Angela Hamilton Blog

After 9 weeks we have come to the end of our DFI journey. The first thing we talked about this morning after our initial touching base on what has been working well and what has not was the ubiquitous nature of learning in a digital world and how our learners are able to access their learning any place, any time and at any pace. This is positive for those who learn better in different environments and at different times or who may appreciate connecting with others outside the classroom. It is also beneficial for the students whānau to be able to access their child's learning in their home environment. The rewindable nature of the learning means that those students who have for whatever reason missed parts of the learning are able to access this themselves and catch up. We gave our feedback to Manaiakalani on how valuable the course has been for us. It feels good to do this and know the people that will be considering our thoughts and potentially acting on them. I have thorough...

.....except it's not, but being able to collate and make data work for us is important. First though we heard from Dorothy about the community in Manaiakalani and how empowerment/agency is so important for them. Socio-economic factors mean that the local community in Auckland have large parts of their lives that they have little or no control over, so being able to have ownership and to feel empowered is extremely important for them. This translates well to our local community. Following events in our city over the last nine years, there are aspects of life where our whanau feel powerless. The children may feel that the environment and outside agencies effect our lives without warning. The importance of the pedagogy of Manaiakalani including being visible, ubiquitous and connected means that the community have ownership over their education and feel empowered to engage and confident in their sharing to an audience that values them. This morning we looked at forms which I can se...

This morning we had a classic example of how while technology is amazing and allows us to do things that we have never been able to do before, sometimes being in the room is still the ultimate in connectivity. Dorothy talked to us about how being connected as a learning community (particularly the inter school networks which have been created, as well as that with school and whānau) makes us stronger in terms of learning and sharing. This was illustrated perfectly to me last week when I went home after DFI and attended Marc Gibson's Toolkit about Flexible Learning Groups. The ability of us all to contribute to common knowledge creates advantages for us as teaching professionals but more importantly, for our learners. Unfortunate technical issues, including a fire alarm at Point England School meant that Dorothy's contact with us this morning was limited, luckily Kent was able to pick up the presentation well! I haven't really had a lot of experience with You Tube oth...