Digital Fluency Intensive Day 1 - Introduction

Our day started with acknowledging the Samoan Language Week and Philatetic started our day by saying Karakia in Samoan.

Day 1
                                          Group photo of our Digital Intensive Cohort 2.

There will be 9 sessions for this Digital Fluency Intensive course. Each day will be divided into 3 sections where we will:

1. Learn             2. Create and              3. Share our learnings

Day 1

1. Learn

After our individual introduction, Dorothy Burt talked about Digital Fluency Intensive Overview and Manaiakalani Origin Story. It's interesting to learn how the Manaiakalani innovative team worked together and how the current learners and educators of 13 schools are benefitting from the hard work, which has been put in since 2006. 

The sole purpose was for:

Then we dived deep into Google Groups, Chrome and Drive and explored Chrome Extensions. We also looked at Summer Learning Journey Research and found out that since the learners have started using digital tools their learning have accelerated vastly. We also explored Connect the Docs and did Skills Checklist.

For levelling up sessions we were given opportunity to divide ourselves in two groups:
1. Scavenger Hunt
2. add-ons and extensions

2. Create: Making meaning of content

We were to use Docs as a tool for creating visual media.
Before we created our own Docs we looked at few examples and tips:

infographics, posters, newsletters, CV

Browse this article for 20 tips BEFORE you begin

Create a Photo Journal in Google Docs

I created 2 visual media using docs. It was quite challenging since I do use Google Drawings a lot these days but I managed to produce 2 piece as seen below:

3. Share: Embed and Rewind Content 

The things I have learnt that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy is that Manaiakalani Cluster has been running successfully in the hands of some great people such as Mr & Mrs Burt since the year 2006 ie. that's when it was formed. It has made a huge impact on the learners and their learning outcome in this digital world. Classes started with ipads and now all the learners from Year 3 and up use chromebooks and years 1-2 use ipads to support and enhance their learning in all curriculum areas. There has been ongoing Professional Developments provided to teachers to keep pace with their teaching as well. There are 12 Primary and Intermediate Schools and 1 College, which has been benefiting by being part of Manaiakalani Cluster with even free internet access at home.

Some of the things I learnt that improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional would be about:

• Google Groups - I have not as of yet created any google groups but I feel that I would be able to do it as I might need some practice since there are whole lot of features I need to keep in mind.
• Chrome - when I bookmark - I can only have the icon and take away the name from the bookmark panel. I can also pin and lock the bookmark on the panel.

- Chrome - I can type (a heading or question) and search using omnibox.

- Chrome - I can toogle through tabs using command/ control + # = quick switch to

another tab.

• Drive - numbering folders so I can easily excess.
• Chrome Extensions - sits on the top right corner of the browser and each extension fulfils single purpose only.
• Connect to Docs - how to highlight a text, add a comment to a text and assign to someone. Also mark it resolved once it's resolved.

- Doc to forms - I have learnt how to use various kinds of extensions from the Chrome Web Store such as I can create a form using doc and do few other things.

        - Docs - create Infographics or create a poster.

Some of the things I learnt that could be used with my learners are:

• use icon for bookmarks
• use omnibox for searching
• whole lot of things with docs such as create a poster/ infographics

The things I learnt that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life would be:

• Chrome - only use bookmark icon on my bookmark panel and pinning my bookmarks.
• Toogle through tabs using control/ command + # = quick switch to another tab.
• Numbering my folders.
• Create presentable infographics.
• Confidently teach and meet my learners needs/ demands.
• Engage more parents by sharing their child/ children's learning such as create forms using Docs and share with parents and get feedback/ collect information and so on.
• Talk and share more about how Manaiakalani cluster started and how the educators and learners are benefiting from it.