Week 5 Digital Fluency Initiative - Collaboration/Google Sites

 

Week 5 Digital Fluency Initiative - Collaboration/Google Sites

A return to the online format for DFI for Maria and I yesterday.  This saw a change of cohort and day to make up the lesson that we were going to miss through our Accord Day, Kahui Ako professional learning.  I don't know what it was, but yesterday, was considerably easier for me. Wendy (the Assistant Principal at New Windsor) has given me a good name for this - I'm developing 'match fitness'.   I felt more confident in the online space and am finding it easier to attend throughout the days as my skills develop, and I get used to the speed of the facilitation. 

I was a fairly early adopter to google sites and have operated both personal sites (for a variety of reasons) and professional school sites (staff intranets) at three of schools.  I even remember the original google sites - classic, which I think makes me sound a little long in the tooth.  I think the refresh has been incredible and it's links seamlessly to google drive, the full suite and as always it's ease of use making it incredible for collaboration.  I often use the metaphor of a 'filing cabinet' for google sites, but yesterday's professional learning gave me some great insights into the power of the 'look and feel'.  "Multi-modal" was probably my buzz word from yesterday and it's given me a fresh perspective on the power of the hook for engaging the audience.  

The notion and importance of the landing or home page as the window or hook into the content for the learner made me think that I need to spend some time looking at the NWS site and planning for:

• Refresh/tidy up
• Hook/engagement
• SiSoMO - Sight, Sound, Motion
• Ease of use

I love to come away and think of an opportunity to use my new found skills and tips in an authentic task/opportunity and I have decided to commit to moving one of my google slide presentations on the school Local Curriculum development/school history into a 'site'.  I think there is more opportunity in this app to share the resources using the SiSoMo philosophy of * Sight * Sound * Motion.  With some time over the long weekend, I'm going to make a start!  

I really enjoyed the opportunity to have a look at the T-shaped Literacy database created by one of the wonderful contributors to the Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers.  I'm going to follow up with Paulette, Maria and Phil next week on how we plan to introduce this into our teaching and learning programmes.  I am mindful of the number of initiatives we have on the go and how full everyone's plate is, but I think it is worthwhile putting this pedagogy on the table for discussion and seeing where it fits in the 'grand plan'.  

Insights

* The Hapara Hot tips are always a really interesting and valuable 15 minutes in the programme and as New Windsor School gets up and running with our individual student blogs this will be very helpful in being able to contribute and make the learning 'visible'.  

* Some new tips and reminders in Google Site and considerably more understanding on the importance of layout

* In the busyness of a working week it's not very often that I get an opportunity to check out teacher websites and it was great to see some high quality examples of multi-modal sites, and also T-Shaped Literacy.  I really appreciated this opportunity.  

* The importance of the notion of visibility in the learning and removing barriers - e.g locking parents/whanau out through passwords!  Visibility is essentially set as the default mindset.

A big thank you to Vicki, Phil and the wider team for being so welcoming and accomodating in facilitating our request to move days. 

Note to myself that I need to go back and ensure I can 'present' with the new update to Google Meet.... I think I need to set up a system preference in my Mac to enable this....