Session 5: Collaborate

Today for the Manaiakalani Pedagogy session we focused on the 'floor board' of being 'Visible'. Manaiakalani focuses on the idea of content being specific and intentional with delivery of this through the use of technology.  Another key idea was that the whole process of teaching and learning should be visible - planning, process of students, outcome, reflection and assessment so that there is no mystery behind what is being taught, and needing to achieve. The ability to use Google Sites has repurposed the modelling book/board, making this teaching always accessible for students. When developing this visible learning two perspectives should be considered- learner (sites) and teachers (hapara).

We then moved on to consider multi modal learning and the use of sites.  It was great to learn a bit more about sites, I have my own class site which someone gave me the template for earlier in the year. Through today I learnt how to actually create my own, which made a lot more sense for adding work for students, I had been taking some long roads to do some very simple tasks. The key takeaway for multi modal learning was that it increases student engagement, you are activating student interest through multiple mediums.

For our Create session coincidently Vicky had chosen the topic of 'Celebrations' which has been our focus this term at school. The link to the site I created is here.

Today it has been most helpful to have so many shared planning and resource docs. I don't know if I have ever attended a PD where you got such a large bank of useful work in one day! Manaiakalani has really set up to support it's teachers in an ongoing way.

I look forward to being able to update my site/create a site for next year.  The idea of mapping it out before beginning is important and having a clearer understanding of how to use the tool will help with this thought process.