Creating an Advert in Room 11

 Today, when working in Room 11, we talked about advertising products and what makes a great ad to entice people to purchase the product.

We learnt (by learnt, the students) on how to use Canva to create a poster/infographic. It is a great way to create your design with many free options. #canva

A poster should have title, picture, ingredients, where to purchase, not many colours and make it enticing for the people to want to purchase my product.

Creating and modelling alongside the students supports their engagement and gives them ideas. A colleague and myself as creating masks to market at our "Craft Market" this term.

Does the advert entice you to come and purchase some masks and join the trend?

Advertising for the Craft Market

 Today I worked with Room 12

We were learning about creating posters for our Breakfast Jars that we are selling at the Craft Market this year.

I learnt how to design an advert in Canva and what is needed on a poster to advertise: title, picture, background, limited fonts.

L particularly enjoyed creating the images in Google Draw to include in my Canva design.  I used "mask the image" option to create some effect on my pictures.

Do you eat Breakfast on the go! Would you buy my Breakfast Jar?

Minecraft is here!

 Wow...a long time in coming.  The access to Minecraft Education Edition on Chromebooks just made school all the more "swag".  I have wanted to start a Minecraft Club, having students bring in their own devices to make this work...hence leaving out others who wanted to be part of the experience.

Now I can have a group, keen to Minecraft and enjoy a collaborative and creative experience!

Thank you Google and Microsoft for making this happen!

PS: I can now game at work!!!

What's next?

I have had an awesome time at DFI, learning, creating and sharing with new colleagues and back at my workplace.  I will miss my online Tuesday class for many reasons (including getting home from work "early"). 

I am displaying my badges proudly on my page, badges showcasing the learning I have undertaken for the last 4 months with The Mind Lab and DFI.

What's next you say.  As you know, the Girlie Swot will want to learn more...and as Google says:

Learning never stops

Dedicated educators are lifelong learners

So here it is...

Watch this space!!!

Moving on up!

It has been a great 9 weeks of learning.  I started this journey in Lockdown with a keenness to learn new and exciting things about Google and Learn Create Share:  A bit like, "you don't know what you don't know" - with the attitude of not professing to know everything, I embarked with an open mind!

Here is a reflection of the past 12+ weeks with Lockdown, PLD and in particular, my DFI Journey.

The experience of learning is never lost on me.  Whether I am a 'girlie swat' or a 'lifelong learner' - we are and should be on the look for opportunities to learn, extend, reinforce and just to know!

Thanks to Manaiakalani Trust for this opportunity and to the support from my facilitator Gerhard.

More Power to ya!

There has been plenty of opportunities to learn over the past eight weeks.  For me, it has been digging deeper into the Learn Create Share kaupapa and checking my understanding whilst exploring some features of Google Suite and other tools/apps that support teaching and learning (and life for that matter).

Our sessions were divided into different types of learning:

• Deep Dive: the possibilities are endless
• Chalk n Talk: gaining knowledge
• Explore: hands-on or play
• Levelling up: extending my knowledge and skills even further

Top right: Deep Dive; Top Left: Chalk n Talk; Bottom Left: Explore; Bottom Right: Levelling Up

Each week we have unpacked each of the following areas:

This week we talked through EMPOWERED.

I think this was relevant to my current reflections around our Outreach Programme - Kootuitui ki Papakura and the use of the devices.  I have been an advocate for partnering with Manaiakalani since its inception in our cluster.  I saw it as an opportunity for our families to have access to technology and a strong pedagogy around the use of devices to engage ALL our learners no matter their academic achievements or background.   

I can see each area is link together - Learn Create Share - students gaining and sharing knowledge. I can also see the links to our Formative Assessment (that's another post another time) within our school.  It's the key aspects on the outside of the visual above - visible for all, connected beyond the classroom, ubiquitous access anywhere and anyplace (next weeks learning) but to come away knowing we are here to empower our learners, teachers... and our families.

Often, at a parent hui who are new to devices, we are often confronted with why their children are being exposed to technology like a Chromebooks so early in their education...they are too young, too much responsibility, how much time will they spend online.  I am now armed with some key quotes, ideas and thinking and as another reflection....no longer will I be saying "It's just a tool!"

We are empowering our next generation.  Technology is changing fast...real fast.  Our students can be more tech-savvy than adults, then the teachers.  This generation seems to be grasping concept more readily and students are hungry to learn more and be gamified, engaged, play, learn, share, be the centre, be better...

I want to reimagine the set of slides we use with the families - I know more, understand more and can talk more about why we learn and focus on this kaupapa...why their children will benefit and what the future will hold for them under this umbrella.

I know we don't profess to have one of these...

but, if what we see around us with technological changes is anything to go by, the skills and knowledge our students need to learn and develop now will hold them in good stead for the future...they will be future-focused.

Creating in a new way!

There are many resources and things you can do using media and editing tools for creating and sharing ideas, thinking and learning. Its a matter of introducing students to a variety of ways they can create.

Two ways to create videos were explored today:  Explain Everything and Screencastify.

Explain Everything App

Explain Everything is an iPad app that has many possibilities for students to create and share their learning.  See here:

Screencastify used to make this video

Screencastify and Cyber Smart

Our next unit of work is called: Moola.  Our students are creating products to sell online and raise money for school camp.  Here are some resources that can support them to be smarter online with buying and selling: Smart Money.  The resources are focused around developing our students as CyberSmart.  Knowing how to interact and be digital citizens.