Anne Sinclair

       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...