E tipu e rea

I am reminded of one more Whakatauaki that many a Nga Manu Korero speaker iterates:

E tipu e rea mō ngā rā o tō ao Ko tō ringa ki ngā rākau a te Pākehā Hei ora mō te tinana Ko tō ngākau ki ngā taonga a ō tīpuna Māori Hei tikitiki mō tō māhunga Ko tō wairua ki tō atua, nāna nei ngā mea katoa — Tā Apirana Ngata

It also happens to be at the top of the Hangarau Matihiko website which is fitting.  It means to make the most of everything around you, the tools of mainstream education, the treasures of our ancestors and the importance of a healthy wairua. This is a beautiful picture that captures a rousing haka led by Ta Apirana Ngata at Waitangi celebrating the centennial

Exam revision

Kia ora koutou.


Heoi ano, this morning we learned about ubiquitous learning, how does a learner retain their levels of literacy outside school time ie, during the summer holidays. Manaiakalani came up with the Summer Learning Journey where kids can create posts during the holidays. Research has indicated that literacy levels stay high for students who participate in the SLJ.



Today was a big day for our intake, examination day!!! Although, I have opted to sit my exam after completing some sessions that I missed. So despite being in attendance, I was revising by reading tutorials from the Learning Center in the G suite. I have to say that these apps are all so user friendly, super responsive and easy to use. They all add a lot of order and simplicity to many of our tasks as teachers.
I feel like Batman building his utility belt, each pouch containing a Google app. Here are all the apps I've been researching (with a whole lot more learning to be done.)


Tenei te mihi nui ki nga kaiako o tenei kaupapa, nga mihi!!!


When I think of all our professional development mahi to date, I am reminded of a whakatauaki by Kawiti, a Ngati Hine leader (see below). I interpret it to mean that while we cherish and strive to uphold our traditional knowledge, we must also be receptive to change and the tools therein to ensure the continued survival of our matauranga and tikanga (knowledge and way of life).

Using the myriad programmes from the Google suite, I believe our students will benefit greatly. The sharability will also enable whanau to see what's going on in our classes.

Computational Thinking

Today we were introduced to computational thinking which is, to my limited understanding, learning about computer language/coding in order to manipulate some of the inner workings of programs like Scratch.
We watched a short video interviewing various gurus of the digital world as well as Will I Am and Chris Bosch (CB4) espousing the importance of learning code. They said it's as important for children to learn as it is to learn their ABCs. Monika and Kerry showed us a really fun and useful free coding program called Scratch, which apparently is about 20 years old but I've only just found today. I can really see its benefits in class and I'm keen to get kids to use it in class but I'd like more time to familiarise myself with this awesome program. Thanks to our kaiako.

Student Blog Records

Interpretations:
1) Charli-Rose started blogging first
2) Robyn has the highest number of posts in 2015
3) All have a tendency to drop in 2018, not sure why.


Kia ora mai ano tatou. Today was really fun and jam-packed with information. Luckily our presenters are thorough and patient. We learned about the power of Google Forms another powerful Google program and one that I had had no previous experience with. With Google Forms, teachers can create class survey forms, parent survey forms, can create quizzes and the one of the choice features is that it can do the marking for you and almost instantaneously return results so that the class can analyse them later.
Whaea Alicia from Ohaeawai Primary came in to show us how to do breakout activities using Google Forms. I didn't attend the How-To workshop but all tutorials can be found as links on our itineraries.

We spent time using Google Sheets which is not too dis-similar from Excel except the sharability features inherent in all Google programs. I learned more about creating formula to manipulate cells. This was cool because I felt I had some previous knowledge which meant I wasn't floundering like I usually am.

The other awesome program we learned was Google Maps, AMAZING. I was thinking about recording our collected information about the Bay of Islands area and this program allows me to do that. I just have to learn more about it - how to insert images or videos.

I haven't been here for a little while but am really excited to learn more and apply these in my classes.

Hoea te waka kia tae ki uta! Tokihi ki tua!