Connected: connecting with manaiakalani
"Connecting is a way of life for our students. Take it away from them and they will check out."
I like this quote from the Pedagogy site this morning because it is, I think, inherently true. Relatable for any teacher.
Manaiakalani has made connecting with Teachers and students possible across the country. It has given us the platform to do this and to help us be collaborative, to learn together.
Blogger was mentioned as a great way to help connect with and audience for both students and teachers and this is something I need to work on. Creating a wider audience. Also for my students, perhaps finding like minded teachers who would be willing to set up a Pen Pal system on blogger.
We also learned that to be truely connected you must be:
* prepared to be visible
* be prepared to share
* make friends and exchange ideas (either as a teacher or in your personal life)
* Collaboration with others. I am a huge fan of this.
--Being connected = being collaborative.
Being a part of Manaiakalani means being connected to a rather powerful network of like minded professionals. Gisborne just happens to be one of the biggest clusters in this network.
Google Sites
Above is my current site, it is still a work in progress however.
We have been working on our class sites. We first were able to visit and review other peoples sites, which was informative, and game me lots of ideas.
We then had a chance to review each others current class sites which was great. Gave me a whole lot of other ideas and some really useful feedback.
The main point that came through was that I need to show the visible teaching and learning.
I have also created a list of things that I want to work on over the week :
--Create and upload rewindable videos of my teaching for the students.
--Get a proper class photo for the homepage
--Weekly simple plan is in each groups page
--Success criteria and other resources in each subject page.
--Place a visually pleasing daily or weekly plan on Slides that can bee added to each week.
--Video's of various teaching sources from Youtube and the like.
A lot of what we have learnt this week is something that I am currently using and will still be using over the week. Maria helped me fix my sharing settings so my students can no longer edit/alter the class site, which is a relief.
I am really looking forward to using the class site more regularly and better with my students.
Personally all that we have learnt about sites over the past couple of weeks with DFI can be applied to my personal blogs/sites that I choose to set up. It would be a great way to share with family who are far away what s going on o=in our little family, which is expanding, which is super exciting! I can also set up a personal blog to post tips on cooking, teaching, gardening etc. Which would be a fun and creative outlet. We can also set up a site for a new venture that my husband ad I are thinking about. It will be fun to have a ply around with what we have learnt and can now use in a personal context.
Resources (courtesy of DFI).
Share resources, links and tips arising during the day
Google Certified Educator Checklist Level 1 worth bookmarking
The 60 minute Site - Lindsay Wesner
DFI- Google Sites Challenge this is a MUST do in prep for the exam!
Sheets on Speed Exam Support - reminder
Create custom headers for Workspaces
Google Analytics - a how to from Matt Goodwin
Kia ora Rosie,
ReplyDeleteGreat to read you are getting so much learning both your professional and personal life.
Congratulations! I hope I understood right with your 'family expanding'.
It would be good to have a link to your class site on your blog post too. You have an image which you could hyperlink to your site.
Maria
Congratulations on your expanding family. It is so exciting to hear about all the possibilities that you see for sites and blogs. I think it is awesome that have got your sharing settings for your class blog fixed so now it can become a truely useful resource.
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