DFI 6 - Dealing With Data

Empowered Learners and Teachers - 

Empowered - means the same as student agency. Dorothy stressed the importance of not only students and whanau being empowered but their teachers also being empowered.  This needs to happen for teachers to confidently make technology 'not just another tool' for learning but one that transforms learners/students' lives. 

As part of my post-graduate diploma in literacy (and as a mother), I know the importance of language. Academic studies have shown that the number of words that children in low decile schools are far less than those words of children in higher decile schools. These means that the children in low decile schools are disempowered right from their early years. 

Oral Language conversations - these need to be 'ping pong' conversations. I also notice this in our school these days where children do not have the same vocabulary as others in my class. My lower vocab students are overwhelmingly in my lower reading groups. They are able to decode words but have not had the exposure to words to know their meaning. 

Learning needs to be visible. having the learning visible for students means that they can just get on with their learning and not be teacher dependent. Student empowerment comes from visibility.  We need to help our learners make connections with their learning. This is done through using technology as not just a tool but a learning pathway. 

Chalk and Talk Session - Google Forms

Interesting to learn that by typing forms.google.com in the Omnibox will take me straight to any forms that I have created. I have always gone through my google drive previously.

Dave took us through the setting up of

png - means portable network graphic. This is the best way to upload a photo from google drawing to a form. Nice to know what the png part means!

Google My Maps

Well - more new learning involved using google my maps for the first time.
Step 1 is above and when I get the chance will complete the one I started in regards to our school and labelling the learning areas etc.

It was beneficial to learn how to use sheets to make patterns by dragging the corners of the boxes down so that the sheet can identify the pattern - eg months of the year, number patterns.

Basic Calculations and Formulas - Time-saving to learn how to add a row of numbers by using the little sideways M I have a range of options - sum, average etc. This would be a great tool to teach the children and have them check their own 'average' within statistics surveys.

Well, using sheets is an area that has always eluded me as I do not use them at all in my daily teaching or planning. It was great to learn how to freeze columns/rows and sort data. I will have to think about how I can use this to empower my learning. I am sure that my students would enjoy playing around with sheets. Have created the chart below within sheets and embedded it which was a straight forward process.



Blog Analysis - Wow, what an extremely powerful tool for my students to see how their blogging has lifted over time. This would make learning how to analysis and graph data so much more meaningful. Can't wait to try this. So much creating and learning involved. I am going straight back to class to model this to class tomorrow using our class blog. I will also use Mele's and other students' blogs to model the purpose of what the students are doing to them.




Map My School - Learning how to use googlemymaps.com will be such a handy learning to help my students create a visual display of their school as part of their Enviro Learning.