DFI Reflection 9 - Revision

 Overall reflection of course

I could not recommend taking completing this course more! DFI is absolutely great. It has been a lot of information but in regards to teaching, it has been great to think about my practise and review where I can input many of the things that I have learnt. There will be things that I have missed or forgotten but this is all rewindable learning for me to go back and revisit when I am ready. 

It has been wonderful completing this with other teachers from a variety of different schools. I have been able to share ideas about what my programme is like and what changes I plan on making. Others have also shared with me their thoughts and it has been great to brainstorm new ideas. When discovering new digital tools, these can be challenging to learn how to use and many of us have felt frustrated at some point as there will be something simple that we can't figure out. It's been so good having other teachers around me to help and to also help others. 

This course has made me want to move completely away from Microsoft Word and have all my planning online. This will make things so much easier to share, copy, adapt and organise. This will be a goal for me to create these new documents online for next year. 

I have set up the bones of my class site. There is a lot more that I am planning on adding to it. This is something that I plan on adapting and developing in my spare time. It is great that I now know how to add buttons and links etc with confidence. 

The final test today was a challenge as we were following a new format. Most of it wasn't too bad to follow however on some documents it was sign in on the test account and others I was signed in under my personal account. This made things challenged and therefore I did not have enough time to complete the whole test. I will find out later on if I passed. At the end of the day, DFI is not about the final exam. It is about what I have learnt in each session and thinking about how to embed this into my practise to make it more effective. I feel that I have learnt heaps and I do feel more confident when using digital tools. 

All in all, I am so glad that I was able to do this course. There are more opportunities to continue to develop my digital fluency. Could I potentially give this a go next year? You never know.....

DFI Reflection - Computational Thinking

 Empowered Students and Teachers

Technology assists the making of connections by enabling students to explore new environments and overcoming barriers. 

Embedding the Treaty of Waitangi: Partnership: working together. Participation: no one left out. Protection: All are safe. 

The New Technologies Curriculum

A digitally fluent person can decide when and why to use specific digital technologies to achieve a specific task. 

A digitally capable person can create their own digital technologies solution. 

What Digital Tools can do

One thing that we spent quite a bit of time discussing today was the future of technology and what things have already been created to be aware of. It's so amazing yet quite unnerving learning about the robot Sofia who was given official citizenship in Saudi Arabia in 2017 and the cars that are self driving and have to be programmed to make decisions on who/what to hit/avoid. We also saw digital tools that people use to impersonate others to create Fake News. There are so many different aspects to teach our young digital learners to be aware of, to avoid, to ignore, to believe etc. 

Coding

We looked a variety of different Coding Opportunities to help develop our understanding of computational thinking. I had a bit of an explore on studio.code.org. This was a Minecraft themed activity. In all honesty I found this very boring but I have seen children playing this and really enjoying it. Below is a quick screen shot of having a play with Scratch. I do find this these coding programmes challenging. I don't have the patience for them. Scratch Junior would make a great 'Can Do' on the ipads for the children. This is will also be a great opportunity for some tuakana - teina with our buddy class.