Anne Sinclair

                Curriculum Progress Tools  Seminar 152 The Terrace, Wellington 20th September 8.30 - 3.30 PACT Looking at the big picture of literacy and where it sits with everything. Big picture of progress and use ICT to track individual progress Life chances, socially and economically, life skills, well being in mental health Tools for power to come out with basic skills What does progress look like Purpose: PACT needs to be flexible. Had a feel of NAT standards so needed to be changed to be more flexible and organic without huge checklists. Developing a website with self-service so teachers can be independent and use resources. Needed to have consistency - singing form the same song sheet with video, PLD activities - adds value and clear messages with less is more design principles and not complex but have real value. PLD for tools - peer to peer support Pitfalls - support school network Resources have a yr 1 - ...

LAST DAY OF DFI The last day of the DFI was a mixture of regret, joy, disappointment, determination and humility.  Regret that we are finishing today as w e have had such an amazing 9 weeks with a really committed group of people, that it will be sad not to share a Thursdays of Learn, Create and Share with them next week . Joy because there is something about working with teachers who are forward thinkers, positive, innovative, caring and excited to be part of a movement, which genuinely wants to make a difference for children in our communities. Disappointment because I failed my exam by not taking advice from those who have done it before and I did not complete 3 scenarios. Determination because I will redo the exam and fill in the gaps.  H umility because I have never failed an exam before, so now knows what it feels like! This journey has been like being on the top of a mountain (Mt Victoria), where you look out and see some parts, which are recognisable a...

Cybersmart and Castify The potential of linking cyber smart to every part of the curriculum is endless and provides an authentic way of contextualising content to the current subject the class may be working on. It then becomes integrated naturally and not an add on. Today there were many lightbulb moments but also a better understanding of the power of LCS in guiding what we do. I really liked the thought of sharing and connecting wider and harnessing the ideas of others to share ideas, solve problems of practice, to korero further and to collaborate. One of our MIT teachers will contribute her tool from her project to the Cybersmart curriculum next year, which uses learners to help co-construct material currently not available. It was useful to be able to share Class On Air episodes to fit with many of the work being done on IPADs. These will provide many ideas for the teachers in the DFI to try with their classes. It was good to see the excitement from the group on the possibilitie...

Anne Sinclair : Computational Thinking : COMPUTATIONAL THINKING Can she move? How many paces? Do we have to move? How many paces or places? A day of thinking aloud (allowed)...

COMPUTATIONAL THINKING Can she move? How many paces? Do we have to move? How many paces or places? A day of thinking aloud (allowed) and using the combined power (not internet) to come up with solutions and ways to work through a problem, which was empowering. OMG tech whizz Viv, came and unpacked her bag of tricks and took us through a veritable maze of understandings, links to sites, discussions, provocations and challenges that we will face in the unknown of the future. As always there is ambiguity and moral mazes to negotiate in this new world. The korero we participated in, uncovered a number of dilemmas we need to consider when we are planning our pathways for the future. The opportunities for linking with Smart Relationships of the Cybermart curriculum using Scratch offer possibilities for new learning.    Could company directors be replaced by artificial intelligence?   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=12265211&ref=twitter These e...

       Dealing with data An eye-opening review of the extent of what can be done using Google forms, sheets and analysis. I wished I had known previously the affordances they offered and how more quickly tasks could be done. There are so many ways that tasks, recordings, directions and sites could be made so they were easy to navigate and find. This has not been an aspect of my work that I have felt competent in, except for using tables and graphs for research and organisation.  The connections being made with our learning is continuously building on what we are doing every week and how it can make our workflow better. I also envisage students coming up with ideas for the use of tables and graphs to illustrate design features and create games. The group have continued to play an active part in collaboration and contribution at our DFI  It is so good to see how the group have embraced Manaiakalani values, pedagogy and kaupapa. They are also looking ahea...

ENABLING ACCESS SITES                                                                              SITES, INSIGHTFUL, SENSATIONAL  A day of visibility, sharing and connecting to all kinds of different ideas. it was so interesting to see other Sites, particularly at the College where we saw a variety of sites, but which were visible and easy to navigate. I was looking at them from a coherency point of view and from not knowing the curriculum or organisation. It was great to see how the planning had been thoughtfully designed to save time clicking and also the instructions being clearly articulated.  The class are very generous in their contribution and participation and happy to share ideas. It is really empowering to be in a group who are so...

