Becoming a Digitally Fluent Principal

Ako, Hanga, Tohatoha

It’s hard to believe that we are in our sixth week of our Digital Fluent Intensive (DFI) programme. I have appreciated the new skills, opportunities and learning that DFI has provided for our team of Te Ara Tuhura teachers. In recent weeks I have deliberately changed how I am working in the Google environment. The learning leading to new capabilities is supporting my role of leadership.

Evaluation of sites:

Our first task this morning was to evaluate a Google site. I looked at the Te Ana Ako 2018 site (Link): The use of font style and size, student images, colour and text (vocab and number). Using a large image, whanau,  and student feedback buttons help to create a visually appealing site. There are clear and explicit links to site content. The home page header image, although appealing, takes a lot of real estate. It is important to plan and think about the design of a google site. Using only a few consistent thematic colours across the page sites will provide simplicity and continuity. It is fair to say that some of the above comments are subjective. The intended audience of your site will have an effect on the planning and design of your site.

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

I am still consolidating my knowledge of Google tools, in particular, in particular, Google: Docs, calendar, keep, and drive. I am using the tools as part of my everyday practice. I have a better understanding of the interconnectedness of each tool and how each Google platform relates to another.

What hasn’t worked or made sense?

I just need time to apply the skills and context of my learning to everyday actions. Most things have worked and I am starting to have a tutu in the coding environment. The delivery of DFI has been lucid and transparent.

What do I need help with?

I require in-depth content knowledge and practice with the Google site and draw tools to support leadership.

Visible Learning

We have kept so much of the learning journey hidden and not visible to our learners and parents. For many children who were raised with success, the ‘Cultural Capital’ was done in the home. Success and achievement criteria are today being explicitly displayed in our schools. This has clearly had an impact on student learning;  we have discovered that making learning visible has been a game-changer.

The learner is at the centre of learning. When we consider visible teaching and if our default is everything visible; what genuinely needs to be invisible or private? What needs to be shared with whanau: School’s retain profiling data on every student; therefore, what needs to be made available to whanau? We understand that perhaps health, disciplinary, and assessment data may need to be sensitised. Do we need to be precious about our assessment data? Do we need to have that assessment conversation a little more openly with our parents and teachers?

Let us encourage teachers to make visible learning the normality of what we do.

From the beginning of Manaikalani journey, Google site is being used to turbocharge our school assessment and planning. By having a Google site, every learner will have access to teacher information. How can we use Google site to enhance our teaching processes and delivery?

Visible teaching needs to be accessible, available, and in advance. We need to give our whanau time and opportunities for rewindable learning.

Hapara teacher dashboard was designed for ManaiKalani students by the Auckland team to enable learner and teacher visibility. Manaiakalani Google class On-air is a programme of teachers that have a webcam in their classrooms to enable everyday visibility in the classroom.

Blogger has been chosen to enable young people to go online to responsible and effective digital citizens. The giving and receiving of feedback and feedforward have normally been the domain of the teacher. Blogger allows others to provide a range of comments to support student learning.

As teachers' we need to default to visible learning practices.

It is the experience of the Manaiakalani team that our learners are all over the internet with positive learning contributions.

Share:

• Communicate with a real audience and purpose in mind
• Inform others about my learning
• Enlist others to my point of view
• Get others to think

More with Google site:

Clarelle is a third-year PT England Primary school teacher presenting a session on  DFI- Leading Learning using Google Sites: She focussed on the “Why we should use Google site as a classroom tool?” as an introduction to her presentation. She spoke about the learning journey being connected, a process of learning, and not just a time one thing. She talked about the development of the Google site in the classroom context. Clarelle explained that students find it easier to navigate a site if there are simple consistencies in the design and planning of the site.

Consider in the design and planning of the Google site the consistency of colour,  layout, and font.

She emphasised the three-click rule, i.e. only use a maximum of 3 clicks to get to your learning content.

Google site Planning:

There is real value in planning your Google site before committing to the input of information, in my view there seems to be a lot to take into account: The purpose?, Who is your target audience?, What is your theme? How will the site be accessed? How many pages? What will be the focus of your home page? What should be the layout of each page?

Spending time on Google site planning will help with being efficient and effective. I used the following framework as a scaffold for planning my Google site.

The following is my initial planning into the development of a Leadership Google site, which is useful for my leadership role.

Initial Planning

Teaching and Learning

• Numeracy and Literacy 
• Digital Technology
• Priority Learners
• Assessment information
• Student Progress and achievement in Numeracy and Literacy
• Depth of learning relating to needs ad capabilities
• Analysis of good quality assessment
• Treaty of Waitangi
• Career Education

Internal Review and Community

Personnel

Finance and Property

Health and Safety

Legal Compliance

I quickly realised that my Google site could become very large and cumbersome quickly. For the purpose of today’s exercise, I decided to focus on the Teaching and Learning section of the site only. It was important for me to use some of the tools that I have recently learnt in DFI such as linking, adding images, and using multiple modes. I have enjoyed the learning and creation of today's session. My goal is to learn, create, and share purposeful and meaningful leadership content in my role as Principal.