My Professional Blog

Today we focused on the revision of the content we learned and tips on Google test. It was a good opportunity for us to revise what we know and add another certification that would be great on our CVs. If we passed, great. It will look great on our CV, with something different to add to my profile - not many teachers have those kind of certifications for professional development. If we didn't pass, it is 10 US dollars gone, but we still have done a 9 week course, and we now have a lot more tools on our hands that would help us. Whether I have passed or not, it was still a great learning opportunity, exploring different learning tools and creating things with it.  Overall, I have found Create activities quite fun to do, and that was the most memorable as well. This gave me chance to think about what could work or what couldn't work with my own class. If I already knew some things, I could always use that time to extend myself abit more, if not, I could do things on my own pace, ...

Today's focus was on a computational thinking and coding. I had some time to explore programs like Flappy Coding, Scratch Jr, Lightbot. Lightbot was very similar to Beebots we had at school, and I remember we did a PD session talking about using directional language and computational thinking.  While coding games like Flappy Codings were the most fun when I tried, it wasn't something my students were able to use, because they need to be able to read the coding words, and get them used to the language beforehand. I tried downloading Scratch Jr as well, but I found this one very confusing. I wanted to have a go a bit more but I ran out of time. If I want to use this in class I need to know how to do all the stuff there, so I decided to make the Lightbot activities students can do. I tied this in with letters and building words as well as coding, which I thought was really cool. If they get it and getting used to the challenge, I could add more conditions in like, "Pass at le...

Today we focused on Chrome Book and Ipads. Because I couldn't get Chrome Book from other teachers, I played on the simulator. It let me practice skills that I needed even though I didn't have the real computer in front of me.  Chrome Book was very similar to Mac which I was already used to using because my school computer was Mac. However, there were a few things that were different because the layout of the keyboard was a little different. It was a good way to experience something seniors used as well as juniors as I have never used these before. If I ever teach seniors this would be helpful when students are having problems with their Chrome Books. It would be especially useful to know how to trouble shoot on there and reset the device, which I have also tried practicing. Next, we went into Ipads and learned Explain Everything. I have used it in class before, and I am still learning, even though I'm not completely comfortable with it. We learned how to put pictures and ed...

 Today we focused on Google Site, and our focus was solely on Multi-Modal site. There was the main text we focus on, and around it, there were different forms of texts that helped understand the topic. The topic I focused was Super Heroes. To learn about super heroes, we came up with activity ideas first using Google Jamboard. This was another app I haven't used before. It was a whiteboard app where you can collaborate with people and there were some useful tools like lazers that you can used to present.  After that, using those ideas, we built our new DIY site seperate to our already-made class site. Because I have made class site before, it was fairly easy to do.  Only thing I had a hard time with was making the buttons from scratch. Getting the pictures for the buttons and making it circular was easy enough, but when I saved the file onto my computer and uploaded it as a photo, the icon looked quite tiny and it had a lot of unnecessary space. I fiddled with this for a ...

 Today our focus was on Google Maps and Spreadsheet. I found google maps easy enough to understand because I use it very often, whenever I travel a bit far. We learned how to mark places with different icons and colours (had some fun changing up colours and icons) and I have marked places I often go. However, I struggled with Spreadsheet quite a bit because I never really use it, only occasionally. So our create activity was to use some blog data to analyse. This is my spreadsheet that I made and the next one down is the graphs to go with it. The hardest part was knowing which part to select, and meaning of these code languages that popped up every time I tried to do things. I got there in the end though. This was really useful for organising and managing student data, which I am not quite good at yet. I think the graph will serve very useful especially. 

Today we learned about google slides, google drawing and youtube.  I have been using all of these quite frequently, and I knew what I was doing mostly. I think the most important learning I've done today was different way of using google slides and google drawing (mostly google slides) and I have made an interactive board game. I didn't know I could link different pages from the same slide.  My idea was to create a board game linked to literacy, and I really liked the part where I added some audios to match words. This looked like a great literacy game while I take guided reading group.  My only concern is that my students are still learning how to use Explain Everything, and because they are quite young, I don't want to confuse them by using another app. I also made this using google drawing. I explored different menus in there and found that most of it is quite similar to google doc. I think I'm reasonably confident with this.

Today we learned about Google Keep, Google Meet, Google Calendar, and how to create events and hangout meets. I already had a Google Keep in my phone which I constantly used, but it was the first time for me to look at the PC version. While I knew how to do all the basic things, one thing I found really handy was that I could save anything I find online to Google Keep while I am browsing, which I couldn't do on mobile app. As for Google Meet and Google Calendar, I have done most of the things we were doing when we went to lock down, and I already knew how to record myself and how to present my screen. One thing I learned was to present my tap instead of my whole page. This was a useful tool to use if I wasn't trying to show others multiple taps at once, and I could also change the tab I was presenting quite easily with a click.  I learned how to get email about blog comments, which I find really handy. For me, one of the wondering was... why couldn't they just make this int...

I attended Digital Fluency Intensive course run by Manaiakalani Trust today.  I have always felt in my classroom, that technology and ipads were just additional tools that I could use in the classroom, not necessarily needed. I didn't really use ipads in class and I recently started using it as part of my literacy programme. What I have learned today was that it doesn't have to be a side tool, and it can become a tool that students can use to use their imagination and improve their critical thinking skills. While I was learning the things that we could do with Google Drive and Doc, It took awhile for me to think of a plan for the Create activity, find the right pictures, and find colours that go well together.  I put together something that kids might like to do, which was a cat cafe advertisement.  If it was a cat cafe advertisement like I did, kids would need to use their creative and critical thinking skills to plan and make the poster. For example, they would have nee...