DFI Enabling Access - Sites | Week 6
Manaiakalani Pedagogy - Connected
Dorothy connected us with Manaiakalani's pedagogy, and explained that one of Manaiakalani's original goals is to support young people connecting with authentic audiences. This really resonated with me as part of my teaching philosophy includes students working together collaboratively, and talking in order to process information and learn. It is really important for my students to be connected in class, and during the lock down period, there was an opportunity for us to connect via digital means. We spent a lot of time during the week, either on google meets or hangouts, and it was so special to connect, talk, and see one another.
We spent some time exploring sites across the cluster in different year levels, which was really inspiring for me. I really enjoyed looking over other teachers sites, as there is so much experience and expertise across our cluster, and everything I know about sites is self-taught. It was exciting seeing what others are doing and how they put their sites together.
We did a Chalk 'n Talk session and making the learning visible was a real learning curve for me. In the past, I have deleted things from my class site and Dorothy explained that we should never do that. We can hide things from navigation if we need to, but it is important for everything to be visible and accessible.
Dorothy also made it very clear that learning needs to be visible to anyone. This made me think about my home page and the tabs I have visible at the top of the page. I thought about students being able to navigate our site at home, or parents visiting the site for the first time. I decided to make some changes to my class site, including the way I structure and present literacy, inquiry, and art.
I updated my home page to include my students, so they are visible on our site. I also included two image carousals that shows their learning and activities over the first half of the year. Here is an example from my new literacy programme, and if you would like to take a look at my class site, here is the link.
Gemma,
ReplyDeleteOur sites also provides evidence of our teaching! I agree that it is important to never delete anything from your site, instead, you could hide or archive old learning. Not only does it provide evidence, it is always a means for our students to access previous learning - being rewindable and visible!
Your site looks amazing! I can see that your students are at the centre of this design! Have your students commented on any of the changes you have made to the site? It would be interesting to hear their ideas. :)
Thanks Venessa, you're absolutely right! I had never thought of my site being evidence of my teaching prior to last week, but I won't be removing anything from now on. I've also condensed my links at the top of my site, so instead of multiple links at the top of the page, I have Term links with drop-down menus for the different subjects.
ReplyDeleteMy students were a little confused to start with, but they seem to be doing really well so far. I had started with my Inquiry page and it worked really well, so I decided to have a go with Literacy as well. I'm really excited as there is so much engagement at the moment!