DFI6 - Manaiakalani - Digital Fluency Intensive Course - Week 6: Sites - Enabling Access

Learn

Day 6 of the DFI focussed on the kaupapa of CONNECTED.  Dorothy emphasised the power of connection with our fellow human beings. She talked about the history of the original Manaiakalani schools - 13 schools all within walking distance of each other, but they only came together to compete. The digital connectivity and collaboration completely changed all that. She acknowledged that the face to face is important - an ideal - but the ability to connect digitally enables us to stay in touch with colleagues and fosters our wellbeing. Today, there are 100 schools in the Manaiakalani network, connected by a visible and shared language of kaupapa and pedagogy. The Manaiakalani pedagogy programme design focusses on Learn in Term 1, Create in Term 2, Share in Term 3, and  Term 4 bringing the three together to support innovation and acceleration. The professional development offered includes:

• Principals' PLG
• School leaders' PLG
• The Digital Learning Intensive
• Toolkits
• Admin staff PLG

Learning is shared and visible using Twitter and RSS feeds to connect to Professional Learning Networks (PLNs). 380,000 tweets later... You can follow the Manaiakalani cluster on twitter @clusternz

There is also Tuhi Mai, Tuhi Atu which is similar to Quadblogging but with a Manaiakalani pedagogy focus, using class blogging platforms to connect schools across the clusters.

Te mea nui rawa ia ko te noho tahi, 

ko te whakawhanaunga, ko te whakawhitiwhiti whakaaro

...the important thing is living together, making friends and exchanging ideas

Leading Learning using Google Sites - Makaore Wilson

The purpose of a learning site should be as a one-stop hub for learning. It should be accessible from anywhere, any time, at any pace. Learning should ideally be rewindable and students should be able to access it multiple times if they wish. Planning and teaching are visible, with weekly overviews and timetables etc.

Navigation should be straightforward with as few clicks as possible to get where you are going - no more than three clicks, preferably.

Skill Learning

The skill-learning today was all about Google Sites, with a few Blogger and Hapara Dashboard tips thrown in for variety. 

Create

Google Sites

Today's 'Create' time was spent working on our class websites. I chose to focus on the Literary Criticism web page on the site for my Level 3 English class. The aim was to make it more multi-modal (as per last week's learning focus). 

We looked at a variety of websites from different schools across the Manaiakalani clusters. Then, in our breakout bubbles, we looked at each other's webpages, rating and commenting on them, with suggestions for improvement. 

BEFORE

Here's what my Literary Criticism webpage looked like at the start of the day:

My site was very wordy, with a lot of text, not a lot of images, and lots of text with links. You also had to do a lot of scrolling down to see everything.

The feedback I received from my group included the following:

I set myself the following goals:

1. Create a slideshow for each topic and link the resources from that.

2. Embed more of the resources rather than text with links.

3. Include video of me presenting each slideshow - do at least one today.

4. Make the task completion tracker student-driven.

I achieved part of goals 1, 2 and 3 on the day. For goal 3, I did make one screencastify video on the day but when I was speaking to the slideshow I made it full screen so the video window of me disappeared - I decided it wasn't really usable and I would have to re-record it, so that is on my 'To Do' list now to complete. I also followed the feedback suggestion of creating a subpage so that there wasn't so much scrolling down.

AFTER

Here is what the top part of my site looked like at the end of the day, with the Hapara Workspace embedded and the Introduction to Criticism material replaced by a slideshow:

Below this there was no change so I haven't bothered taking screenshots.

LONG AFTER

And here's what the same material looked like after I had been playing with it for a week, created a subpage, and added some student work which had happened in the meantime:

If you would like to check out the real thing, you will find the web page here.

The next thing I want to do is make videos of the introduction to each section so that the teaching (=chalk and talk) part of the lessons is rewindable. 

Share

Google Site Tips

I think my key learning from the day came from exploring websites from other schools and seeing at first hand how the visual component of the website is actually very important, even to a 'word nerd' like me. It made me realise that I have to make my sites more VISUAL. So here are my key takeaways to share:

• Use images, GIFs and video
• Embed objects (slides, docs, etc) rather than just having text with links
• Consolidate information using Google Slides and embed these so that material takes up less space and looks more inviting
• Minimal clicks to get to things
• Use subpages for extended information rather than going on adding material down the page that the learner has to scroll to find
• Make tools to track learner progress open to the students to update so that they take more responsibility for managing their learning