DFI Course - Week 6

 Since Last Week

My reflections on how things have gone over the past week were much simpler this time, because I had nothing that hadn't worked or that I needed help with. However I had quite a lot to report on that had worked well for me over the past week:

I have finally spent time creating a Pick-a-Path story using Google Form, using a "concatenate" formula in Google Sheet and displaying the students’ results on my site. 

Here is a sample of the writing some of the students created:

My next step is to use this to help students use the format of narratives to create their own Pick-a-Path in Google Forms (very exciting … if not for them, then certainly for me). 

I also used charts in Google Sheets a lot last week - preparing for the Statistical Inquiry my Hurumanu class is starting this week!

This Week: Enabling Access - Sites

A copy of this week's agenda can be found here.

This week's focus was on Enabling Access through Sites, with specific sessions on:

• Manaiakalani's Connected Kaupapa
• Evaluating Sites
• Developing / Redeveloping Our Sites

Connected 

Dorothy Burt spoke about the development of Manaiakalani and the "outreach" clusters - one of whicht Hornby became part of (later becoming known as Uru Mānuka). This all started as 12 schools and kura in Auckland connecting and collaborating, and is now a network of 11 clusters comprising a total of almost 90 schools and kura.

The Learn, Create, Share pedagogy and the Manaiakalani kaupapa provides a shared language so that we can collaborate and share our resources and ideas. The vehicle we use to keep connected is our blogs. A good example of this was the newsletters that were distributed during Level 4 lockdown - these newsletters highlighted individual blogs, and help to remind us that even when we are separated by distance we remained connect by purpose.

Dorothy also reminded us that implementing the Manaiakalani kaupapa requires all four of its elements: Visible, Empowered, Connected, and Ubiquitous.

Evaluating Each Others' Sites

We then spent time reviewing and critiquing each others' sites, and providing feedback to each other on how to make them more user-friendly. At first I found this exercise a bit daunting ... what did I have to offer my colleagues with my limited experience ... and what will they say about the structure and format of my site?

The Hurumanu site I collaborate on.

Once I got over myself I really enjoyed the whole process. First I was partnered up with Rowena Clemence from Hornby High, and I had a flash-back about five years to when Rowena helped me to develop my first website, and I realised how far I had come. It was great to now have Rowena critique my current site, especially given her role as e-Learning leader.

Developing / Redeveloping Our Sites

During my discussions with Rowena and others I had a bit of an "aha" moment: when I created my first website it was a class website where I managed the site for my students, including sharing their work online (this was before the students had their own blogs). Now my website should be a teacher website with the purpose of delivering my teaching/learning to my students. Different owner, different purpose, different format.

My Teaching Site

With that in mind I made a number of changes to my site, including personalising it more to make it my site not my students'. I also made navigation of the site a lot simpler (three clicks maximum), including making links to the Hurumanu site I collaborate on. To make it easier for students to navigate to the current week's work I reordered the work on the sites' main pages so that the latest work is at the top of the page (i.e. less scrolling).

Conclusion

I'm pretty happy with the make-over of my two sites and I'm also pretty confident that my students will find it easier to find the teaching and learning material on the sites. More importantly though, I now have a lot more clarity about why I have my sites in the first place, which will guide me when I make changes/developments with my sites in future.