DFI Day 7: Devices

A trying day for me today, but a day of great learning.

The ability to rewind some learning for our tamariki has been made available through classroom sites, that’s so empowering. Technology removes obstacles and makes learning available 24/7 or when the tamariki want to access their learning.

I increased my knowledge and confidence by watching more, exploring more and asking more questions when I got frustrated or lost in my learning. The biggest challenge was the “Google Vids” and “Explain Everything” using the whiteboard online. But, the more I explored using the whiteboard, the more I learned and wanted to do more to enhance my understanding more. Knowing that we have facilitators close by to help us has been a great help and really mana building too.

Going through these learning opportunities help us to navigate and become more competent digital device learners and kaiako. I have enjoyed this DFI journey, even when things get really tricky. Thank you so much for helping me fill my kete up, so I can be a more effective teacher for our tamariki.

 

These were by far the most challenging for me today, trying to remember how to embed videos or remember how to use the “Explain Everything” was really trying, but, we got there and I felt like I learned lots, sometimes I think as we do these classes, we are really travelling the path of our learners too. They may, and will most likely experience all of these challenges too, and to understand what they are going through is a bonus for us as kaiako.

DFI Day 6: Enabling Access Sites

Monday 6th July 2026: #6 Class

Reconnecting: with everyone has been nice to get started in our holidays.

Dorothy Burt:

Harnessing the power of digital technologies to strengthen communities and the world. The structure that Maniakalani has is a sought after connection. All these years later this network is still doing well and connecting. A hybrid community has been set up as individual schools. A diversity: Learn – Create – Share. This enables us to make connections with all. Our program is systematised, time can be very precious. 

Our systematised Program.

Connection by design, it’s not random. Time savers without having to do the Admin work. Learn, Create, Share works.

Chalk ‘n Talk | He kōrero whakamārama – Vicki:

Leading our learning with Google Sites: The “why” in digital learning environments enables accelerated progress. WHat are our effective teachers doing? Learn, Create, Share – Having our learning visible and whānau are able to connect with their learning

Explore: Evaluating Class Sites: 

Lisa: Her mentor starts with a fun game and then mahi – you’ve got to do the mahi before moving on to the next game: I will try that for my learners in Term 3: Keeping things simple on our class sites is making sure it’s very user friendly.

Lisa shared her class site. I was so impressed with how easy it was to navigate through the site, the high engagement activities and the easy step by step learning opportunities.

Looking at everyone’s class site, fill out forms and look at how we can do better and improve on, these are learning opportunities.

Creating with Sites:

Setting up a new class site – this was so valuable to do. I had totally forgotten how to do it, but once we got into it, things started flooding back. 

This is my new class site that I started from scratch with Vicki, Tai’s and the rest of my groups help today. When I was finding it hard to remember something, someone asked the question, or if I struggled with something Vicki was there to help support me through it. I will be going back to my mahi for my class site while it’s fresh in my mind. I am keeping my learners in mind as I set things up. I ‘m looking forward to having them access things to help support my tamariki with their mahi.

 

DFI Day 5 – Collaborative Sites

DFI – Collaborative Sites.

I loved learning from what Dorothy was talking about “visible learning”. It made me think about it in a different perspective. I imagined looking at it from a students view and a parents view. Dorothy said “The learning journey needs to be visible to our learners, parents, we need absolute clarity, for parents to understand, this is what we/your child needs to do to be successful in school” I love hearing from Dorothy and learning from her wisdom and experience. Nga mihi nunui.

WOW!!! I’ve always been scared of our class site. I have been contributing to class sites for several years and only doing the minimum. Setting up a site from the start has been so empowering and confidence building. The step by step process and guidance and support has been so enlightening and all I want to do is sit and create a series of sites to continue to work on my site building knowledge. Even learning about the names and processes of setting up a site was so supporting in my journey of not being scared to set up a class site or add or delete things on the site too, I feel so excited to do more and contribute more, where I would only do the minimum because it was so scary!

Here is my site

Visible learning and making sure I have that visible for all. Our tamariki, our parents, our SLT team, myself, my colleagues, our teams, and having it available and present. It reminds me of making sure everyone knows that it’s not a secret, it’s available for all and it helps everyone to be successful and to return back to things and work on and build on our learning. Reflection and current learning and future learning, frontloading and having it visible for all – we are all in this canoe together – He waka eke noa.

My confidence in creating a site is out the gate today. I have lots of other school work to do and all I want to spend my time doing on my new site. That says a lot for me. Thank you Hinewa, Vicki and everyone facilitating for us. Nga mihi ki a koutou.

DFI Day 4: Dealing with Data

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X04dTlbT1TlyDBkZ0mb6KROSn0MlRkn-lxYP5fwXbqs/edit?gid=1360831893#gid=1360831893

 

Kia ora koutou. This is Day 4 for DFI and I feel so lucky to be on this journey. The opportunities I have been given from doing this has been so enlightening and empowering.

 

Dorothy Burt: Ako can enable all our tamariki to have an academic shift. Tohatoha – sharing is important. We need to add this social value. Learning and community – intentional. Harnessing share – levelling up the plus factor. 

