Reconnecting with the DFI

 It was great to reconnect for week 3 of the DFI this week. I had done the first two weeks of the DFI in term 1 in Papakura, and today was a change to restart this journey. The learnings that I took from the previous DFIs made me excited to restart.

The focus of the day was on Create. Dorothy remarked early in the day that creativity seems to be dying in the New Zealand education space. She referred to Robin Sutton, Principal of Hornby High who said that "If we are serious about the 'create' component of our 'Learn Create Share' pedagogy, then as individual teachers we also need to be serious about our own creativity, We need to nurture it, to not be afraid of it, to invest in it, to invest in ourselves". He is certainly correct, and so today we learnt about some tools to help foster creativity

Google Draw

Google Draw is a fantastic tool for creating content for students and allowing students to create.  The possibilities are endless. Students can create images, bubbles, and can manipulate them into a number of different shapes

Harpara Teacherdashboard

We have been using Hapara at Tamaki for a long time and so I feel very comfortable with its use

Youtube

Youtube has such a vast array of teaching resources. Too many in fact. Today we learned how to create playlists which is a great benefit to any teachers workflow.

Google Slides

Google slides are becoming more and more useful and can be used for more than just presentations. The use of hyperlinks and buttons can create interactive teaching resources for learners. Below is a very simple example that I will continue to develop.