Workflow - what is it and how do I get it?

As teachers we are often overwhelmed with new tools, teaching philosophies and important programmes we should be integrating into our practice. How to streamline what we do is important, as is taking time to reflect on what we do and why we do it. Session two started with an overview of Manaiakalani's kaupapa on the learn part of learn, create, share pedagogy. The whakatauki Whāia te matauranga kia mārama - Seek knowledge for understanding is what I believe learning is all about. As educators we are trying to provide an environment for our students to seek knowledge so that they gain an understanding of their world and are able to make connections.

We discussed the principles of teaching found in the New Zealand Curriculum and linked them with high leverage practices that help to create a supportive environment that allows our tauira to reflect on their learning and have new opportunities to learn. This discussion helped me to reflect on how I am providing opportunities for my tauira to learn both in their local environment and in the digital world. 

In my own learning around digital tools, I continue to work on how to meaningfully use it in the classroom, so the students can engage with their learning not only critically but creatively. 

One of the tasks today had participants looking at a student's blogpost and thinking about the learning the teacher intended, what the students response was and how the wider world connected with the learning and enhanced the students learning through commenting. This was a very useful exercise in reflecting on how the blog posts communicate the learning and the different digital tools we can use to engage students in their learning. The particular digital tool used in the blog post was Pixton, I thought this was captivating way to teach students about dialogue and considering the audience in their writing. I thought this was a great example of how to authentically enhance a students' learning, engage them and redefine the learning task to turbocharge their learning. It is a tool that I would be interested in learning more about and using in my classroom.

Above is a conversation I had with a learner in my DFI group, we both reflected on how the activity provided a new learning experience and challenged us as learners. This had me thinking about the importance of modelling to our tauira about risk taking, making mistakes and persevering with our learning so we can become life long learners. I think this task itself would be beneficial to use with tauira to develop their metacognitive thinking and become reflective learners.

I enjoyed learning about Google keep today, the functions of it and how it can be used professionally for note taking; something streamlined by the ability for it to connect with Google docs and personally for shopping lists and connecting with our family and friends when planning events. Google keep is something I would like to use more meaningfully and effectively this term. I am aware that it is another tool and do not want to use it temporarily and stop using it because I have too many systems for managing my time and workload. I am conscious of the fact we are learning how to use the google suite in deeper ways and implementing this regularly into my professional and personal life will take time and not to be discouraged if I don't get to using the different tools and learning tasks straight away in my practice.

Another subject discussed today was managing our tabs using toby mini or the great suspender, I am looking forward to grouping tabs together to revisit later on toby mini, as I often have several windows and tabs open as I work. I am ever hopeful that this will help me to think more clearly and systematically when completing my work and to have better workflow.