The Power of Inclusiveness Google Site

Click here to view my Google Site filled with tips, tricks and resources to help inclusive practice in the classroom. 

Tool Kit Session - Google Earth

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Exploring and levelling up is always fun and the Toolkit sessions with the Manaiakalani Team provide just that. In this toolkit lesson I learnt how to help students to tell stories, create and explore with Google Earth. I will a lot of practice to learn about the world with Voyager. I like the way you can tour the world with a collection of map-based stories. Explore topics like travel, culture, nature, and history. Start Quizzes, Find Carmen Sandiego and even view data layers. At the click of a button you can begin Exploring.

So excited to level up my skills and implement this in the classroom. How cool would it be to create your own local stories and share them with your community. Let's get practicing. If you have any tips or tricks that your have discovered please leave a comment below. :)

The Power of Inclusiveness

Here is my pre-recorded MIT Pecha Kucha from the Manaiakalani Wānanga 2021.

Covid 19 Lockdown August 2021

 

With the return of Covid-19 the DELTA VARIANT we were plunged into a sudden level 4 lockdown with hours notice. 

As we have been here before is wasn't so daunting. Lockdown is such a busy time for educators and can be a real juggle managing your own whānau, online preparation and teaching. Our kura focuses more on well being than replicating the daily life in the classroom, which is so important during this time. 

Being part of the senior team our tamariki are familiar with a digital platform so the transition was quite smooth. Our team set up 'Learning from Home buttons' in our Goggle site where we created a variety of  interactive mahi. Reading, writing and our inquiry could carry on as normal and we tweaked maths, science and art. We also developed a choosing board with a range of learning activities that the students could select. 

I then created a series of screencastify (videos) to support our whānau and teach them how to navigate our Toroa Google Site so our message to both students and whānau was transparent. Lockdown always creates unique opportunities like connecting with whanau, following teacher social media platforms where so many resources are shared, professional development by attending Manaiakalani Tool kit sessions and of course for me time to continue to work on my MIT inquiry project. On so many levels I find Level 4 lockdown a blessing, a moment in time where we can take a pause, adapt and grow as an educator but also time to yourself to fit in that walk or run, bake and whānau fun. Literally you have time to stop and smell the flowers (totally cliche I know!)

Has lockdown affected your project? 

Not at all. Lockdown has allowed me to catch up on some mahi, adapt and research ways to improve my knowledge for preparation of my Google site, which will be a curation of resources for teachers. My inquiry is based on supporting learners with specific needs to understand and unpack instructions. Being in lockdown is a gift of time. It gave me the opportunity to create instructions audio and/or visual informative videos to support whanau. If anything the shift to Level 3 is going to create more barriers for my Inquiry as 'Bubble Teaching' is very restrictive, you work with a range of students across the school and from whānau bubbles making it more challenging to have time for  connecting online with your own cohort. Finding the balance moving forward with be a challenge as Bubble teaching is more like a holding pattern until the return of a 'normal' school day. 

MK Toolkits Session

 

Exploring and levelling up is always fun and the Toolkit sessions with the Manaiakalani Team provide just that. In this toolkit session I refreshed my memory of how to use Gamefroot (we used the Mihi Maker with our tamariki in 2020). It was like being a beginner again, I created my character but it stood stationary doing all the things I had asked it to do but not move. I had forgotten to build in the code the instruction to move, walk, run, anything!  I enjoyed learning all the new tips and tricks from Herman. I think it's fantastic that the tamariki can build their own characters, upload photos for backgrounds or even insert a picture of your own pet. I liked the idea to create your own story or a story from your region. 

Some of the key messages, tips and tricks I recorded were;

• The platform is larger than other coding websites e.g Scratch. This larger canvas allows the creator to create layers & levels within the game.

• When creating your own characters you may need to resize the 'hit box' to allow for the character to move correctly within the game. e.g not fall through floors.

• Once students are confident with coding, look at collaboration and divide the parts of the story up between them. E.g, images, storyline, movement etc.

• For beginners and when refreshing it is always good to start with the tutorials!

• When teaching in the classroom build in checkpoints like taking a screenshot of the code they created that day and posting to their Blog with next steps. Another good tip was to set time limits to prevent students spending all there time on character building... making them look groovy! 

Reminder to myself... Keep an eye out for the changes in Gamefroot as they are working on it being able to embed directly into the Blog. This will  allow students to play it within the blog and leave a comment.

Now I had better finish my game! 

Ideation

 

 Idea generation represents a process of “going wide” in terms of concepts and outcomes. For this part of the design process we used the Crazy 8's method. Using keywords or sketches to record innovation ideas. The goal is to push from our first idea, to produce a wide range of solutions for our challenge. In this process I struggled with the 'going wide' my views were narrowed by restricting them to what I already know or think I know! I found the discussion inspiring and thought provoking, opening up new pathways for me to investigate. 

Interestingly when my MIT colleagues added their stickers to what they thought was a good idea, I was surprised as for me it was not a new idea, it is something we already do in the classroom to support our learners. My idea that I was leaning towards only got one sticker. This is yet another stage in the design process that is making me challenge my own ideas, rethink and tweak my inquiry. 

