Tuesday in Paihia....for some PD with Kerry

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1K-1TreoMkxahP9oSbqY4VqEETVuNqhDxLYPFakk8_4c/edit#slide=id.g648bd1f938_0_8

  BEING CyberSMART...

first question then:  Why do LEARNERS need to be CYBERSMART?

• Empowers learners to be positively connected citizens
• Confident, connected, actively involved lifelong learners
• Develops an authentic audience
• Develops the personal voice of each child
• Develops students’ employability
• Raises student achievement  
• Deliver 21st Century Education to 21st Century Learners

watch this VIDEO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=yFxNb2XKRRU

link to the government cybersmart week 2019

what does this look like in our class rooms?

WITH GREATER POWER COMES GREATER RESPONSIBILITY!!
They have:
- powerful devices
- ultra-fast connection/internet
- access to WWW

We need to keep our kids safe. It is like driving on a fast highway at top speed, you would never drive with your kids in a car without having all the safety features, why do you allow them on the internet with out safety features???
Every time they are online it creates a digital footprint. Empower your learners to harness technology in smart and clever ways. Focus should be on CYBERSMART continuously through the year.

We are giving them the building blocks to be life-long learners who are connected, confident and actively involved. Partnership/participation and protection...teacher can assist them how to be cybersmart learners.

Lots of "other stuff" happening for our students on line, that we as adults/school are not aware of.
for example, ads taking them to the "wrong sites" while gaming, etc.

this is the link to our kawa of care

Teach students how to be:
smart learners, have a smart footprint, have smart relationships.
Here is a link to the SMART site 

What are the common things that us as teacher experience as problems with our students using technology:
- worsen handwriting
- not discerning readers
- time spent online playing games with kids in other time zones, come to school exhausted!
- using the first link/first research and believe it is true
- they are not selective readers/ fake news/ how to validate the sites
- they copy what they read/ don't write it in their own words
how do we empower SMART online learners?
Plan to include:  Learn create share pedagogy, cybersmart, smart values and kawa of care in each lesson.
Look at the smart site, and include the relevant bits to your lesson, to guide the students how to be CYBERSMART. Problem is that they think they are CYBERSMART, but they are not.

https://images.app.goo.gl/uhysBnZJYB68P99T6

Understand that every time they connect, collaborate and share online it combines to create their digital footprint.

Being wrong, can make you better at being right

Currently I am busy with year 13's on the topic Learning Programming.  I have been teaching a mix on on-line and individual "help as they ask" lessons on the statistics topics. Now I am doing a mix of Hapara Workspace and old-fashioned talk and chalk lessons with hands on activities for the students.
Interesting that after we spent a whole lesson doing graphs by hand, without any technology to get this comment from one of the boys:  "whaea Mina, by the way, this was the best lesson ever!! Was so good to have a lesson with you showing us how, and we doing it without technology"

The thing is:  They are allowed to use technology to sketch the graphs, but I thought to do a few lessons without technology, would actually enhance their understanding of the topic. Trying , getting it "wrong", trying again, getting those AHA moments when they succeed, and feeling accomplished by doing it by hand!!
Being wrong, can make you better at being right.

My motto remains:
The power of YET,
I can't do it YET
I can't sketch the graph YET
This does not work YET
I am not good at this YET
I don't know the answer YET
I don't understand this YET

A new for me, to let some of them go out today, while I could see that they don't get it YET..

Today I've read this article and found it a good fit, for what I am trying to achieve with my lessons today.

Money money money must be funny...it is a rich man's world!!

I am getting more and more excited about our Math journey for next year.
My focus this year is to get more students excited about taking math.
So I am opening this for what people previously called the students of concern, and I will by taylor-making a program for these students - bringing in the Young Enterprises work and a little bit of math as well.
Then I would also love to challenge the students who wrote the Algebra external in year 12 to do some more calculus next year in year 13, so I am hoping to have a year 13 CALCULUS group in the second semester of year 13.
I broke the math up into semesters. Look at the links to my options day presentations.


https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1H2wVv0ix-w_EfzV_saPH0mhYV3tOSWliUoNVDKoZKTU/edit?usp=sharing



https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eRW8Gg8Ux3PTaxhfdamMbdWwM3tr9IWk5P-CYkzZzaI/edit?usp=sharing


https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nKE7HMNnOYByKulUThgwJZTUGPm37_sSLjeTMy-d4No/edit?usp=sharing

Kindness

This week (as we all know) is Maori week as well as Keep New Zealand Beautiful week.  Lots of fun activities were planned by our school and it is weeks like these that I am so privileged, and so often reminded by how wonderful it is to be teaching at Bay Of Islands College in Kawakawa.  Not only do we have the most amazing team of teachers, supporting and helping each other to survive, but we also have students who EMBRACE being Maori and EMBRACE their culture. Students went out during this whole week to collect rubbish from all the streets in Kawakawa, enjoying doing their part in : Keep New Zealand beautiful. (I wish we could have this happening at least once in a fortnight.)