It’s important to know how to finish something – Does our tamariki know when they have finished something to the best of their ability. As they feel successful – they will know what it means and how it feels having finished something – praise their success.

Thank you so much for your kōrero Dorothy, it really resonated with me. Sometimes the most obvious is not so obvious to what our tamariki are needing. That narrative of explaining or discussing their learning and the importance of finishing a task is so empowering. 

 

Learning how to do QR codes today was really helpful. 

How to add an image into Google slides was so empowering, I have spent many times getting frustrated with trying to add an image into Google sheets…

My Maps – seeing the world map and realising how it can be so beneficial to our tamariki and their learning.

Resizing cells in Google sheets, I’m so grateful for this learning. It will help me in my future planning and learning and teaching.

 

The confidence I feel in improving my practice as a teacher, planner, slide maker, map maker just increases, the more I play and learn and explore and share and talk about and watch as my colleagues and my teachers from DFI explain and share things, wow! It’s really an experience that just makes me want to do better and learn from every single person that is involved. 

 

I learned how to set up QR codes with Stacey, that was very helpful because of some mahi that one of our school leaders said we will need to do, that includes doing QR codes. At the moment I was worried about it because I’ve never set up a QR code before. Having learned how to set one up and the step by step process of doing so really helps me to be able to help our tamariki.

 

I have really enjoyed doing the data and charts – the flexibility of the various charts too is awesome. I feel so excited at the end of DFI to get into making things, revisiting things, making my planning better and more efficient from the things I’ve been learning. I really do appreciate all of the learning and things I learn from DFI.

DFI Day 3: Media

Dorothy Burt: My notes from Dorothy’s talk – Create is an ACTIVE meaning. Defined creative experiences: are you actively planning for these opportunities?  I went and made plans for these next week to make sure I am giving our ākonga these opportunities. I did plan for next week to have our new year 2’s do their “Kawa of Care” Creativity in learning is important. Hornby High: Creativity needed to be at the centre, a centre of creative excellence.

Google Draw: I have used it before, but not exactly knowing how creative I could be, Amie taught us how to get images and make shapes and explore textures, wow! The possibilities are endless. My confidence is continuously growing.

Google Slides: New learning that I want to take to my year 2’s? I want them to be creative on an iPad. I really think they have the skills and creative minds to make things on Google Slides.

Pepeha: Nga mihi Hinewa – Learning how to do your “Pepeha” using the skills I learned today is really “Levelling up”. I want to go and explore and create more. These can be transferred to our ākonga and staff.

Workflow – DFI DAY 2: TASK VIDEO

DFI DAY 2 – Reflection:

 

Understanding:

There was a lot to learn and take from today. Dorothy shared a website that we could bookmark and return to to learn about all our curriculum needs in a “one stop shop” place. A place where we can understand more to help our tamariki.

 

Improvement:

Oh where to start? Learning to record meetings, share our screens, embed codes etc etc, thank you so much for all of these opportunities to be a more effective teacher. I learned how to clean up, organise, colour code and sort my labels in my Gmail! It looks like a whole new email account. Thank you.

 

Learners:

I’ve learned how to record meetings and share my screen to others confidently, this can be shared amongst my teaching colleagues. Regarding my Year 2 learners, we can learn about blogs and post learning from our class and even connect with my “bubble group” to have buddy classes where we can share and comment on all of our learning. Oh, learning how to record and video and embed it!!! AWESOME!

 

Confidence:

Wow!! There’s so many ways I feel like I am a better device user, blog poster and I like how we can return and go over information or tasks and help us if we forget. I like how our facilitators warn us to “BOOKMARK” things they know we will be needing.

 

Nga mihi ki a koutou

Nāku na, Muriel

Core Business – DFI Day 1

What a brilliant opportunity I have been given to do DFI (Digital Fluency Intensive 2026) I was initially anxious and uncertain (despite all of the wonderful communications I have been receiving) attending today’s course. But, right from the first introduction from Vicki, all of my concerns were gone.

Meeting Vicki and all of our facilitators were really enlightening and really welcoming. We then went to meet our “bubble group” which was even more comforting to be able to learn and feel welcome amongst colleagues in the Education field.

Learning about the history of Manaiakalani from Dorothy was really eye opening. The reasons why it was created and who are all benefitting from this need, all these years later. I also like how we have access to slides and information to go and learn more from if we want to read it later too.

I had a question about how to make my posters look more visually appealing? How do I make sure my images are licensed? How do I keep up with our facilitators? I had so many more questions. As we went throughout our day, all of my questions were answered and the break out room opportunities made things more accessible and gave a space to ask and clarify things that were on my mind.

My favourite part of today was learning how to take away the background, learning how to make my posters look “fancier” and seeing my group creating amazing Docs. Learning how to use our Google Docs in ways that I would never have imagined. Thank you so much. My confidence using my laptop, searching and adding things in my future Docs makes me happy. What I am learning is only going to help in the classroom. Having time to create Docs & practice and learn alongside our “bubble group” has been a great learning opportunity.

Natalie was accommodating and answered questions that were concerning us. I am so excited to get into my Docs and do lots of new things that I have learned from today, too many to name, but everything was helpful and so empowering to me as a teacher, and I know my tamariki & team will benefit from this Professional Development!

 

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