Becoming a Digitally Fluent Principal.

Introduction:
During the last 3 weeks, I have been attending a Digital Fluency Intensive (DFI) course learning and applying new skills. I am sharing my journey of learning as a narrative to others in the form of a blog. The underlying principles of Learn, Create, and Share (LCS) is a guiding factor of the DFI programme. It is my intent to learn about student and teaching practices which improve outcomes for our learners via the principles of LCS; then apply my new learning to the role of Leadership. This site uses the scaffold of LCS as a framework for writing.

He whakatauakī: 

“Ka titiro ahau ki te atatahua o te Tiritiri o te Moana; Kihai au,  e kitea i te tarutaru i raro oku waewae.”

When I look towards the majestic mountains of the Southern Alps, I fail to see the grass beneath my feet. I write the above whakatauki as a metaphor; sometimes, we see the big picture, but we fail to pay attention to the small details.

Learn:
The following is a review of learning from workshop 2.

What has worked for me since the last time we met? 

Google groups: I added staff members directly to Google Groups.
Blogging: I created and posted a second blog.
Google keep: ‘Google Keep’ is being used to provide meeting notes; the voice command and image to text conversion are useful.
Doc Add- ons: I’ve loaded the following the five (5) add-on tools to support Doc files:  Easybib, Lucid diagrams, Math text, template and word cloud.
Shortcuts: The shortcuts to reorganise google calendar, docs and drive are useful.

What hasn’t worked or made sense?
My lack of content knowledge when adjusting settings in google calendar/ gmail/ drive.

What do I need help with?
I need to consolidate my new learning by using the digital tools in everyday work, e.g. using the google hangout tool, fine-tuning google drive, and sharing google keep.

Google Keep:
‘Google Keep’  is a multi-purpose digital note-taking tool, which is useful for taking minutes, copying notes, and dictating text. The tool has an image to text conversion feature, which is useful when copying documents. Since learning about the tool, a week ago, ‘Google Keep’ has been used to take minutes, to attach notes from gmail, and to edit texts in docs. The speech to text feature is a bonus; the tool was able to transcribe a video clip from youtube. I was later showed that youtube clips are already transcribed. Google Keep easily integrates with gmail, docs and calendar. In my view, the compatibility factor of the tool will enhance information and communication use. There is still a need to continue the trialling of ‘Google Keep’ to support leadership.

Create:
Nga whaakaro (some thoughts):
As I seek to master some of the digital tools that I am learning in DFI. I think about our collective discipline in establishing a focus or mutual purpose of practice to learn, to create, and to share. We are a group of people with a common purpose; we are teachers, leaders, and administrators. Together we learn to nourish a sense of passion and commitment with a purpose to create the principles, and guiding practices by which we trust will make a positive difference to our community of schools. It is my intent that all who enter our school’s will be able to read, write and count. All will be able to develop and implement the skills and capabilities which ensure that they will become decent, worthwhile citizens of our school and communities.

As a community of schools and outreach educators across Aoteroa, I trust that we are able to sustain the learning of our common shared vision of purpose.

For me, the kaupapa of Ako, Hanga, and Tohatoha (Learn, Create and Share) has caused me to reflect and to inquire about the attitudes and perceptions of self, and those around me. One of the critical actions for a school of learning is to develop the capability to talk honestly about one's learning, and how as a leader, your learning is modelled to others.

Google Site:
Today, we worked as a team to create a secondary school site for students and staff. We decided that we would share our knowledge and learning gained from our experiences from DFI. John created a ‘blog page’, Lucy developed a ‘useful digital shortcuts page’, and I created a ‘Google Keep page. Together we created a carousel of images. Wherever possible, we linked our pages to youtube or website pages.

We each decided to work on a specific page site independently. Although the content was different for each of us, the process of developing the page was similar. We were able to share with each other, our own learning, e.g., linking images, youtube videos, and documents.

We plan to share our Google site page with our cohort of DFI friends, our staff, and our ManaiaKalani friends. Here is the link to our shared Google Site page: Our Google Page

What next?
I wish to consolidate my learning from DFI. I have a realisation that I need to practice the DFI tools experienced in recent sessions. It is important to provide a useful context for each of the digital tools. Hence, I need to find meaningful connections between my leadership role and teachers. By doing so, I trust that the interrelatedness between the Principal and student is strengthened.

At the moment, I view Google tools as a suite of interconnected relationships, each tool seamlessly communicating with each other. I have found that there are similar process steps in each of the Google platforms, e.g. links, sharing, and saving.

I have set the task to practice my new knowledge with others actively. I expect to have a mixture of success and failure.

Some of my To-do tasks:
1. Set up a meeting in Google Hangouts.
2. Continue to use Google Keep as a platform for communication.
3. Develop and produce a Google Site.

Like previous DFI workshops, I have enjoyed the learning and particularly the collaboration with other members of the group.

I wish to close with a comment on today’s whakatauakī; sometimes it is the small things and not the big things that make a difference e.g, a new shortcut, an add-on, an extension, or a thank you.

Thank you to our presenters Dorothy, Danni, Mark and Kelsey.