Digital Fluency Intensive - Cohort #2 2019 - Day Six

Our day began with a beautiful welcome from the students at Tautoro School. The waiata that they sang was sung beautifully and it was an awesome start to the day.

We then moved onto our 'Visibility' focus with a Google Hang Out with Dorothy. Dorothy spoke to us about making the learning visible, ensuring that our students learning is not a secret to them or their whanau. We want our students to have opportunities to be successful, we want learning to be VISIBLE for them! If learning is accessible and available then students will advance! Dorothy pointed out that there is a clear link between visibility and acceleration. Hapara has made the learning visible to us as teachers, our google sites has made learning visible for our learners and their whanau. 

The success of visible learning was highlighted when Wil I Am visited NZ and wanted to support rangatahi from a low decile area. The visible learning on blogs from the Manaiakalani schools was evident to Wil I Am and his entourage and thus received his generous $100,000 donation!

The next part of our learning came from Whaea Gaylene - Tautoro School.

One of the things that she said that has resonated with me was 'Is my learning site something that kids would want to go into from home?'. The answer to that question for my site is NO. The site works and the students can follow what they need to do but it isn't really visually engaging for the students. I realised I have a lot of work to do on my class site to make it a place that students would want to go to after school. The other thing I need to do is to make sure all of my student's learning visible. This is a goal to work towards over the next 2 weeks.

I learnt a lot today with regards to what a successful site needs to look like and how it is operational. The two important criteria are: the visual appeal i.e. shop window and  the users experience - easy to locate ‘stuff’ (2/3 clicks). I have lots of ideas to use from the exemplars that we viewed. 

Organising my files and documents continues to be something that I am taking over into my home life. My digital school life is becoming more organised which means I have more time for my whanau life which is the most important!