Cindy Wihongi - Professional Blog

There is so much to learn!!  It has been a little overwhelming today with the collation of data and new places to source this from and then share in!  I can absolutely see the benefit of doing this but think the last couple of weeks with camp and sickness has added to the way I am feeling.   I am excited though about the end result of this as I can see how this allows me to understand my readers so much better and be able to cater for this through the LI’s, WALT’s and S/C that I am able to pitch based on their needs.   I look forward to using the task board but do have apprehensions about how SOME of my learners will be able to manage themselves independently.  For lots of them, this is the first year on chrome books so that in itself is proving challenging.  I just need to introduce this when I have support of TA in class and have the chance to actually ‘teach’ the learners how to use the board.  I am also excited to share with my teaching c...

  What a first day!! Feeling a little overwhelmed but also excited about how I can become a more effective teacher of reading.  The pillars of learning is a great analogy and one that I can picture and hopefully remember in order to include these aspects into my teaching of reading. Although there is so much to include in our practice, the fact that we can teach across the curriculum makes it less daunting (just a wee bit!!)  It was great to see how the survey of reading was then part of a math programme - it just requires lots of smart thinking.  Seeing how others do this is encouraging and allows me to see it is possible.   There is so much that I could take away from today but feel like I need to hear more before I run with it and it fails because I am doing too much without knowing what I am actually doing so will wait till we’ve had a couple more days before doing too much! At this stage, I need to have explicit, planned (for me) conversations with my ...

 So today has been a really interesting day and great to get some history on the empowerment aspect of Manaiakalani.  I really enjoyed Dorothy's presentation where we worked through some examples of just how empowering the ability to access information is.  Students who are able to take responsibility for some of this accessing for the whanau and even teaching their whanau is incredibly exciting - an authentic example of tuakana-teina relationship working in reverse.  The accessing of all devices and making this possible for all socio-economics within our communities is also an amazing advantage for our tamariki.  It allows for equality, which although should always be the case in education, is certainly not.  I loved the quote that Dorothy shared with us along with her wero... Based on what we have been learning about today, my statemnt would be as follows:  The greatest joy comes from Empowering students to....allow them to follow any path they may w...

So today was all about the big word.... Ubiquitous!! In a nut shell I was able to determine that this really means that all our learning needs to be rewindable and as one of the facilitators put it, 'if it's worth teaching, it's worth recording (or something along those lines!!).  I think like all of the learning that we have experienced throughout the DFI, although things take a while to get my head around and a while to set up, it is worth it once it is done.  I really feel like this in regards to the Screencastify and also the Workspace within Hapara.  I believe that given my students year group (6 and 7), they have the ability to be accountable for their learning (well most of them!) and therefore the opportunity to present learning opportunities through Workspace would be a good way to assist them with this.   As I have never used Screencastify or Workspace before, this is going to involve a bit of self-training and also perseverance.  I do think ...

It was great to hear Dorothy converse regarding connection today. This to me, is a huge part of why we communicate online or should I say, one of the massive benefits of online learning. We live within a world today where whanau are so spread out but yet their support around learning is still invaluable. To have the opportunity for them to be able to be in touch with their tamariki's learning is so crucial and so possible. When looking at our sites from Amy's screen, it became very obvious what could be viewed etc and how appealing/not appealing my site was! I have been able to look at my site today from another perspective which I feel has been great in improving my workflow as a professional. If it doesn't do what its meant to do, then its not worth having?? Having had the opportunity to begin fiddling around with my site will definitely have some benefit to both me and my learners. I feel that when I set it up, it was a matter of getting information on there. Now ...

  What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy? What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional? What did I learn that could be used with my learners?   What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life? Its was great to get some insight into the kaupapa around visibility.  It was interesting to understand and discuss the benefits of the visibility as I was not in the classroom last year during lockdown.  It made complete sense and I look forward to seeing this in 'action' once my class site is all up and running.  The ability to be so collaborative is also a massive benefit and one that I am already seeing happen within my kura.   Having a go at making a site based on a topic/inquiry was an awesome way of promoting student agency as well as getting whanau involved in their tamariki learning.  I really enjoyed seein...

It was really good today to 'wrap' up the complete pedagogy with the SHARE part of this being covered. This is such an important part of the kaupapa and it was great to see the blogs that people are using to do this. I feel that personally, being aware of blogs and the purpose for this along with the audience will increase the quality of my own blogs as well as supporting my learners with theres. It is a piece of writing and we do this naturally when teaching 'writing' but I feel that when teaching blogs I don't tend to be as explicit in my instructions. I also have had the chance to reflect on my own feedback to learners with their blogs and don't believe that I always give them the feedback that they need/deserve. Like Dorothy raised today, this is such an effective and authentic context for the learners along with being immediate. Therefore I should be making the most of this opportunity and using this platform to provide them with feedback/feed forward....