GEGNZ Student Summit

Today our learners had an awesome opportunity to present at the GEGNZ Student Summit!
For months now, our learners had been preparing their presentations to share with other learners from around the country (Yes, country! There was a school that had come all the way from Rotorua to participate!) This was Stonefields first time at the Summit (this year's was the second summit, ever).

Group 1 consisted of some proud creators of a video game in the making called Undecided, who shared their process of the game creation thus far, covering how they use the game development platform, Blender as well as programmes such as Blender to create the models they use in their game. Not only was it super informative, the boys had also made it hands-on by allowing their workshop participants to play their game. The workshop was such a hit that they passed the 25 participant limit and we unfortunately had to turn people away.


Group 2 shared a bit about Breakthrough at Stonefields and how they used that opportunity to organise a whole school disco with some amazing parent help. Definitely not an easy feat, but executed smoothly all the while having fun!


Although the learners weren't fast enough to get into their first choice of workshop (Google Cardboard/Robotics and Character development) the role of presenting was invaluable for them. After the summit we took a moment to reflect about what we thought went really well and what we thought would have worked a lot better in terms of their presentations. The main learning that came from it was to be able to have the opportunity to practice in front of a live audience so that you can hear the awkward silences, the bits where you might be facilitating game play while 15 odd people wait to play etc etc. So proud of the team and an amazing job to the organisers - One keynote speaker Suan Yeo from Google Australia was particularly inspirational, challenging the audience to find a problem and solution to something they were passionate about.

The only downside would be was that we didn't book tickets fast enough and they sold out! So we weren't able to get non presenters to go along. Next year for sure! And hopefully more presenters, too!

It's that time already?!

I know I am not alone in wondering where on earth time has gone. The quote below represents progress. Day by day it would seem that nothing drastic has happened - no absurd changes. But, when I look back to the first term, wow - how I have grown, how WE have all grown as educators. It seriously amazes me. 

Our very last day at digital immersion was, of course, a highly practical one. We were required to create digital CVs - simply by creating a google site. This was an opportunity to showcase our talents, so to speak, to show what we are capable of, all the creative things we have done, all accessible from the one place. Another of the MDTAs, Chelsea, shared some helpful tips in creating her site. Like me, she is all about the aesthetics so I was excited to explore these sites she shared (I could have spent all day looking at these sites). The first is coolors - a site which generates perfect colour combinations for us to use in our every day designs! The second one is 100daysoffonts which is sort of the same concept, except it shares combinations of fonts. 

As for my CV... I'm still in the process of updating it and playing around with fonts and what not, but I will definitely share on here as soon as I am finished. Above is a little sneak peek of what it currently looks like. I love my colour scheme (taken from coolors.co of course!) Really excited to hopefully share this site one day soon. Yay for progression and all the HOORAY cheers in the world to the Manaiakalani Digital Teachers Academy! 

5th Annual Manaiakalani Hui

Today the MDTA Cohort was blessed to join in the 5th Annual Manaiakalani Hui. Some of the MDTA decided to capture the highlights of the day through Sketchnoting their experiences, some via their blogs and others, like me, through Twitter! It was a good challenge and a test of my ability to present ideas in a succinct manner, as I attempted to capture the essence of each speaker within the Twitter character limit and avoid the generic "great ideas shared by ..." Tweet. I had to think about which ideas were the most valuable to a) remember and b) share with my Twitter audience!

I used Storify to embed the Tweets I made throughout the day using the hashtag: #Manaiakalani.

With an assignment worth 50% of a paper due last night, and a day full of deep brain stimulation my mind was well and truly inspired and exhausted by the end of the day!

How do you see the glass?

The MDTA cohort was fortunate enough to join the August PLD for Teachers new to the Manaiakalani Cluster. During this time, we unpacked what sharing meant to us as adults, and then considered the importance of sharing for our learners. Considering the pedagogy of Manaiakalani, sharing is not a brand new concept to us, however, it did give me an opportunity to reflect on the opportunities I am allowing my learners to share their learning with an authentic audience.

For a very long time, I have felt that having a hub-wide blog rather than individual blogs for the learners has meant that we are on the back foot. What I have only just realised is that I have been looking at the glass as half empty, when I could have been seeing it as half full - seizing the opportunity, allowing the learners to share their learning with an amazing, connected cluster, through the medium of our hub blog. Luckily, it's never too late to change!

Screencasts & Accessible Learning

This week in our digital immersion class we used Screen recording in Quicktime player to create screencasts about how our learners and their whanau access their learning through our Hub Google Sites. The video highlights the major digital affordances of a Google site, through the enabling of ubiquitous learning and increased learner agency.




This was my first screencast using Quicktime, however, my learners and I use Screencastify, a screen capture software for Chrome, very often in the classroom. The main way I have used Screencasts as a tool has been to record myself solving mathematics problems and explaining my reasoning and the strategies I have used to do so. My learners have then been able to use this as a resource when they have trouble answering certain questions.

The learners have been using this tool to record their own thinking when solving mathematics problems. One really useful tool within Screencastify is the ability to draw/write on the screen you are recording. This enables learners to record their thinking live. Used in this way, their recordings become authentic resources they can use later for rewindable learning or even for their peers to use.

Inspiring Colleagues

It's hard to believe that two years ago the awe-inspiring world-class innovating Teachers of Google's ClassOnAir were in the same seat as my colleagues and I. Today we had Matt Goodwin come in and share with us some of the technicalities of recording and sharing his pedagogy for his ClassOnAir episodes. Their courage to lay the design for learning that they have created for their learners for a global audience is the ultimate visible learning experience and fulfils the SHARE piece of the Manaiakalani pedagogy by making their plans available for anyone to use, 

giving back to the community by sharing their take on what is effective teaching within their context for their learners. Knowing that we might have the opportunity to do this in a year and a half's time is SCARY but inspiring.