Day 3 RPI

Another day where I have been fortunate enough to particpate in the DFI and learn lots more about both the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy and also google tools to help in personal and profesional life! It was great to have Dorothy articulate the create aspect today. I do beleive that we do tend to stiffle students creativity and certainly not deliberatly. Sometimes the pressures of the classroom seem to have us spending the bulk of our times on the traditional subjects, rather than allowing students time to experiment with who they are in a creative context. I personally think that with the 'create' aspect of Manaiakalani, it allows us time to be delivberate in actually providing opporutnities for our learners to be creative. I learnt a number of ways in which I could do this today using Google. I think I overthibnk things so when planning for create time, I try and find a range of websites and 'fandangle' apps for them to do this in. To discover today, that most of this is at our fingertips within google, was awesome. I now need to try some of these. I had a number of attempts at various creations today but am yet to finish most of them! My blog now has an image widge though, which I have created using Google drawings! I ama really keen to try making a google slide (option task). Rather than biting off more than I can chew and doing a pick a path, I am going to start with a quiz about pollution as this is our topic this term. I will do this to model this to my learners and will then be providing them with an opportunity to do something similar. It is another way in which I can be creative and present learning in a different way, whilst also encouraging and fostering this in my learners. I also had the chance to really see what drawing offered. I had only really used this as an equivalent for word art so to see that there was a whole lot more to this was exciting. Again, to offer the opportunities for learners to be able to present their work in a range of ways is exciting. I plan on having them share some of their writing in this format and get this onto their blogs. I believe that if we are able to present their learning in a more attrative way which offers a more holistic view of the child (not just their writing) then they are more likely to want to share this. Again, this is a time issue for me as often our writing time is already pressed for time but it is something that I am going to have to deliberatly plan for, rather than the publishing of writing being something that is pushed through depending on how long we have! I am really excited to be using the Google suite in more of it's entirety (or at least being exposed to it!) and feel that this is very good for both my professional and personal confidence. I will be posting my 'Pollution Quiz' on my blog when it is finished so keep your eyes out for this!!