Day 9

 DFI Day 9 External Recognition.

The day of reckoning! 

What goes in must come out. Right?

If you read my Day 7 post you'll recall I mentioned

there's nothing covered in these weeks that I haven't understood.

It has been fascinating and enlightening and I've gained

a fuller understanding of the digital affordances at our teachers' disposal

but the coverage was a little too fast for me to easily recall.

Results in a...

...and that about sums it up! It doesn't say how close to passing 😟😢

Outside of the test arena I have had the opportunity to continue to work at my pace on the Yr5 Patriots netball site. And I'm pretty pleased with how it's progressing. 

Click on the image below if you're interested.

Day 8

 Day 8

An introduction to Scratch. Such fun.

And on another note: I've registered to take next week's Level 1 Basics exam!

😟

"I'm empowered!"

DFI Day 7

DFI Day 7

Ubiquitous Learning (I keep hearing this everywhere😂)

Multiple devices at the ready!

The irony: DFI is not at the pace of this learner 😏

There's nothing covered in these 7 day's that I haven't understood.

It has been fascinating and enlightening and I am gaining

a fuller understanding of the digital affordances at our teachers' disposal

but the coverage has been too fast for me to 

recall when I try to implement the various "tips".

Case in point: I have tried everything that I can remember to centralise 

the devices picture that I have imbedded above, but...

(thank you expert helper Jeremy, it's now centralised)

For me, the material covered is "just in case" not "just in time".

But I do now have an enlarged pool of expert helpers that

I can call on in those "just in time" moments

👏👏👏👏

 How about this for DFI Google Sheets applied?

          Life Education Caravan draft timetable beginning of Term 3.

Day 6

 Although I'm not a classroom practitioner and don't have a class site to develop, I am a netball coach and so I thought I'd develop a site for the Yr 5 Patriots.

I thought it would be cool for the team to be able to track the points that they are being awarded as the season progresses so this meant I had to embed a sheet.

I also intend to provide links to warmup and skills videos.

Day 5

Day 5 @ DFI

This is the collaborative plan for Justine, Kelly and my sites.

 Click on this image to visit my site created today. This is a first attempt and a work in progress.

Day 4

           ↓Have a play with this button

And to end the day, after exploring a large number of the tools in Sheets, I analysed a student's blogging history.

An interesting observation is the obvious fact that Aaliyah does not appear to have ever engaged with the Summer Learning Journey,

DFI Day 3 a full day online in Google Meet

Practising in Google Draw

Creating playlists in my Youtube channel.

 I took the opportunity to create the beginnings to my first ever pepeha in Google Slides

And in between this during breaks etc. I have begun to transfer the Keynote slides that we use to run Friday's assemblies into Google Slides

The graphic images and the transitions seem to work well. I'm interested to find out how well embedding music and videos will go.

DFI Day 2

 Blog Meet

Dwayne's Blog

Edited video to come.

(Later that day)

Well Kelly and I enjoyed the process but we encountered several tech gremlins along the way but here is a heavily redacted version😏

Day one: Friday 7 May

 

A very full on day!

Wonderful to hear again the Manaiakalani journey. Reminded me again why I love my job. What a privilege it is to be a part of a story that began here in Tamaki and has rippled out across the country. 

I'm keen to tidy up my Drive files after having a quick play and to have clarified for me the differences between 'copy' 'move' & 'add shortcut'.

The 'deep dive' into Google Groups was very helpful and lots of cool tools revealed for word processing in Google Docs.

My personal challenge is to be come proficient in google doc design.

Feels very much like back to square one!!!

COVERT19

Why Covert19? Well I could've started: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." but I doubt that would ever work as a story starter. Or the tried and true: "Once upon a time" but...? Over done. 

So how about: Annus horribilis, annus mirabilis. What a year!

