Digital Poster - DFI

It was my first day on the DFI (Digital Fluency Intensive) course that is held online every Friday for the next 8 weeks. Above is a digital poster that I created using some of the new tricks I learnt throughout the day.

Maniakalani was first thought up in 2005 with a group of innovative teachers, principals and board members who were eager to raise achievement outcomes for students in low decile schools. The aim was to motivate the learners (that statistics showed were failing in the current school system) by engaging them in a modern and innovative digital environment. The hope was to offer students a 21st century approach to learning by empowering our students to use their voices.

Today I Marie Kondo'd my google drive which has been something I have wanted to do for a long time but didn't really know where to start. Seeing examples of other peoples drives gave me fresh ideas about how best to do this in a way that is both organised, easy to navigate and useful in a day to day situation. I managed to find a home for all un-homed files as well as merging a few folders together so that everything was in the same place. Naming and filing labels is important and something that I work hard to support my students with.

Working on the digital poster gave me the opportunity to implement some of the tricks I learnt throughout the day. This kind of digital design is where I'd like my students to be heading so it was nice to know some of the smaller things to help them get there. It's as simple as giving your designs a coloured back drop to make them more appealing. One of the cool tools I learnt to use was the background remover, I used it twice in my digital poster, it was super easy and made my poster look more appealing. My focus over the next term with my students will be backgrounds, different fonts as well as different font sizes.

Personally, I learnt quite a few tricks that just make things easier. Command 'D' to mute yourself in a google meet. Command 'D' to add a tab when you're not in a google meet. The voice tool on a google doc was quite nifty and reliable. This is definitely something I could use in the classroom too. Endless possibilities here. I learnt that command followed by a number takes you to that number tab (very helpful when you have lots of tabs open). One thing I learnt that I probably should have known was NOT to underline titles or other parts of texts. In the modern world, underlining is left for hyperlinks.