Digital Fluency Intensive Session 4

Today on our 'online- lockdown DFI' our focus was 'Data' and how to best deal with it. We started off by looking at the share aspect of Maniakalani (tohatoha). We discussed the purpose of sharing with an authentic audience (the purpose- defined by people who choose to listen to you) and harnessing this to raise student achievement outcomes. We looked at how we have been sharing since time began and into the digital age and now from in our ‘lockdown bubble!’.

Sharing is all about getting quality face-to-face interaction whether that be digital or not. Dorothy shared with us why Maniakalani chose blogger as their sharing domain. This is because it technically represents where our young learners want to be on, not visually. You post, your comment, you have titles and follers and people who interact with you. Blogger is inside the google apps domain, therefore, can access and monitor this safely.  Children are not admin of their blogs they are authors- the BOT owns their blogs (legally).

We then had a 'Chalk n Talk' about Google forms. I had used these once or twice before but wasn't aware of how many different sorts of questioning options you could pick from. This would be perfect to use as we navigate towards online learning next week. I will be sharing my knowledge with my team about this. We made our own form (see below). I also learned that you can turn it into quiz mode and the form will self mark. I must remember when sharing and sending to take link from ‘send form’ not URL link as this will give children the opportunity to edit.

After this we looked at both Google 'My Maps' and Google Sheets 101. I had heard of both before but not really used them that often. Google 'My Maps' is a platform to allow us to track or plan journeys, measure distances or add place markers. It can be used to tell stories and record journeys. Sheets allows us to organise and edit data. We learned numerous tips and tricks for both. Google Sheets is a tool that that I can use in my personal life for budgeting and various other things.

Kelsey shared some blogging tips and the power of labels. This is something to remember for not only my hub and children's individual blogs but my own professional blog.

How has distance learning been so far you may ask? Well, the fact that I am able to wear comfy pants and slippers means it's going pretty good! It has been easy enough to follow and understand. The facilitation team have seamlessly interwoven what was planned during our face-to-face sessions to transfer it to our online 'google hangouts'. Its been one for the books that's for sure. I didn't think it would be this easy. Apart from internet connections, nothing else seems to be too much of an issue!