DFI- MEDIA

DFI- Media 
We started today's session with a google hangout with Dorothy. She discussed the importance of connecting with others and how connect goes hand in hand with share. She shared a slide that showed the Manaiakalani mantra of Connected..ubiquitous..empowered...visible. It was interesting to hear her state that if there was one thing that schools are most likely to not do as well at it is the visible. I totally agree with this as I am one of those teachers that would always be the last to share their links and make pages visible. It is not that I don't want to share any of my ideas but there is something about knowing that anyone can go in and look at my planning and lessons that I struggled with. I am getting alot better but I guess it is just a new way of education that we all need to get used to as I know I am not the only one who feels this way. I guess no one wants to be judged..... I totally understand the importance of sharing and I think as time poor, hard working professionals the more we share the easier our lives will be and the richer the experiences we can give our tamariki. Funnily enough children don't seem to have the same hang ups that adults do with sharing everything on the internet. It was interesting to hear how the technology behind twitter has been used to get manaiakalani blogs out to even more people. Blogs are powerful tools for connecting children to outside world.
LIVE STREAMING 
The next thing we did was another google hangout with Kent from point England School. WOW! Its very impressive what he is doing with drones and live streaming. I loved the idea of streaming their sporting events and showing parents when they are having cross country and they can't see the children. This is definitely a goal for the future ... I can see so many opportunities to be able to connect whanau even more as well as the rest of the world. But first I must learn how to use a drone!! You Tube We also explored Youtube today. I already had my own channel set up which I had done at a GAFE course but I learnt how to make playlists today which was very handy and also how to embed them into a site which was very useful for the classroom especially as it stops the problem of things popping up or extra videos running on after children have finished. It is a much safer way to share youtube clips with the kids.

OOGLE SLIDES
After this we looked at google slides. Google slides are something that I use quite often for planning and sites so am quite confident with them. We also got a chance to play with animations using Google slides. Creativity was lacking in me today but I did manage to create something. Slides can also be used for pick a path stories or quizes. This is something I would like to explore with the kids sometime as it can be done on ipads easily.


GOOGLE DRAW
Google draw was another tool we looked at today. we saw some amazing art work using tracing and colouring which is another activity to explore with the kids. I have always shied away from Google Draw as I found it fiddly but I am becoming more confident with this now and am finding it a very useful tool.