Reactivating Old Blog

Like the silver fox that I have become, reinventing myself anew, it's time to drag this old blog and professional reflection methodology out of retirement - just in time for me to begin the Manaiakalani Reading DFI.

Comments

DFI Session 8 Media

Today I arrived a wee bit late after having flown back from a Manaiakalani Convenors' Meeting at Grey Main School in Greymouth. Before boarding my plane from Wellington to Gizzy I completed the WWW in prep for today's session on Media & then flicked through Dorothy's slide deck on empowerment. The whole Manaiakalani kaupapa of empowerment really resonated with me - especially when as a school leader I want education to empower not just our students but also our whanau - to give them rangatiratanga!! Being connected with digital technology, having visible learning & being ubiquitous (anytime, anywhere & global) empowers our tamariki. This brings agency and also helps our students create their digital footprint and supports them to collaborate. This is true for teachers too - utilising the kaupapa to empower them (us) too! I've had some new learning on using the Google Draw tool. The wee animation above is an image I created on google draw...

Distance Education During Lock Down

I haven't been on my blog for a while - not since completing my DFI last year. My professional learning in 2019 was turbocharged & now in these troubled times of rahui during Covid-19 my newly acquired skills have come to the fore. This week alone I have had online meetings with groups of principal colleagues, I've sat in on teachers having a google meet with their classes to set up learning for the day & I've also arranged a social session with teacher colleagues so that we can connect. This is stuff that seems so simple to me now. I've also seen wonderful educators step up to share, collaborate & mentor others to improve their capability to deliver online learning. It certainly makes me appreciate being in a collaborative profession that puts the well-being of it's learners at the heart of the matter. However, there is a dark side to this too. More than ever, equity issues are revealing themselves. Schools have students with no ac...

DFI Day 4 - Playing on Different Devices & Google Extensions

Today we've had a deep dive into the Cyber Smart curriculum and have had a play on the different devices that our students use - Ipads & Chromebooks. Delving into the Cyber Smart curriculum has been very useful & I can now see how this links to the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy. Also, as a principal who sometimes deals with hoha parents, I can better articulate what it means to be cyber smart & how this kaupapa, & way of being (behaving in online environments) underpins the use of devices in teaching and learning. Be Smart, Be Alert, Be Strong, Be Kind, Be Awesome! Sandpit Time on Devices To be fair, a teacher TELA laptop is a hell of a lot nicer to use (drive) than a Chromebook but the Chromebooks are durable & well priced for our whanau. We 'DFIers' went through learning a range of short cuts for using on chrome books. I think that our student learners would very quickly learn to use these shortcuts to navigate themselv...

Helen's Professional Blog

Search This Blog