What a year indeed it is turning out to be. So why "Covert19"? It's obvious to see the disruption, confusion, disbelief and often tragedy COVID-19 has thrown into our many and varied worlds with scant regard to status, colour or creed. However, there has been, what I can only describe as covert, undercover, black ops. There are those who have refused to take it lying down. Those who have heard the call of duty and refused to let our tamariki suffer a substandard education. A visit to "class sites" on our school website and the extent of the operation, its complexity, its breadth, its wealth, its inclusiveness is immediately revealed.  The educators I have the immense privilege to work alongside have ensured and continue to ensure that our tamariki are afforded quality online learning.

As you well know an army marches on it stomach. It goes nowhere without, quartermasters, engineers, tacticians, cooks and medics. This covert operation is no different. These black ops have been amply supported by a raft of admin and support workers who, like them, have refused to let the COVID beat them. Together we shout "Annus mirabilis!" and pass the ammunition.

Term 2 Immersion Assembly

The beginning of each school term, here at Pt England School, begins with a special assembly where the teachers and management immerse the kids in the concepts, ideas, images, vocab etc. of the school wide inquiry topic for the term.
Term 2 of this year our inquiry has a Technology and Social Studies focus around, among other things: finding our way, mapping, measuring, calculating, coding, controlling and we have given it the title "I Like Your Latitude"

As our contribution to the Immersion Assembly we, the management team, put together a little performance illustrating the use of coding to control a robotic device. Below is the back drop to our little skit.

During the term break I constructed an upscaled, larger than life working model of R5D4, a droid from the Star Wars movie "A New Hope".

A Blank Canvas

Storage space is always at a premium in schools so to create more space for sports gear, back in 2017, we purchased a 40' container and placed it against the school hall on the end of the newest of our hardcourts.

It was a blank canvas crying out to be decorated. I asked the Yr 7&8 students if they thought painting a sports mural on the container would be something some of them would like to be involved in.
We talked over several options and arrived at the idea of silhouettes of various sports people caught in action.
The process involved dropping the photo of the container into a drawing programme, in this case Keynote, and then overlaying selected images from Google and arranging them along the container.

We knew the container was 2.4m tall so by adding horizontal lines at 300mm spacing we ended up with a grid made up of the lines and the container's vertical ribs.

We did the same with the end of the container.

Using the grid to help position them, the images were pencilled onto the "canvas" and then painted. First the outline and then filled in.

Here are Damien and Junior, 2 of the 10 artists involved, hard at work during the filling in process.

We've nearly completed the project! Just TJ to finish filling in his BMX rider, everyone to paint a second coat and then sign their work.

Excellent work Team!

Road side digital sign

A very wonderful project that I have been involved with in researching, designing and contract letting over the past few months has been our new LED roadside sign.

Our thoughts behind the over all design was we didn’t want the vertical sort of digital sign you often see outside schools with scrolling text on plain background. We wanted something funky, something that picked up on our buildings architecture, black poles etc. and was capable of displaying interesting graphics.

Part of the design was the security aspect: distance from the front boundary, height off the ground, robust fixing to heavy poles in strong foundations. As far as the vandalism aspect goes the screen itself is several small screens. These are easy to replace if need be but are in themselves very robust. They are apparently also easy to clean: i.e. graffiti paint etc. One excellent feature is the light sensor which dims the screens brightness on dull days and at night and then boost the brightness on sunny days.

The project was in two contracts:

 1) Black poles including underground thrusting of power and data cables and their connection to distribution board and network cabinet respectively: Construction Management Group, Dave Redmond: dave@cmbuild.co.nz  

2) Digital sign including the static sign & their combined metal frame and installation from Digital Signs, David Jaques: Dave@digitalsigns.co.nz

   

Both of the contractors have excellent “can do” attitudes. CMBuild were the contractors involved in the build of our latest classroom block. Digital Signs were great to work with too.

I highly recommend both companies to any school considering moving in this direction.

The software for the sign is PC compatible only so, being an Apple school, we also had to invest in a PC laptop. 

