Rachael's Professional Learning

 Google Educator Exam Well actually getting into the exam was the hardest part - okay maybe not but totally the most frustrating part! Once in though I had a much more relaxed approach to this exam than the last one. I'm sure there were mistakes made but the process of going through the scenarios and filtering out the definitely not answers in the multiple-choice section was good. Reflecting on the past term I know I have learnt an awful lot of new information, consolidated a lot and now understand a lot more about the why of the Learn Create Share and actually everything we do in the New Entrants and Year 1 area impacts so dramatically (as with all learning) but if we can set up good Kawa of care, cyber smart behaviour and respect for the technology from day dot then our kids have a much better chance of turbocharging their learning.  I now feel that all 1:1 teachers should do DFI - not suggesting that is what I am going to do but would feel a lot more confident integrating a...

Thinking about empowering teachers as well as learners is top of my list right now. Taking what I am learning and sharing with my team is something I am trying to find the time to do - not always successfully. Even today's short session on the new technologies curriculum has given me so much to think about. With our new entrants, we are using this all the time without even realising it! It is something that we need to take a long look at to make sure that we are confident delivering to our learners. The link to the Raranga Matihika resource is definitely something I will be sharing to give them the confidence that we are covering a large amount already and that with some additional tasks around binary and very basic coding the children will love this! Progress outcome 1 can be as simple as children following instructions to cross the road and then giving the instructions to others, debugging them and finding any errors and making changes.  I think the computational thinking side of...

Today was a lot of thinking about keeping our children secure online, I found it really helpful having had support from Kelsey in the past using iPads with our year 3 and 4's. Knowing the background behind the support from smart learners, smart footprints, relationships as well as informing parents about this was really interesting. I particularly connected to the part Dorothy spoke about the displays when you walk into a school showing you what the focus is on and that made me think about our school. We are still relatively new and don't have displays up everywhere. I love the idea of the positive, helpful, kind message and I will be taking that back to my team as well as the senior management team.  Looking at the Harpara dashboard in more detail has given me a much better idea of how our year 4-6 teachers keep track of their 80+ students and the work they are doing. So great to be able to support them with their learning and also hold them accountable for what they are doing...