Digital Fluency Intensive Week 1

Digital Fluency Intensive  Week 1

I found the first DFI session to be very informative and fast. I appreciated the style of learning  with educators roaming to answer question and clarify teachings. The diverse abilities  of learners made for a good classroom setup, helping others with features I am familiar with and requesting help from others. I am glad to be attending with my colleague and we have helped each other during the DFI session and back at school.

I realise the value of the digital tools for teaching and learning but am cognisant of efficient digital tools sometimes having a backfire effect through duplication of tasks. I appreciate being free to pick and choose the best-fit tools for my teaching and unique workspace. 

While Google and Chrome are  very useful and helpful to link seamlessly I have strong views regarding the amount of data voluntarily shared, mined and used by a non-state corporate whose ethics and tax practices I am uncomfortable with. Though the Voice Typing and Google Keep features were very impressive I don't think I will use them in the classroom for these reasons.   

The revolutionary power of using Google in the classroom for positive effect always needs to face constructive critique of potential abuses of the platform by other users or its owners and I am looking forward to future sessions on cyber security. 

The most useful thing I learned was a simple yet very important shortcut- the Command-Shift-V which I had never heard of before and which I'm already using as second nature. 

As a teacher at Pt England for the last three years I am familiar with the kaupapa of Manaikalani but it is always incredible hearing  the effectiveness of the  Summer Learning Journey and blogging and jumps in literacy from using technology strategically and intentionally, based on research,  best practice pedagogy and the curriculum to help our community's education.

As a visual learner and recorder I was impressed by formatting and Explore function within Google Docs. Being able to present to both students and outside parties through eye-grabbing visuals within the native Chrome word processor is very useful and I created this Robotics Rōpū link  to explain in a short presentation our Robotics initiative. Unfortunately I was unable to adjust the width of the doc in my blog so have inserted it as  an image.