This step into the latest technology has been made possible with funding from the Mt Wellington Foundation.

Fiafia 2018

The return of the biannual Fiafia (Cultural Festival) was another great occasion. This was once again a wonderful opportunity for every student to participate in a cultural performance. They chose to participate with either their own cultural group or took the opportunity to experience another culture. Every time we hold the Fiafia we discover "hidden" talent that would possibly have otherwise gone un-noticed. The success of each item was in no small way due to the many volunteer tutors from our wider community who, along with our staff, held weekly practices leading up to the event. The large outside stage, huge stretch tent canopy, stage lights, digital backdrops and outdoor concert sound system helped to make the show a wonderful evening spectacle for the 2000+ audience despite the weather's attempt to put a huge "dampener" on the evening. The poor weather this year, has highlighted a need to find independent funding for a permanent cover for the hard court area. 

Our latest ILE

The school year has begun with the long awaited opening of our new 4 learning space ILE.
This is the last part of a protracted programme, that I have been heavily involved with, of a 5 classroom rebuild and 5 classroom roll growth development.
It is so wonderful to finally have the Year 2 team out of their "temporary" accomodation and into this beautiful purpose built Innovative Learning Environment.
For my fuller reflections on ILEs see my blog dated 19 Sept 2016.

School Production 2017 "Live Stream"

Once again I had the privilege of directing the bi-annual school musical production. This year's show was a past original play "X Stream", revisited, up dated and rebranded "Live Stream". The show's season ran for 3 nights, Tuesday through Thursday, in Week 10 of this past Term with a matinee/dress rehearsal on the Monday where the audience was invited guest from our neighbouring schools and kindies.The production was open to all the students right across the school to audition for acting, singing and dancing parts. There was also opportunity for students to be involved in digital set backdrop design, lighting, sound, stage management, costuming and props.
The basic plot was a conservation story about finding an alternative home for Tuna the long finned eel because her local Omaru Creek was polluted. Original script 
Here is a some short highlights to give you an idea of the backdrops, costuming etc. You will notice that rather than the main characters wearing masks that would hide their faces they wore decorated bicycle helmets.
Big ups to all the students and staff who made this such a great Learn, Create, Share experience.
If you'd like to use this play at your school please do. Just acknowledge Pt England School. If you have any questions regarding the staging of the show please feel free to contact me either in the comments below or directly to garth@ptengland.school.nz   

40' Sports & Flounder Tank Container.

The 40' container, proposed for extra sports gear storage and the housing of the tank for the baby flounder nursery arrived on site this week. The artist's impression below illustrates the configuration of the shared space (3m for the tank & 9m for sports gear) and the location of the container against the western end wall of the school hall.

The juvenile flounder project is an exciting combined initiative with Kauri Flats School.

Cycle Tracks Open

There was great excitement and joyful enthusiasm when the cycle tracks had their Grand Opening on February 23.

A big thank you to Toni Dale from Bikes in Schools for co-ordinating funding applications, contractors and suppliers. Funding was received from: Maungakiekie - Tamaki Local Board, NZTA, Variety the Children's Charity, The Lion Foundation and Dimension Data.

The 400m circuit and pump tracks were constructed by Trailpro. The bikes were supplied by Avanti Plus and the 2 storage containers were supplied by SEA Containers.

The assorted sizes of over 80 bikes will mean our tamariki of all ages will be able to have regular rides. The tracks will be open at lunchtimes for general riding and classes can book track times for specific riding skills sessions.

As I've said previously, it is a truism that a house doesn't make a home. Equally, ILEs (Innovative Learning Environments) are much more than the bricks and mortar, fancy furniture, 1x1 devices and ultra fast broadband connection.
Pt England School was built in 1953 and of the original classrooms 11 remain. Additional to these rooms we have 4 relocatable (temporary) classrooms with the remaining 12 teaching and learning spaces being specifically constructed as ILEs. The 4 relocatable rooms are to be replaced by mid 2017 by a 4 space ILE. That means that by July 2017 well over half our staff and students will be located in a purpose built ILE. 
In the month since my last post I have conducted an informal, anonymous, online survey of the teachers in the specifically ILE classrooms and what follows is a brief summary of that survey.

