Session Seven - Digital Fluency Intensive "Devices"

 Today was a rather frustrating day due to having many technical difficulties during the day.  It started with being kicked out of all of the Meets which meant that I did not get to hear all of the morning's information.  As we were working on Chromebooks and iPad I also had to familiarise myself with how they worked and what the passwords were for each device.  However, I managed to get to the end of the day and I am still standing!!  It was a very busy day where I did learn many new things.

We started the day looking at the meaning of 'Cybersmart' and how Manaiakalani has incorporated this theme across all of the work that they are doing with children around New Zealand.  It is so important for us to be teaching children about their digital footprints and to really think about what information is appropriate for them to share.  For most teachers, this will also be a new concept as we did not have these worries when we were children or teenagers and it is important to keep this at the forefront of everyone's minds.  Having a clear plan around cyber safety is really important to share with parents as, like teachers, they will not have been exposed to being online as kids.  This is something that scares a lot of people and can make a parent anxious about their child publishing online.  Getting the children to realise that every time that they present something online it is personal and to empower parents and families by making them feel included were key messages I took from Fiona's presentation.

Today I spent some time having a play with Explain Everything and Screencastify.  I have had a try with both of these tools in the past when I was a classroom teacher.  I used Explain Everything a lot for my children to explain how they could solve particular maths equations to prove they were using a particular strategy.  I would get them to write the equation and their strategy on the whiteboard as well as recording them explaining what they have completed.  

I did get some further ideas by looking at some of the shared children's blogs that we were able to access.  This has given me some ideas of things that I can do with my literacy learners and also when I am releasing other teachers.  With my junior learners, I will be able to use Explain Everything to either explain something to them or I could get them to show me that they have attained the knowledge and/or skills that we have been working on.

I find Screencastify a bit more tricky in that it seems that you have to be ready to record all in one go.  This can get difficult if you are a perfectionist, like me, as it means that I spend a lot of time ensuring that I get the perfect take.  I do like being able to use tools such as the pointer and the pencil though.

One thing I have been struggling with during the DFI sessions is that it takes me quite a while to see what the purpose is of some of the things that we are being shown.  As I don't have a class of students and a class website that I can directly relate back to I sometimes feel that I am missing out.  This is motivating me to get a learning site up and running for my special needs learners.  I also know that if I am not using the information that I have learned about then I will not know how to do it in the future.