Interpretation

 

During this stage we looked at how to analyse and unpack our problem.  Interpretation allows us to create opportunities for action in our plan. The "How Might We ... encourages us to turn our problem into an opportunity.

After we recorded our ideas of HMW on our posters we then put them up around the room. We read each others poster and gave feedback in the form of HMW questions on post its and placed them on each poster. 

This process made me really think and question my inquiry and how others interpret it. It has helped my narrow down the key aspects of what I am trying to achieve but at the same time has given me much to reconsider. Definitely food for thought in this design process. 

Who

Who does this Moonshot project involve?

Who am I collaborating with on this project?

Who are my team?

Who has a voice in this project

Who: 

Learners - exactly who

Colleagues: co-designers, collaborators, sounding boards etc

Experts: who is being invited to add expert opinion

This process found us looking at our inquiry problem and focussing on the who... This poster is a brainstorm of some of the supports I can tap into throughout my inquiry. 

As I zoom in on my inquiry I can see how many of these support networks will strengthen my ideas around scaffolding instructions for a range of learner needs. 

Moonshot Proposal Feedback

As we continue to unpack our Inquiries and zoom in on the key ideas we explored each others through the process of the five 'WHYS". Here is my buddy Migi's wonderings about my Moonshot Proposal.  

Empathy

What do we know already? 

Understanding another human’s experience and understanding human needs:

Carrying on from our Discovery we continued with a new role play. This task was to act out our project with a partner. After some prep time we acted it out for the MIT team.  I found this a challenge as my project reflects a group of students. I used the soft toys as I acted out the different scenarios. It gave us an opportunity to share briefly about our learners and their struggles to help build and understanding of the diverse learners in our classroom. Here are my 'little friends' that helped out during this role play.

                                                     

           I worked with Kath Roach from St Francis of Assisi in Christchurch. 

                     Kath's inquiry is around literacy in the junior school. 

Discovery

 

In this second session of 'Discovery' we did a role play activity at the fictional 'Kuaotunu Area School'. 

Our roles were parents at a BOT meeting, where the Principal and the Chair were reporting to the parents some of the issues at the school. We were each given a 'parent' role to play that ranged from a lawyer, plumber, professor, artist, real estate agent, roading contractor/engineer, and farmer. The Principal reported the school's issues which were our identified challenges, and within our roles we had to question these challenges and talk through why they were a potential problem. Over all it did not paint a positive picture for Kuaotuna Area School. 

This session was helpful as it clarified how our challenges were seen from different perspectives. It also identified the vast range of experiences within the MIT team and highlighted the many different skills in the room. This is exciting as we have great resources within our MIT ropu. 

Moving forward I am looking forward to seeing where this challenge will go. 

MIT Connect Hui Feb 2021

And i'm off.... my adventures continue with MIT with our connect hui in the Coromandel. I met up with the South Island crew and we continued our journey to Kuaotunu. Arriving safely we had a wonderful meet and greet by Dorothy. After a quick tour of the whare I unpacked into my home away from home, hidden amongst the garden with a backdrop of the bush surrounded by the bird song of our NZ native birds.

What a slice of paradise to escape to.

This Connect Hui would be the first of many face to face hui this year. There are seven teachers from a range schools across New Zealand. It was great to talk to all the teachers and discuss their proposal ideas and also connect with the teachers I had the pleasure of working with on our Moonshot proposals. The purpose of this hui was around team building with our MIT 2021 colleagues and to start our design thinking process around our proposals.

With the support of the Manaiakalani team; Dorothy (Logistics and Cheerleader), Matt (Co-pilot and Ship Steadier) Jenny (CEO Manakalani Trust & Master Chef) we were in good hands.

Design thinking "is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for ... success.” Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO.

This connect hui will see us explore six design thinking ideas and put our own ideas to the test, as we explore the 'Why'.

 I look forward to this challenge and working with the MIT team in 2021 and being part of their inquiry journey. 

MIT 2021 - Here we go!

 MIT 2021 

Step #1 & 2 The Moonshot Proposal

The first step on our MIT 2021 Design Thinking Journey was to look at what the challenges impacting achievement that I have identified to focus on in this inquiry. My first challenge was keeping my statement succinct! What was the why? 

I read a book in 2016 called 'Start with the WHY' by Simon Sinek. This fundamentally changed me as a practitioner. In slide 3 I created a brainstorm of all my wonderings. Next we had to explore who the problem was for and how did we know, what evidence did we have?  Then unpacking what was my actual proposal and how could digital technologies support my inquiry. 

The second step we were assigned a buddy to ask WHY.

The 5 Whys Method - You know what the problem is, but the challenge is to solve it? The 5 whys technique will support you to dissect the problem and reveal it's underlying causes. The beauty of the tool is in its simplicity. Not only is it universally applicable, it also ensures that you don’t move to action straight away without fully considering whether the reason you’ve identified really is the cause of the problem. 

With the 5 Whys, our initial answers usually allow us to look at the most obvious aspects of a problem or situation. With every why, we dig deeper and deeper into the problem.  

The method is simply asking the question ‘why’ five times! 

This Moonshot proposal saw me challenge my own ideas and also took awhile for me to complete. Personally I need some time to process my thoughts and mull over ideas and explore the why.

I hope you enjoy my proposal. :)