Hi-Ho Hi-Ho, it's into Digital Fluency we go!

DFI - Day One - What? What on earth ...?

Today was the start of my digital fluency intensive 9 day course. A great opportunity to learn alongside some amazing people in order to support my practise as an educator in a digital age where technology holds many keys to engaging and enthusing our children. 

The day started with an opportunity to hear the backstory of Maniakalani and how the development of Learn Create Share impacted ākonga in Auckland. While this did not start as a digital journey, but through the hard work and belief of a number of individuals, it became one. There is quite a lot of research that supports the Learn Create Share Pedagogy. The current role of LCS in my classroom is also of testament to this as it has been at the fore front of our curriculum for the time that I have been at YMS.

Today though, we have delved into shortcuts that will make our lives easier. We all want to work smarter, not harder. A favourite is Command Shift z which will allow us to add a shortcut to a folder rather than move from one place to another in our google drives. Also, Command Shift V (control on a kids chromebook) - pastes text we have copied without any formatting. Love it! I I've also learnt that Voice Typing now has a New Zealand language option. Woohoo!

Before lunch I got an opportunity to look at some of the key add ons and extensions that we can use as well. These included:
- Doc to Form - which is where a google form can be made from questions within a google doc.
-Word Cloud Generator: This would be great as an addition to our Literacy workbooks in order to extend our children’s vocab during the writing session as a change to having them up on the tv screen.
- Docutube: Allows for links within docs to be played to the side without leaving the doc. This has an impact for our long write workbooks that I've set up.

At this point it was only lunchtime and my mind was swirling with the valuable information and ideas. A superb morning.

After lunch we looked at using Google Docs as a creating tool. Now normally I prefer to use Google Slides but thought we could give it a go. Sharon and I choose to look at our Maths Week Planning and we came up with ...

This ...

   

This is still a work in progress but we are quite happy with what we have done so far. Who knew that I might actually enjoy using google docs as a creative tool?

As today was the first day of nine, I can honestly say I am looking forward to the next sessions. A really powerful day, with great practical ideas. Loving the learning!