Digital Immersion 7 16 June

As is normal for our Friday’s together, our day began with a report from each person on what they have changed/improved/added to, both in their classrooms and in their professional/personal engagements with all things digital.  It’s great to hear what people have done, and it’s a challenge to ensure that I make the effort to implement what I can, where I can.

Our morning was interrupted slightly with a trip to Point England School to join with the school in congratulating Pat Sneddon on becoming a Member of the NZ order of Merit  (MNZM) for services to Education and Maori.  It is wonderful when good people like Pat and his wife, Joy, are honoured for the awesome work they do in the community.

We returned to the Maniakalani offices to continue our own learning journey.

After learning about sites in the last session, today we got the opportunity to critique each other’s classroom sites.  Amongst all the seriousness of what worked well and what didn’t, (gotta remember those rules that Dorothy gave us) there was some great laughter.    It’s good for the soul!  So we really shouldn’t miss the opportunity to have a good chuckle.

What makes an effective site:

Visual	User Experience
Exciting Engaging Using space effectively Keep it looking basic not busy Following conventional layout rules eg white spaces Commonality- Reading/Writing/Maths Themed?	Logical Interconnected pages Engaging (resources) Learning is easy to find Main elements are obvious- landing page has important info Consistency Visibility

Through all the busyness of our days, it’s easy to forget that there might be areas of our sites that do not fully meet the expectation of a ‘good professional site’.  So, to be reminded about that in a safe space was really beneficial.

We looked at Multimodal Reading -  and a database that’s being created by a teacher at Point England School, Angela Moala.  Dorothy also began talking about creating a database for the Explain Everythings that we’re all making for our Junior students.  She began creating one there and then (not one to slack around, is our Dorothy!).  Anyway – it’s going to be great!  Why should we be spending hours each week creating an E.E. if someone else in the country has already created a perfectly fine one!  A great idea, for sure!

After lunch we were given time to ‘fix up’ our own sites – thanks Dorothy!  I’ve still got work to do on mine, but it’ll have to wait until reports are finished.  Perhaps it’ll be a holiday activity!!

Another great day with James and Dorothy.  Thanks you two – you’re both amazing!