Term 3 Inquiry Dilemma

3D Printing vs Recycling vs Robots vs Eels... 

Last term I had decided to switch my inquiry from Geometric and Measurement Language though 3D Printing to another topic. The rationale being I see my 3D printing sample class students only once a fortnight whereas other topics were being focused on a weekly, if not daily basis.

I have had second thoughts on discontinuing my original inquiry but am looking for guidance int he next collaborative inquiry meeting. The pros of each potential inquiry are:

3D Printing  

Students are now building, with the printer their creations and are needing to use more mathematical language. They are now very familiar with the Tinkercad software and can apply it to their real world objects. We will also be continuing 3D printing into the 4th term. 

Recycling

The Bincurity Recyling project has been a large undertaking with infrastructure, networking, culture shift, education, communication and management. Although the aim is for this scheme to run seamlessly with all teachers sharing the load, I have researched, introduced and designed most of Bincurity so far so it would be worthwhile to document this shift through inquiry.

Robots

We are prototyping and building robots to help manage waste. This is the most structured and regular (weekly) of all classes I am teaching and has a definite end point. 

Kuwharuwharu Longfinned Eels me te Maramataka Lunar Calendar

This project is also lasting a year. A big  pro is that it hasn't started yet so gives me a good baseline to work from.

Digital Fluency Intensive Week 3

Week 3

This week we started by focussing on  the importance of and definitions of creativity. This is important to my teaching practice as my specialist role focusses on expanding creativity in a primary school environment.

Live Streaming

We can use streaming to share our students' learning and give the students the opportunity to learn how to live stream themselves that is rewindable and sharable.   

Streaming ...allows for a cable free solution to live feeds. You can stream straight to YouTube, Facebook and other platforms. You can even stream to multiple destinations at one time." Kent Sommerville


Equipment: 

The  VidiU Pro Teradek transfers the film to different platforms. We need to be mindful about whether to live stream live, use a delay, keep public or private and think about which platforms to broadcast on.

 

Youtube has levels of control including disabling or monitoring comments. It will 
also show the quality of the connection before streaming 



Drones:

Be aware of legal guidelines and practise common courtesy regarding privacy and consent  from non-school participants.   

Youtube

Covering Youtube fundamentals we noted that children should not have their own channels as we cannot control their sharing settings and the legal age to own an account is eighteen years.



Google Drawing

Exploring Drawing.This tool is helpful to make graphics, easily  integrating other Google tools such as photos, slides, docs, blogger, sites  and the search engine itself. I was so happy to learn how to manipulate the images underneath the masking shape tool! I've been wanting to know how to do this since I started using Google draw.
 I still really miss using Photoshop and would like to find a programme that was somewhere in between its huge range and Draw's web accessibility.

Slides
"So Much more than a presentation tool"  I find Slides the best tool to use to create share and assist learn due to the platform it provides for graphics, photos. I am now excited by the knowledge of how to insert Youtube clips into slides without inserting Youtube rabbit holes...  





Screencastify
This extension looks excellent for documenting and sharing rewindable learning and has similar caveats to streaming- users need to be careful what is recorded and posted. I found the icon to be very subtle so will be very careful when using it to record the screen. 

Blogger
I find regular blogging difficult even though it takes very little time. I feeling  this is due to the temptation to blog using the tools above to create visually impressive content, which takes time! 
The blogger app does not work on my phone (or others' apparently) so I am very appreciative to Dorothy and Gerard teaching me how to use gmail to draft blogposts that can contain images directly from my phone's camera roll (not drive) phone. This will enable me to draft as I teach🙂, keeping the haring of learning moments fresh.

Digital Fluency Intensive Week 2

Week 2

Today was as fast paced as last week and I would have felt overwhelmed if I had not been introduced  to  many of these tools by colleagues and Tania at CORE Education who Manaiakalani facilitated  one on one tutorials through Google Hangouts last year.

Having some prior knowledge was helpful as I was able to reinforce my learning by helping teach my DFI classmates and trouble shoot. There were of course many functions and settings I was completely unaware of... 

Tab Control

People, including students often comment on the ridiculous amounts of tabs I have open. My memory is not great and I'm very visual so I up until very recently I have used tabs to remind me of what tasks need to be worked on.

I really like shortcuts like  Command>Shift>#  and Command>Option> arrow keys for skipping back and forth along tabs but these extensions are far kinder on the computer!

                                                
 This extension looks quite simple and at first go looks easier than search history to find closed tabs. I will be interested how often I end up using it.

Toby Mini

A colleague introduced me to this extension a few weeks ago and it has been incredible! It is a very visual way of organising and remembering which tabs relate to a certain task. 

Previously I had done this through having up to five windows with multiple tabs open in them. Toby mini lets you sort your tabs, name the session,  then close them all ready to open up next time you need to work on that project. Working with many classes and EOTC projects, this is a very helpful way of streamlining workflow while decluttering and speeding up my machine.   

Gmail
I found the information about customising gmail really helpful. I have recently been encouraged to archive read emails before than deleting them or letting them sit. 

Psychologically I find this quite difficult as I've always thought of email as out of sight being out of mind. However using the label system is reassuring and if I don't have reason to  label an irrelevant email I still have the satisfaction of deleting them :)

I'd like to explore the settings and labels more in Gmail especially colour-coding them to match my drive folders. I plan to archive all emails previous to this term. 

Google hangout calls
We used Google Calendar to organise google hangouts  with more than person. This is a feature I have used before one-to-one and find helpful  to use alongside shared google docs. With more than one person you need to be aware of keeping turning microphones off and on.

The 'infinity mirror'  effect is definitely the best feature of google hangouts!   

Quicktime 
The Mac video and recording app was used to record the google hangout with screensharing. The following is an example of me not recording the other participants :/ I am learning from my mistakes :)

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.  

Term 2 Week 10 Inquiry

A child discovered the 'Character 'option while tinkering, this discovery has been very valuable in teaching the x y z axis, Vertical and Horizontal, raising and lowering  and orientation using a familiar character: a robot  

TERM 2, 2018 INQUIRY UPDATE

TERM  2 INQUIRY UPDATE.

As predicted I have not been able to see my focus group as regularly as would be optimal, however they and all 3D printing groups have enjoyed experimenting using Tinkercad software without having printed any objects.

This confirmed my prediction that focussing on the digital tool before printing with the hardware gives students more scope to explore the creative design tools rather than aim to print  any physical object as soon as possible.

I have introduced the Pasifika mat idea to the students in the group and they are enthusiastic. I cannot group them by their DMIC groups due to timetabling, so am unable to have a  control group.

Following a suggestion from a colleague, rather than use PAT or e-asTTle scores I made a short test  that specifically asked multi-choice questions about the geometric language and measurement we are using.

The above data shows the lack of fluency in terms such as vertical, horizontal and diagonal. Not one student labelled  a vertical line, most preferring the literal,  but not mathematical term 'up and down' which highlights that this test can only judge the correct mathematical terminology; students know what they are looking at but lack the correct vocabulary. 

Students had a 50% strike rate in labelling clockwise and anti-clockwise and found  the concept of degrees in objects particularly difficult. Half the students correctly picked the number of degrees in a right angle, however only four chose the correct number of degrees isn a circle and  only one  chose the correct number of degrees in a triangle. This may indicate they have retained more geometric knowledge in measuring squares and rectangles.

This data is very helpful for my enquiry in regards to the lack of knowledge about degrees, especially in triangles- our focus shape. I had not predicted that the students would score so low, so it gives me pause to think about effective ways of teaching the properties of triangles.

Inquiry 2018: Proposal