Google Sites - DFI

Google Sites 

Today we talked all things Google Sites. We had the opportunity to look at a wide range of different class sites and think about the pros and cons of them for our learners. 

Things I thought were important...

• The less scrolling the better
• Easy to use for students and parents
• Visually appealing
• Transparent learning
• Student voice / student pictures

Things I found difficult...

• Over stimulation (lots of bright colours that clash), different fonts, different sized buttons etc.
• Too much on the home page can be overwhelming

My main focus was creating an easy to use, visually appealing website. I looked at some examples of what that might look like for me and went from there. I started by creating buttons on google draw. I used the background remover on some of my buttons to make it look tidier. I removed the pages from the navigation bar allowing students only one entry into each page. The less decisions on the website, the more focus that can be applied to their digital tasks.  

Below are some examples of the site buttons I created for my Te Reo Māori page. The idea is they can push on music to find all the music they need in one place. The glossary is an updated google slide that has all the words the students have learnt in school. This is so parents can scroll through and attempt to use these at home to solidify learning. The Te Reo Māori blog button takes students straight to the whole school Te Reo Māori blog where they will find their weekly challenges. The Māori dictionary is simply a link to an external dictionary. My focus was to make everything straight forward to navigate with only a couple of clicks without compromising on content. I want everything the students and parents might need to be available without it looking like too much content. 

Below was my attempt to bring my students voice into the site they use daily. I saw some wonderful examples of student websites tailored for the students with their pictures helping to navigate the site. I loved this idea. The page is for them and their parents to navigate their learning so why shouldn't it have them front and centre. I didn't have the type of pictures I would have liked to display on the blog but I gave it a go and instantly the page seemed friendlier. Moving forward this is something I'd like to improve on. It could even be something I talk with the students about. What would they like the site to look like?

Another idea I had while looking through other schools class sites was a gallery. Parents don't see enough of what their students do at school. They do marvellous, exciting things and they are always having fun with their learning. I get to see that daily. I want my parents to see that too. Why not have a gallery where parents can access pictures. They get to see what they are doing at school and they can add them to their memories for the future.

Another good chance to explore and try new things. In these moments of exploration, I see the full potential of digital learning.

Classroom Creations

 

Returning back to school after a second lockdown has been more challenging this time round than it was the first. The children are feeling uncertain about the future, whether they will be here much longer or if they will be in lockdown again. Understandably so. The mask wearing, although slightly exciting for them, is also causing some uncertainty. 

Despite all this, the students have had a great start back to school. They love the structure of school and are big fans of the visual timetable that helps them know exactly what they will be doing during the day. Today we had a very structured morning, the students enjoyed reading rotations and all produced a blog post on their writing. In the middle block the students were quite full of energy and were struggling to stay on task. Instead of pushing through with writing, which I knew was going to be difficult for them and for me I shifted our focus to 'create' time. The children were engaged and were happy to collaborate with other students to make their creations. It was lovely to see the students settling in and reestablishing connections with their friends. It was exactly what our room 7 tamariki needed to help settle back into school. 

My focus moving forward will be to continue with my 'less is more' concept. Focus on specific teaching and not to worry too much about fitting everything in. 

Collaborate - DFI

Multi-modal site

At Panmure Bridge school we use google sites to make our teaching and the students learning transparent. The idea is that everything the students do in a day is made available for students to follow up with at home or for parents to check in and see what their child has learnt that day. This allows for open dialogue between teacher and student, student and parents and teacher and parents. 

One thing I haven't done much thinking on until now is using multi-modal sites as a form of project based learning site. I see a real use for this with one of my high achieving students who has a ILP (Individual learning plan). In the past I have got a selection of books from the senior book room and set tasks / project for her to follow up with. Although this is still an option, multi modal sites allows me to move her learning to a digital platform to allow more independence and more engagement. I can move with her learning, adding or taking things away depending on the route she explores. I could also link EE activities onto the website or encourage her to make her own EE's about her learning.

Another way I thought about using multi-modal sites was on 'holidays' like Waitangi Day, Anzac Day, Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day, Mothers Day, Fathers Day etc. You could create one with a large amount of resources for independent explore time allowing students to determine their own methods of learning. For example you could create a mothers day site with lots of read aloud books or videos on arts and crafts projects. You could have set tasks the students need to complete or for a slightly different subject you could have links to quizzes that serve as a formative assessment to follow up a topic. 

Although creating a google site may seem taxing, with time, practice and improved digital fluency a google site can be put together in an hour and used for a period of 2 weeks+ depending on the topic. It can be used as a 'warm up' into the topic or a chance for students to explore their own interests. 

Dealing with Data - DFI

My Maps

Today we worked with maps. I could instantly see a place for it in a maths curriculum, especially in the upper school. You could explore area and perimeter with some of the older children. For the younger children you could look at length, distance and time. There are lots of opportunities for project based assignments. Students could plan a road trip, look at distances, gas prices, how far you could go on a tank of gas etc. Junior students could compare how far they live from school compared to friends, who has to walk the furthest. The difference in cycling time VS walking time. The opportunities are endless here. I see integration opportunities to integrate into literacy, inquiry, physical education and even art.

This term our inquiry topic is Safety and I can see a place for maps in this. Looking for the local emergency services and how far they are from your house (walking, biking etc). We could look and see how far everyone lives from school and who has to walk the furthest distance. We could look at hazards (roundabouts etc) on the way home in real satellite image.

On a personal note, I wish I knew about this during some of my bigger trips overseas it would have saved me lots of time and made my trips more efficient and no doubt I would have saved some money.

Spreadsheets

Above is a spreadsheet looking at the data of a PBS student over the period of four years. This data has been broken into months and helps you look at activity levels over the space of a year. This information could be paired with testing data to see if there is a link between regular updating and student achievement. 

Spreadsheets is capable of so much. You would never know what it can and can't do until someone informs you of all the small tricks. I can certainly see the benefit of using spreadsheets especially when it comes to tracking your data, identifying target students, monitoring micro shifts and looking to where you'd like your students to be moving forward. Being reminded of some of these functions has given me something to think about in terms of how I collate my classrooms data. The question for me now is, how can I organise my data in a way that best informs my teaching? An example might be an 'alphabet' spreadsheet which might identify 95% of students don't recognise the letter 'm'. I can see a lot of opportunity to use sheets to support my phonics program as well as keeping track of maths challenges (knowledge based information).

Digital Pepeha

Takeaways of the Week!

The hot tip of the week was around Hapara and staying organised. I learnt that you are able to move the paynes around in order to sort learners so you can have priority learners at the top of Hapara. This means that instead of seeing the names in alphabetical order I can move them around to focus on different students at different periods of time.

Our focus this week was on 'media'. In this case, google draw, google slides and youtube, all valuable platforms that I use regularly in my day to day job.

Below is a youtube playlist that I started but haven't had the chance to finish. A cool feature of google playlists is the collaborative button which allows multiple people to add to the playlist. Ideal for this sort of task because as people come across new, appropriate songs, they can just add it to the playlist for all to see and use.

Another thing we focused on was google draw. This was a nice refresher for me and a good chance to get creative. Below is my 'About Me' which I have added to my blog so people can learn a little bit about me. I often use google draw in order to post pictures onto Blogger.

I also got the opportunity to play with my blog layout to make it easier for me to navigate. A lot of time to try new things out today. Very productive day.

Digital Pepeha

Absolutely loved getting the chance to complete my digital pepeha. I got to learn some new reo, connect with some other people with similiar interests and I got to complete something I've long wanted to accomplish. Thank you Makaore for all the support.