Devices

Today we reflected on the principles of being cybersmart.  Fiona Grant shared some of the guiding understandings from the Manaiakalani project work.  

Namely, that we encourage the students to always focus on positive messages, so that this becomes the norm for their online experience.  There are many programmes that provide for this learning available to schools but this should be a clear understanding for students right from their early journeys online.  In doing so - this will also mean that they are sharing positive messages about themselves.  It is a reality that once online - they are a visible presence and it is important that they present a view of themselves that they are proud of.    Positive is the norm.  

Another important aspect if how much the children are able to connect with their parents and whanau online and how schools are able to support this valuable connection through online provision and that many will need support with this as they are likely not to have experienced the same online opportunities, and even if skilled in this area, knowing how to support their children needs to be made explicit and achievable.  

We also explored using chromebooks and ipads with varying degrees of success.  It brought home the importance of having the same or similar devices in a school environment otherwise teachers are literally unable to support the variety and number of problems children experience in a BYOD environment.  Our ipads and chromebooks apparently needed updates or early models were not able to support the media we were working with, or were responding in ways that we were unable to decipher easily - especially in an online environment! 

Moving to learning about Screencastify was therefore a relief in many ways.  The extension itself is very easily set up and once permissions were given I was easily able to record a practice video using online slide decks and links.   I quickly chose a junior option about blogging and as it was simply a first run through as I went, and it was done with plenty of time to spare.  I have embedded the video below.  

The advantage of being able to easily create rewindable learning opportunities - especially in areas where teachers need to support children repeatedly (e.g. punctuation 😏) or if some have missed a particular learning opportunity due to illness, or other absence.  Furthermore, special opportunities such as out of school learning are also available - more than just photos or simple video footage without a voice over or making learning outcomes explicit.  And similar to our recent online learning during Covid lockdowns, teachers are getting used to being on video frequently so it should be getting easier!