Session 7: Devices

The thoughts behind the Manaiakalani term of 'ubiquitous' was unpacked, meaning anywhere, anytime, any pace and (from) anyone.  It allows for learning to happen outside the constraints of a school day and if gives learners choice.  It was researched and analysed through data the 'summer dip' where learning from the year dropped right off.  Through having ubiquitous learning and also the 'summer learning journey' this could meet the need and support students.  Technology enables the removal of barriers, adds to solutions and gives opportunity of a new way of learning.  It is not just a tool.   Considering my own readiness for ubiquitous learning during our lockdowns of Covid  I was proud that I could move with the different tools my 2 different schools used.  I didn't say "I can't" but learnt and tried to develop my skill set.  While this was something I was proud of, now that I have done DFI I regret that I didn't totally understand how sites work, rather I 'threw' things at my site.  With an increased understanding and building it more carefully I would have been still using sites more in my class today.  Since the covid lockdowns I must admit I haven't taken forward a large amount, more the superficial site that was created in August.

We then had a session on being 'cybersmart' - not safe but more positively what are our choices as users.  This is the roof of our whare, if we have holes the roof will leak and it will create problems and we want to keep learners safe from the outside elements.  There are 10 cybersmart categories with learning objectives within each.  It is important that is covered across the whole school and collaborative planning is done so that students encounter all aspects of the cyber safety curriculum.  The three most important areas being Smart Learners (learn), Footprint (create) and Relationships(share).  Crucially it is important that students are aware that when they create and share this is public and leaves their footprint for anyone to access, be careful in what this is!

Using a chromebook - I found it a bit fiddly and hard to move mouse around and use - Vicky suggested having a seperate mouse to help.  Many shortcuts were similar to normal PC, but some were even faster, eg a screenshot.  Great to take time to see it from the student view so you can help with trouble shooting.

In the next session we worked on the ipads and using Explain Everything.  I have tried this out a little at school so had a basic understanding.  Unfortunately we had trouble opening the files that had been created and shared with us.  I find it quite an easy tool to use to make things on, however more difficult directing students to open projects I have made.  I can see how Explain Everything is a great tool, but I have struggled getting my students to become competent users of it.  We are not 1-1 which adds to the challenge.  I managed to create a lesson for the students on one of the Cybersmart lessons, I focused on the tools of Explain Everything as I thought this would be very handy to have as rewindable learning on a class site.  It also helped me in understanding and using tools.  There is a video below of my work.