How to use technology?

I am very poor at using technology, so I decided to set up a goal to work towards it. The learners were interested in making puppets and doing a show during our iExperience. I decided to learn how to make a movie with those video clips. It was a challenge for me but I started playing around to figure out how to do it. I learned how to edit the video clips.

LH2 Puppet show

Collaborative painting

One of the challenges (Collaborative spiral of Inquiry) for me to include all the learners during any activities and if they are not interested what do I do. Painting with a group of 20 learners were a challenge for me. I was able to work with the maximum of 5-10 learners at a time, otherwise, it was hard for me to support all the learners and their needs at once. Finally, we decided to divide into 4 groups and each group had a different task to do it.  We worked together to make this beautiful painting.


Collaborative painting
During the collaborative process of landscape painting, something magical happened.  Every single learner, not just selected tools to paint, they have begun to work and think like real artists...from which colors to use to where to add their new drawings like where to draw a tree, water, grass and sea animals and the sun. I saw them thinking more on a collaborative project than on individual ones. The learners were able to feel safe to share their ideas with other learners. During our iExpereince, the learners were amazingly enthusiastic, and they were involved in the whole range of the artistic process, from conceptualization to execution. It was very interesting to see the learners proud moment of showing their parents what they have done at school. 




Sketching

Doing the outline and learning how to hold the brush

Choosing the right color and working out what kind of stroke will be better for a different location.

Having discussion with other learners to choose the right color








Yeah! We worked together to achieve something big.
Katana: I like my big tree
Gauri: I enjoyed painting with my friends
Valencia said "Our painting looks awesome"
Pai matunga learners!!!

Community Connections

• What challenges can you see for yourself as an educator moving forward with your learning today?
• I would like to introduce basic Maori and Pacific phrases in my day to day learning and teaching practices. I get challenged when I deal with the learners who are already struggling to understand English because most of them speak English as their second language. Maybe I will introduce Maori and Pacifica greetings, some waiata and numbers. Display days of the week, month and numbers on the wall so that the learners can see and grasp it. Add some Maori phrases and waiata in my planning, so that I could keep track of them.
• 
  My next challenge is pronouncing the words correctly. Even though I hear it for so many times, I do make a mistake. I am wondering how do I say it correctly. Maybe I could play the recorded phrases or waiata might be helpful to teach the learners.

Assessment

As I come from an early childhood background, it was a challenge for me to understand the different methods of assessment and how to do it. By getting support from my colleagues and asking lots of questions and reading different assessment method helped me to understand the concept behind it and how to do it. I can handle the narrative assessment because I am already familiarized with it but other assessments I am working on it.


Narrative Assessment

This term, we focussed on collaborative working, meeting, playing and eating. We discussed during our meeting time, how it looks like. The learner’s had great ideas about it. They wanted to share, take turns, include everyone, peaceful problem solving, use gentle hands and legs, use kind words to others,  if we don’t have kind words keep to ourselves.

We worked hard to put these ideas into practice. We had to share the iPad, we work in one big paper and accommodate all the learners around the paper, helping new learners and supporting Emily Jiang in our habitat. We assess our learning during our meeting time, whether we were able to practice and what were the difficulties we faced. I recorded their learnings through narrative assessment.

Emily J was refused join in our group in the beginning, but now she is happy to join in and work along with other learners.

iDesign

We were working together during Experience as we had a small group in the beginning of the year. Later, we decided to split the group into two and provide two different experiences for the learners to opt in and opt out. During iDesign, we (LCs) discussed the needs of the learners, we observed what they were really interested, we discussed with the learners to find out their interest and planned suitable activities for them. We gave them two choices and encouraged the learners to choose one of the activity.

The learners prepared a balanced diet for their dinner. They looked at each other's plate and gave feedback to others learners as well. If one of the learners did not have fruits on their plate, they encouraged them to put fruits or vegetables and so on.

We made healthy bites. The learners were encouraged to healthy food

The learners prepared healthy sandwich and they ate it. They thought it was yummy and they wanted to try at home. They decided to bring some healthy sandwiches to school.

They were tasting their sandwich.

Assessment
We did the 5.1 literacy assessment in week 4 to see where they are at when they started school. We did the McCarthy Kirk to check their oral language and in week 7 PM benchmark to assess their reading level. We did the JAM test to find out the understanding of numeracy. All the results were entered into etap and google doc.