• 66% of them have taught for 2 or more years in an ILE
• 22% 1yrs experience & 12% 6 months
• 66% enjoy and 33% mostly enjoy teaching in an ILE

     +ves:

• student centred focus
• village raising a child, using teacher strengths
• other teachers to always communicate and collaborate with
• ability to provide for differing learning styles
• flexibility within teaching practice
• beginning teachers learn from those around them
• varied spaces for learning and class activities.

     -ves:

• more conscious of managing noise level
• when there is a reliever, it effects whole ILE not just the one class
• can't do my "own thing" when I want to, no real room for spontaneity
• have to be much more collaborative
• disruptive kids can easily disrupt the entire space
• students have to work hard not to get distracted by other things going on around them

     Interesting:

• all teachers need to be on board and able to work together
• enjoyed it more than I thought I would
• knowing others are close by makes you think much more about how you speak to the children/how you are coming across
• some personal ideas can be limited because there are other teachers to be collabrative with
• 3 classroom space works better (more easily) than a two space

     Pedagogical changes:

• give students more choice of where they learn
• Heaps! Mainly around the village effect - how to create a collaborative approach with teaching and learning (meeting every morning as a village, how to teach small groups in a large space, using the spaces properly for teaching and learning, etc)
• more openly reflective. I would always think in my head, but having to record it for others has been useful.
• reflecting/ inquiring into teaching practice as a team
• more collaboration

      Student enjoyment of ILE:

• LOVE having almost all their friends in the same space
• like having the options to work in different places with different people
• more room, more freedom, more options
• like having more teachers
• there are other teachers available during the times when their teacher is working with a small group
• Very much. They become a very tight knit community
• an entire grade level to be together provides a very social atmosphere
• more engaged and take ownership of their work as there is more flexibility around how they choose to accomplish their tasks
• don't like not having their own space

      Student learning benefits:

• it allows for better grouping opportunities which in turn helps achievement
• students seemed more engaged
• hard to quantify, especially when you consider all of the other innovation, inquiry etc. that has been put into our teaching and learning
• students enjoy taking charge of their own learning and having some choice

      Could a single cell be an ILE?:

• Group teaching, use of instructional videos, GAFE, Learn/Create/Share can be
• Reflecting/ inquiring into teaching as a team in-time is only really possible in an ILE when you share the experience/ challenges.
• more ILE on my own. More flexibility to respond to individual student needs and can ramp up the creativity 
• ongoing teacher collaboration is the biggest advantage to being in an ILE. Going back to a tradition "single cell" classroom would be very difficult if it were with a group of teachers who did not openly collaborate on a daily basis.
• giving students choice and flexibility with completing tasks

My reflection so far on these responses is that there are some space advantages in a purpose built ILE that help facilitate learning. ILEs help meet various learning styles through their greater flexibility. In a predominately Maori/Polynesian school, as ours is, the "village" aspect sits well with its ebb and flow of people, programmes and resources and developed sense of community.  However to suggest that the original 1953 rooms and the relocatable rooms are not innovative would be far from the truth and would do a disservice to the educators in those spaces. All of those rooms have access to wireless ultra fast broadband, have at least 6 iMacs each, all students have their own device (either iPad or Chromebook) and the teachers are actively inquiring into their practice. In fact, some of the teachers surveyed felt they could be more innovative on their own with more room to be spontaneous. 
My next challenge is to consider a meaningful way I can survey the students involved in ILEs. It would need to be from a "what do I enjoy, what don't I like" angle and not "compare and contrast". The old ways are "so last year" that few of them would be able to remember what it was like with any great clarity. 
In the meantime, if you've taken the time to read this post I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections.