DFI – Enabling Access

Dorothy kicked us off today with a reminder that one of the main joists in the whare of our Manaiakalani kaupapa is being “Connected”. The diagram of the Manaiakalani Outreach clusters powerfully demonstrated for me the scale and richness of the partnership which offers extensive opportunities for connection (and conectedness). One of the essential ‘oils’ is the shared language of Learn | Create | Share across the learning network. 

Each year, in Term 1 the Manaiakalani Learning Community focuses on Ako, on Hanga in Term 2 and on Tohatoha Term 3. There are multiple layers of professional learning support for the community to come together and co-construct effective teaching and learning in connected groups, with this shared term-by-term focus. 

Additionally, RSS is a mechanism whereby Twitter has been commandeered for Manaiakalani purposes. Every time a student (or teacher) posts on a blog, RSS selects the last post to position at the top of the collective Twitter feed which now has 410,000 posts! What an achievement! The RSS Twitterfeed can be accessed in one place: 

Another opportunity to connect classes and learners is through Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu which promotes blog commenting in everyday learning. The TeachInquire RSS feed 'pushes' posts from Teacher and Leader Professional Learning blogs into our inboxes: this has its own affordances for being kept abreast of what's being innovated (and inquired into) across Manaiakalani educators. Google Currents is also harnessed to bring teachers together through PLD Groups in the Manaiakalani Community. 

Leading Learning using Google Sites

The visibility of sites is actually a form of gifting because it offers repurposing of others’ practices and resources to scale:

Visibility is one of the five affordances of L-C-S that independent research shows accelerates shift (Woolf Fisher Research Centre):

- Engagement 

- Teaching conversations

- Cognitive challenge

- Visibility

- Scaffolding

When we are creating sites for leading learning, it is vital we are intentional in designing learning that promotes these 5 affordances. For example, sites have a key role in facilitating Engagement incorporating: visual appeal; multimodal-multitextual; choice; connections to home & blogs; archiving).   

Paenga Kūkara

Vicki then took us into a Chalk ‘n Talk around personalising a learning site. The recommendation to use Unsplash and Pixabay for Royalty Free images was really useful. I added buttons and content to an Apps Toolbox site which our Digital Strategy team is creating in my school context. The idea of the site – under construction – is to have a single place where examples of activities can be accessed for a range of “go to” apps teachers have designed effective teaching and learning with.