Drones, hand held cameras, live YouTube and Me!

Today started with Kent from Point England introducing us to some pretty cool tech. Drones, handheld cameras and VidiUPro, all to be able to Live Stream. You can check out the presentation here: Presentation

Point England use Live Streaming to be able to include family members who are working, unable to attend or live overseas in the events and school life. They stream sports, performances, class items and other school events. Whanau simply join the link and watch what is happening live. St Francis of Assisi senior class has also used it to share learning one day. They didn't have the same equipment, they used teacher MacBooks to stream.

We had our own experience of failure today with Dorothy's link to us suffering from the dropouts and then having an alarm. Ironically it was about Connection ... but next week will be Connecting in person with Dorothy, as she is coming down to Christchurch.

Some notes from her chat with us:

• Being connected digitally is a way of empowering the learners and we can do it because the learning is shared and visible. It extends from the individual, potentially to the world.
• This is an inclusive model and again, taps into the human instinct to SHARE and to be connected with other human beings.
• Diversity is celebrated - what ties us together is the language of Learn Create Share
• Digital turbo-charges but face to face is also just as important. Digital allows us to do more or include those that can’t be there.

“If you are all paddling in the same direction, you have greater power, you are more efficient. There is an impact on the nature of teaching and learning because if the teacher and student each know what it is you’re meant to be focusing on you are more likely to reach your goals.” - Dorothy Burt

You will often find the words connected and share tied together in Manaiakalani resources and events- it is impossible to have one without the other. Because connection is a two way, two-person action. You have to give to get. If you want others to share with you, then you need to be a sharing kinda person.

Powerful learning, creating and sharing comes into it's own supporting a Connected network when teaching and learning is visible. Connectedness is powerful when teaching and learning is visible, learners (and teachers) have been empowered (have agency), and ubiquity is supported.

The rest of the time was spent exploring YouTube, Google Drawings & Google Slides. We saw some pretty great examples of Pick a Path and Animations made on Google Slides. Examples of planning in the Juniors and the Seniors done on slides. Comments can be kept private so that only those that have editing rights can see them. This can be powerful so you don't need to keep separate planning and teacher notes. 

I had a good play on Google Drawing and created myself. I've seen a number of my students do this and I have wondered if I could do it too. I don't think it is that amazing but I'm proud of myself. 

I think it can be challenging for our students to learn how to use a tool like Google Drawing. Even learning to manipulate the tools to create the shapes is hard. But it is important to learn, because 'we don't Learn Google Share, we Learn Create Share'. I think we as teachers need to model this more than we currently do, or at least I do. 

- quote, Mark Maddren.

So my aim this week is to try and show my students more examples of me being in the learning pit. 

Three is a magic number for making sites about dung

Despite feeling a bit under the weather I was looking forward to another Tuesday of learning, and I haven't been let down.

We met Danni Stone, our Year 7/8 Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu partner from Point England. She was here to teach us all about Google Sites. It was lovely to meet her and to make the face to face connection. She is very knowledgable and helpful, also willing to share her journey of how things have evolved over the 5 plus years she has been on this Learn Create Share journey.

Dorothy introduced us to today's theme of create. Create is such a powerful tool to use. I took many notes as she spoke but here are a couple of standouts:

• Creativity is a doing word … the whole parts of our body, not just a screen.
• The digital world can give us a world that turbocharges our creativity … but it isn’t the be-all and end-all … it is one part of the wedge. (see graphic to see the different parts of the wedge)
• Digital can capture the creativity.
• We don’t want our learners to be consumers, we want them to be creators. 
• Students that take more responsibility for selecting topics to learn about and this lead to accelerated learning. 
• Create: empowering through choice, information/knowledge, developing skills, building capacity & scaffolding.

"Creativity focuses on the process of forming original ideas through exploration and discovery. In children, creativity develops from their experiences with the process, rather than concern for the finished product. Creativity is not to be confused with talent, skill, or intelligence. Creativity is not about doing something better than others, it is about thinking, exploring, discovering, and imagining" (Kohl, 2008).

All this information has made me ask the question: 

Does our YMS belief mean that we only think it is about the digital? Do we ignore the other wedges of creativity from the classes that are using digital devices more than the juniors?

Sadly, we don't get much time to verbally process this information. Sometimes I wonder if it would help me work through what we are already doing in our class/school before we move on. I know my brain can be like a sieve and things come and go as fast as Katy Perry changes her hairstyle.

(or Mel Raisin 😊😊)

The rest of the day was spent with Danni taking us through Google Sites. I have some experience using sites but it was great having some sandpit time. The tips on this slide are fantastic, especially the size for headers and buttons.

In anticipation of the opportunity to do some creating, I had brought along a new Sharp Reading resource on Insects. We have been able to create our own site which we will be able to use for half our class for reading next week. It was great to be working on it with my fab work wife. Angela hasn't had a lot of time on creating sites and I think she found it helpful.

It was also interesting learning about Dung Beetles. We aren't quite happy with it but the bones are there. A bit of tweaking and we will be away.

Our Site

What do you think about it? What would you suggest?