to the Manaiakalani kaupapa of being connected learners when their learning is now more visible - both with people they know and people they don't. Our school rules are be kind to yourself, be kind to others and be kind to the environment (be the community kind). This links really well with Cyber Smart because we talk constantly about being kind in and out of school so the children can transfer this positive language to being kind online quite easily. I hadn't ever heard of the "Smart Parents" which I think is really important in the home, school, student relationship - it also allows the child to hear the positive modelling from both home and school. 

It was nice to have some time to explore Explain Everything and use the chromebooks today. Although we do not have 1:1 devices in our space - during Level Three after the first lockdown I worked in a mixed age bubble class, where the children were great at explaining to me how their chromebooks worked and showing me how they accessed their learning online. I can see why chromebooks are used - they are simple, with little realm for confusion and all work in an identical manner. It's great to develop a better understanding of how the children in these older teams are learning, creating  and sharing with the use of technology.

For our 'Create' today, I chose Screencastify - which proved to be a really useful tool during the first lockdown. With our New Entrants we used this tool to create mini lessons, and our most popular use for it was to capture our staff reading picture books and share them with the tamariki. Today I created this video exploring the first lesson in the Smart Surfing section of the Cyber Smart Manaiakalani resources. I can see how this mini lesson could be added in even as a reading follow up activity - or done whole class in spaces where there isn't 1:1.