DFI Day 5

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

• Today was another session on sites which was good to have some extra time to really get into things and experiment. I found the discussion in the morning with Dorothy interesting particularly when she brought up about "old school" teaching was alot about success going to the kids who could participate and anticipate what teacher wants. I had never thought about how we used to teach being like this. It highlighted just how much rewindable and visible learning makes learning accessible to so many more kids at different levels. One thing I did think about though was with all our learning so visible those children who love to learn could be providing extra work for teachers as they will be the ones that go on the site and complete the weeks work in one day! I understand that even though all whanau do not access In a our sites and in a perfect world they would but it can be a little disheartening when the majority of parents don't go onto the blog or site when you put so much time into it. I have found that sites are alot more pertinent in senior classes than junior classes. They still do play a role in juniors but I am yet to have it direct learning and be the crux of learning like it is in a senior class.What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

• I redid my class timetable today for my site and was frustrated when I the columns cut off half of the sentences so I was able to google how to make the columns in a sheet bigger and make the changes. Having the time to take today to look through other blogs and have a play with sites which has made me more confident to create and change sites. It just highlighted that with all of our DFI things it just takes time and practise to master things.

• What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

• It wasn't so much what I learnt today that I could use with my learners but rather a reminder that I need to make my juniors be more active participants on my site and use it better to as a teaching tool. It would make sense for the children to be more independent with their learning which they could be with the site. I found moving from a chromebook class to a class with ipads I lost the need to use sites as a daily teaching tool.
  What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

• I think from today I created more work for myself as I got alot of ideas from different sites that we explored but I think the experiment time allowed me to get faster at using and creating sites which in the long run will save me time. I must try the site challenge this week !!!