It's all about the Hook

Another great day of learning.  

The point was made about hooking learners in to get them engaged and how being creative is a real key to doing this. Many different skills for the 21st Century models have creativity in them.  Two things I want to follow up from this was reading some work by Holt and also watching the documentary 'The heART of the matter'.  It is sad that the opportunities to create drop more and more the higher up the school system that people go.

We want our learners to be creators not just consumers of content.  When pupils are creating they should have agency over the creative tools they use.  Problem solving, communicating and collaborating is developed through creative skills.

Creating is such a huge part of learning.  Dorothy said "It is in creating that knowledge is embedded."  I believe this to be a really important thought as too many times content is just a tick that it is covered without it truly being embedded.

I had never realised that when using Hapara I could drag the learners tiles to different places and this makes them easier to monitor.  In the past I have used groupings but I haven't done this recently and will get back to using it where appropriate.

You Tube

Learners should not have Youtube channels.  Things they want to share should be created through their Google Drive.  If the learners have Media folders in Hapara they can save videos etc there.  Mine don't at present and I will have to get admin to make these or otherwise use another folder they already have called 'Learning Stuff'.

It is great that I could change the setting properly on my Youtube account and now my content is safer. It is recommended that we add Google Certified Education to our playlists and I will do this later.

(Right about now I feel I should be making a Google Keep list of all the things I should be doing as follow up.)

Play lists look very cool.  You can make different playlists for different topics.  You can share playlists onto a blog, site, doc, slides etc so the pupils have the ability to watch multiple things about a topic.  You can collaborate on playlists with staff - that way you can all add interesting ideas about a topic you are working on.  You can save other people's playlists (but you can't add or remove items if it is not your own).  This is something that I need to start using more to make learning more rewindable.

Media deep dive with Dorothy

media or multimedia creates emotional connections and should be multi sensory.  It sould include sight sound and motion (sisomo).  We are all creators and consumers of multimedia.

When making videos it's not about how much it costs it's about what you do with it -  having a steady camera will improve quality of video so much (get a tripod). Video taken on a phone should be landscape. It is essential to be careful about lighting so you can actually see the subject of the video.  It can also be important to do voice overs if the sound quality is not good.

Green Screen is the name for chroma key and can be green or blue.  When using a green screen you will need to use editing software such as remove.bg, keynote, use instant alpha?  If going to the expense of getting a green screen then also cover the flooring as many kids will do things on the floor in their presentations and it is hard to remove the carpet from the background.

I like the idea about creating a pod cast and will look through other classes and schools to see what they are doing.  I may look at this being a task for a group in class later this year.

Google Drawings

Yay, a reminder about how to use the masking tool in Google Drawings.  Last week I had to put circles around all the images I wanted to cut out.  If I had used the Mask tool it would have been so much easier! 

After years of changing the background colour I have now found out that when you download as .png it will remove tiled background - this will be a time saver.

I must get my class to use the explore tool more as everything is under creative commons.  It is a really good tool as you don't have to go onto another tab

Google Slides 

Some hints for using slides:  Before beginning to make a slide for a presentation you need to ask yourself, "What is story you are going to tell? what is message?" Refine it down so it is specific then plan your slide show.  make your content before worrying about colour, start from blank slide, pictures are worth 1000 words, when presenting don't just read the slide, use consistent formatting, use sisomo, a big font is essential if it is for presenting to a large group, don't use too many words per slide.

You can add extra functionality to Slides and Docs by using add ons, this can be found in toolbar at the top of the document.

Some add ons that were show: Icons -  for slides can customise items free, the noun project - similar functionality but there is a cost associated.  With both these add ons you can change colour on both using colour picker.  The 'maths type' add on gives you all of the maths symbols in one place rather than having to insert special character.   Drawp has some good graphic organisers.  The add on's have icons under them that show what they documents they are for.  Scratch blocks generator is a good add on for students to practice writing code.  The blocks come up looking like Scratch blocks but cannot be transferred across to Scratch.

If you are wanting to use an add on with students they will need to have the add on.  These can be pushed out by the admin which saves the risk of students getting too many/inappropriate for purpose add ons.  Add on's don't travel across google slides to google docs so you will need to add them to each application.

The last teaching part of the day gave me some good tips

1. check the time zones on blogs

2. add me as an admin to my professional blog so I will not loose it if I change school. 

(more to add to my Google Keep)

install disabled by admin

For the create section I chose to use the add on drawp.  Unfortunately when I began this I was locked out of getting add-on's (Thank's Kelsey for remedying this). So my create was made by copying Kerry's slide of the organiser.  

Calendar, Keep, Mail, Meet and More...

If it's worth teaching it's worth capturing - make learning rewindable.  

This was a key take away for me in relation to the Manaiakalani pedagogy.  When we were learning about RATE I could see the links to the SAMR model.  I know I need to work on the Turbocharging part of this by bringing in more element of the Digital Technologies Curriculum.  One question I did have is where can I get ideas for coding with kids - coding club?  I have a child in my class who is very interested in coding and I would love to help him build on his interest.

Google Meet

It was great to get a refresher on Google Meet.  While I felt confident with working in meet there was new learning for me here too.  I learnt about blurring the background (yes I understand it isn't recommended due to the drain on bandwidth).  I still have more learning to do around blocking people and using the whiteboard function.  I will experiment with this in time to come.