I am so absolutely blessed to be part of this awesome community of learning. Where students still run to class, and where students are genuinely disappointed and upset if the ask you:  "Whaea, when do we have math? " and I answer: "we don't have math today" to which the respond:".aaaaw NO!! this is a bad day!!"

I had a wonderful moment in the coffee shop, PBK (Pure Bliss Kitchen) (in Moerewa...a must go to) when this beautiful older lady approached me with the words: "Kia Ora, and who are you? you are so beautiful, thanks for blessing our town with your beautiful light" This is why I love living in this area. People are still so "real" and caring, and people who speak their mind, and say it as it is, those people are my tribe, and my favorite kind of people.

A is for Addiction!!

If I was an alcoholic, would you ask me to put liquor in my bag? Would you ask me to put it in my pocket? No, but we do this with our students and their mobile phones...




Here is a link to my slideshow that I made about this topic.

I am an adult, and I have enough life experiences and tools in my kete to ensure that I look after my emotional well being, but our students do not have that ability, yet.  After 35 years of teaching I know that at school we expect our students'  parents to have taught their children ways of coping with life, and put some safety net for their well being in place, but it does not always happen.

I have experienced myself how the length of time spend on my mobile phone is directly linked to the black dog (depression)!! I've experienced myself how it impacts on my sleep patterns and on my well being,...Now if I as an adult experience this, how much more , would a young impressionable mind of a teenager  "suffer"??I am totally addicted to my mobile phone, I took it everywhere with me, I even found myself in front of the television, and being on face book on my mobile phone at the same time. There are some useful articles on this, people experiencing the same "problem". Link


How can I sit back and feel that I've done a good job at teaching my students about algebra, statistics, geometry  AND not be concerned about the enemy in the room. I quote from an article:
"have cell phones really destroyed a generation?? we don't know...." Surely we can not answer this question when it is too late???

I can not stand by and not try to do something about this, life and it's ebb and flow have taught me, never to stand alone. In my small and humble way, I would like to find like minded teachers, and have some meaningful discussions around this topic. I started wondering how other people feel about this, because everything is "googelable", so I've discovered a few great articles and videos. Please feel free to add some more articles and videos in the comments. In my "research" I also saw that I am certainly not alone in my concerns about this problem, all state schools in Victoria will be banning all cell phones in all schools from next year. France has put a ban on them(2018) , some schools in Auckland has put a ban on them....
I quote from the NZ Herald: "

Cellphone ban helps propel low-decile Māori school to top of NCEA ranks

 link

I would love to hear your thoughts on this!!


I also made a video presentation about my slideshow. 

Thursday is PD day with Kerry!!

Today we are learning how to get our students' how to blog. This link is to "blog starters".

My idea for showing up to this "workshop" was that I would love for my new math classes, which I call the MFC group (Mathematical Financial Capability), to blog and show me some higher level thinking.

I want my year 13's , who I call my "guinea pig"-group, as this is the first class who I am teaching the MFC work to, to have a blog up every period, with a question that will give them a chance to show me some higher level thinking, in a open forum, but also in a formal way.

I love blogging myself, but as with all other good intentions, don't make time for myself to sit down and blog.  I would love to have all students in all Math classes to at least once a week , open their blogs and to reflect on the learning that happened in Math for the week, their "struggles" and how they've overcame these struggles...WOULD THAT NOT BE GREAT???

Let's put that out there for a GOAL for 2020!!

For now: I am going to start a MFC year 13 class blog, and I am taking baby steps with them.

What is MFC...the new buzz word in the mathematics faculty at BOIC

So what does MFC stand for?? It is the acronym for Mathematical Financial Capability. My intention with this is to have a back-up plan for some of our mathematics students or actually anyone else, that wants to learn about it, on line and up and ready to go for end of August 2019. Some of my students have reached a "ceiling" in their mathematical learning, some of them want to learn about something useful that they can use in life, apart from all the other wonderful topics in our mathematics syllabus. This is my effort to bring more FUN and ENJOYMENT into the class.


So what is financial capability? What does it look like in BOIC? (Here is the class link to the different levels. You need to click on the F and then open the correct year level . The first topic for all the year groups are : budget.

The whole idea with this new branch of Mathematics, is to make the learning about the MFC, as much fun as possible, and hands on, where students learn through practice. I've decided to use the programs from YOUNG ENTERPRISES . It also opens up a new "world" inside the math class, and also opens it up for those students who think they can not do math! I would like to say thank you to Young Enterprises for opening up this world to me and my students.

I started off with the year 13's, who decided that most of them had 18 credits for math, and in stead of doing an external, which they were not interested in, they want to learn about finances and have something to put in their kete by the end of the year. I started them off by talking about financial goals, then learning about SMART goals and now focusing on budgeting.




We had loads of fun, when I shared the year 11 BUDGET slide show that I made with them, because they haven't been taught the year 11 and year 12 budgeting topics. So, instead of me reading through the slideshow with them, I made them choose a number, and they then had to present this slide's info to us in class.  I chose number 1, which is the heading of the topic. Click here for the video that I made of the first slide.