                                    DFI Multimodal Sites Day 4 was a day of intense collaboration and sharing of energy and ideas. The multimodal session really helped the teachers to think widely and more deeply about the big ideas, which can go across disciplines and curriculum subjects. The session gave teachers ideas for using the Big Idea and expanding the ideas into many other areas relating to it. The affordances of Multi-modal is expansive and leads to so many other ways of thinking about a topic or theme. The site session was uber helpful as to the possibilities that sites can be used for. Using slides to set up some of the navigation of the site was useful and presented another way of presenting a page or sub page. Today was full on and maybe we needed reflection time to absorb some of the many new ideas? It was great working with the groups on ideas for the planning of the sites, as ...

          Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers Meeting                                             KPMG  Sell your tool to a critical audience who will want to know:  What is the tool/concept/idea? How have you tested it? What did the testers think? Why would we want to use it? What is it able to do? How has it evolved and what changes have you had to make? How and why? What do the learners think of it? Is it making a difference or will it make a difference? How do you know? What has driven you in the development? How is it different from other similar tools? What does your team (us) think? The project is not finished until it is finished and this was a hard concept to get, that the iterations, feedback, testing, data analysis, design element, purpose, are always in a state of work in progress. The other aspect was seeing...

A day of create, animate, postulate, stipulate and emulate! What a lot of fun and games with light bulbs going off and ah ha everywhere. Great learning with a group of people who get excited and do lots of OMG and exclamations. This is how we want our learners to be - not being afraid to admit to not 'getting' it, or sharing with each other and do some peer tutoring. Today has been such an enjoyable day and the time seemed to fly. The introduction with the create always inspires and reminds us of how learn to create or create to learn is interchangeable and feeds from each other. The work of Elwyn Richardson had a huge effect on my practice as everything he did was about excellence in every subject. I loved how the hook was so stimulating and inspiring for designing learning which was challenging and required competency but so creative. The writing which came out of the art, music, science, drama, music and exploration was amazing. Kent wowed everyone with his enthusiastic ...

Workflow Agenda: Google Apps and Tools Great introduction to the day with reflection of where we were at in terms of understanding. Good to see that there were things I did feel comfortable with and the areas I felt totally out of my depth but thought I knew.  Drowning in design deficiency is something quite disruptive, to where you think you are at developmentally. However, the process is iterative, so each week builds on the previous learning and keeps amplifying.  A useful day of being introduced to a number of aspects of GMAIL that we did automatically in the past, as an expedient activity, but had not included the options available. The times I said 'I will deal with this later, but never got back to it, and in some cases did not know where to put it! The continual process of managing workflow is so helpful and the group also added their ideas to contextualise for their situation.  A revelation was Keep, as the Uber application to keep us on track and organi...

What else did I learn at the DFI at Otaki? I learnt that what Vicki espouses in her practice and pedagogy is aligned. When we say 'walk the talk' and 'talk the walk' Vicki demonstrates these principles visibly.

Thursday 25th What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy? Every time I hear the back story of the Manaiakalani history I learn something new, which reminds me how dynamic the journey has been for so many people. The exciting part for me is the progress over time, which is consistent and evolutionary. What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional? I have been chaotic in the management of my folders and files and the session on Drive was illuminating, in that I realised how much time I wasted by not using a better workflow system. What did I learn that could be used with my learners?   The learner possibilities have been endless and being cognisant of adult learners, the potential for them of how to extend their learning was evident in the many ideas presented. The sites we explored offered many possibilities such as RBG, which I had never used before. The many aspects of today...

        Deliberate acts of facilitation  Develop trust and respect as a foundation to build rapport  The process of transferring from modelling to teacher actually doing it. Putting the challenge of how to do it in their hands. Making no assumptions about what they can/can’t do/know but having conversation as you are modelling and how this can be integrated into their actions and practice with their own flavour and spin for their practice. Using tangible things for them to go further on so they try. Continuing open to learning conversations as to how they are doing. Being patient and encouraging and understanding different levels of engageme nt Challenging and encouraging other perspectives and views