I really like the idea of using the Meet Attendance extension as this would give a record of who was involved in the Meet, and I like that only the Meet organiser needs to have it.  I had never realised that there was one sharing screen that was better for when you want to share sound so will use this in future when sharing videos etc.

Google Keep

Google Keep was relatively new to me.  I tended to use Sticky Notes in the past but Keep has so much more functionality.  You can colour code nots, share them, add check boxes, set times, set reminders, draw on them, change the background, upload screen shots, copy them to Docs.  By using the extension you can automatically save sites then add notes to them or add it to a Doc that you have open.

Grab image text - looks really good to use.  You put a photo in Keep and then click grab image text - this will extrapolate all the text for you and turn it to editable text.  The only downside to it is that it doesn't keep the original formatting

Voice memo - only available on phone

Google Keep can be shared so multiple people can have access to it and if it involves tasks they can be checked of by whoever completes it.  If you share to group, but don't want them to check off items, then get them to make a copy so you're not all ticking off the same sheet.

Google Keep can be good for insert generic comments when marking.  Simply save a comment in your keep and add it to the relevant Doc you are marking

You can also add locations, time and date to get reminders for.  This could be great for both professional and personal organisation.

Google Mail

My main learnings were you can put filters on emails so they go straight to a selected folder.  I had never known about the confidential mode which means a Doc you have shared can't be edited, printed or forwarded - this is really good for dealing with sensitive situations.  I hadn't realised you could have multiple signatures to emails but I will explore this as I am still not sure how to change between the different signatures you have set up.  I do use smart compose on my emails and it does make things more efficient

In the past I have been told how to schedule emails.  To do this you use arrow next to the send button to schedule when you want it to go.  This would stop colleagues from asking why I was sending emails late at night!

Google Calendar

I already felt confident in using Calendar as it is something my school does.  Over the last six months I have been better at adding things to my Calendar and it means I no longer have to have a diary.  I like the functionality of using Calendar to set up a Meet.

Tabs

As a person who has multiple tabs open all the time I can see the need for using One Tab.  One tab combines all tabs into one location eg having all the kids blogs into one tab - I could also name have multiple One Tabs open at once, so I could have all kids versions of a doc open in one tab and all versions of another doc in another tab etc.  This would save having to open on the kids Docs one at a time on Hapara when marking.

Toby mini is similar to one tab.  I think I will get confident with One Tab first before exploring other similar extensions.

Tab snooze will close a tab and bring it back at a set time.  You can check to see what is open but snoozed and when it is due to open again.  This is great if you have home based tabs that you don't want open at school.

The short cut to close tabs to the right looks good, for someone like me though it would take a little bit of learning as I always confuse my left and right.  I blame this on being left handed!  I could share this with my learners so they can shut unnecessary tabs to the right quickly.

Group tabs may have similar functionality to One Tab and Toby Mini does not save the groups when you close the browser.  It would be good to use if you have multiple tabs needed for one lesson.  You can colour code them depending on the group they are in.

You can put your bookmarks into folders to make easier to find and then can have the folders on the tool bar rather than in big list in bookmarks manager. A good idea is to get students to tidy their bookmarks at the start of the year.  If you have sync turned on for bookmarks sync they will sync across devices.  This was a good reminder for me to tidy my bookmarks and I will spend time with my class ensuring they tidy their's.

The last part of the day was creating a meeting with someone, recording it and then sharing it by using the embed code.  Here is the video of meeting with Raewyn.  It's not great but it fulfils the purpose of the activity.  

I found to do this I had to make sure I opened it in a new window so I got the embed option.

Well that it for this week.  More learning to come next week.

Who Say's You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?

 I began the day with some trepidation - not sure if I would find this course too hard or too easy. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  While I did know a lot of the content there are always new tips and tricks that you can pick up to make your life easier.

I already had quite a good understanding of the Manaiakalani Story as my school has been involved in the Outreach Programme for a number of years.  I really like how the use of technology is removing barriers to learning and is making sure that everyone has an 'even playing field' when it comes to accessing learning.

I have picked up a number of tips and tricks today that I will use in my future teaching and with my class.  I has never seen the use of Table Of Contents in Google Docs and I can see many uses for this.  I like the way that the table of contents links back to the headings that were used.

It was also great to get a refresher on using different types of headings and titles in Google Docs.  I usually just changed the size of the headings manually rather than using the shortcut in the tool bar.  This will save me so much time in future!  Also the not so gentle reminder to not underline title - as kids think it is a link, was great.

One of my key learnings from today was that you can change the accent for voice typing.  I have used voice typing a lot with different classes but had never known about changing the accent.  I was so impressed with it that I made my 'Create' poster about voice typing. 

Google Docs is something that in the past I have used for typing - preferring things like Google Drawing, Piktochart, Venngage etc to make presentations on.  It was a fantastic reminder about the adaptability of this tool and the way it can be used in different ways.

There is so much valuable learning from a day like today.  Whether it be thinking through how you can use Google Groups in your personal life or ways to streamline your professional life.  I love getting different short cuts to use so things like shift+z to add shortcuts of files to other folders are brilliant.  Another shortcut I'll use is command shift < or > to change font size.

It was interesting that we were asked to put initials at the start of document names - I have got into the habit of sharing Docs through Hāpara and appending the students name to them.  This way I can ensure the docs are in the correct folder and are named correctly.

Over all I have taken a lot from today and am really looking forward to continuing my learning next week.