Digital Fluency Intensive- Week 1

Today was the first session of the Digital Fluency Intensive, where we looked at the background to Manaiakalani- the kaupapa and pedagogy, google drive maintenance and basics of google docs, as well as some add-ons and extensions which may be helpful in our practice. We also had some time to use google docs to develop a graphic.

I felt as though I had a good handle on the pedagogy and purpose behind Manaiakalani, however I really enjoyed learning more about the beginning origins of the program and the processes that went on.

The Google Docs basics was a great session for me, as I had never used a Table of Contents on a Doc, or fully made us of the headings, subheadings etc, as anything other than changing font size. I can see this being something that is really handy when I am developing resources for my seniors, and in the long term as I overhaul my Junior resources.

There were two extensions/add-ons that I am really excited to use- Mindmeister and Draft back. Mindmeister is a tool used to generate mindmaps from bulletpoints, and is something I can imagine being used to pull together summaries of the content we are covering in L1 Science and L2&3 Biology. Draft back is an add-on that allows me to see a video summary of the edits a student makes to their doc. I already used it over lunch to check in with my student work on an anticipatory reading guide, and have already had an insight into how different students work. Most importantly it gave me insight into my ELL students work progression over the lesson: were they slowly working through, did they attempt to answer then lack confidence and delete it, did they not do it, or sporadically.

I did not finish my graphic on google docs, but having time to work on one has been great for reducing time in future when I am developing resources. Having time to learn basic tricks to make resources look appealing with out taking time is what I am most looking forward to over the intensive, as I currently spend a lot of time developing, usually as a basic framework. I am excited to revamp what I have done to be more visibly appealing and more user friendly for my learners.