DFI Cohort 2 2019 Day 4 26 June 2019

Day 4

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?
Today's session was focussed on the Share part of Learn, Create, Share.
Share gets its power and importance from a most basic human requirement- the need to feel connected with others and to establish and maintain ongoing, reciprocal communication of all kinds. Sharing with others is a dynamic thing and deprived of it, we wither and grow into a lesser being. Wouldn't you like to be an invisible time traveller and be able to hang about watching how we humans evolved from grunting gesture  makers to the articulate poets we are today? You would have been bound to notice some revolutionary moments in the growth of our cognitive abilities and they wouldn't have happened without the evolution of our intricate oral languages. Also, just think about the ways, thanks to being handy with gadgets, we have levered language into the practically miraculous instant dissemination of detail to millions, over thousand of miles, in the blink of an eye. Sharing! If only it was still possible to communicate with Freddy Mercury, maybe the head honchos onboard the Manaikalani Mother Ship would hire him to compose an anthem about that word!

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

Today we learned more about how to make multi modal Google sites. It was very hard and confusing but I did learn some stuff. But will it stay in my brain??? I was feeling rubbish today with a headcold and blocked nose and was identifying strongly with Naughty Little Johnny at the Back of the Class.  I would like to be able to whip up a site easily so I could move away from using the same static site each week and just updating my embeded Slideshows. Slideshows are great but they are quite small and restrictive.

Here is the incomplete site that I made. I really do not like it but it seems that I can only learn how to do this stuff by having a go and then discovering how I could change it to make it better afterwards. 

Then, after lunch we came back in and we had to make another site from scratch. This was easier than before lunch so I must have learned something. Or, maybe it was the walk to town and back and a sushi lunch that helped revive my brain. Spent most of today thinking: Now I know what it's like to be a kid in school again and I don't like it!!! Had several different lists of names in my head as I identified the ways I was feeling with observed student behaviour in my own room. Procrastinated about getting started, shot a few fresh drops of decongestant up my nose and finally cranked up and made this. Happiness!

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

Sites of course. Would be great to be able to create one as easily as I use Slideshows but that seems a long way off. However, I believe that it won't be too long before we have students actually creating their own sites. It just seems like a natural progression.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
Well now, if I had more free time I reckon I would make my own family site just to share with my husband, children and a very few close friends. One could abandon Facebook then and stop feeling like you were trapped within a horde of self-promoting, narcissistic dingbats, in orbit around some kind of evil, mind-controlling Death Star. Emancipated, your ideas and images would zip freely and privately across cyber space. It might be nearly as exciting as running away with Han Solo on the Millenium Falcon.