Enabling Sites

During this session, I noticed my understanding of the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy deepen, particularly around the concept of Connected. . I realised that being connected by design is about much more than simply using digital tools—it is about intentionally creating opportunities for collaboration, communication, and authentic learning experiences. It reinforced for me that technology plays an important role in strengthening the connections between teachers, students, whānau, and the wider learning community.

One of the most valuable parts of the session was exploring other school sites and reflecting on my own class site. I noticed how effective a simple, well-organised structure can be in supporting learners to work independently. Looking at these examples inspired me to redesign my site so that it clearly reflects the Learn, Create, Share framework. My homepage now has three main buttons that guide students through their learning journey. The Learn page is organised by year levels, the Create page contains resources and tools that students can use to demonstrate their understanding, and the Share page links directly to learners’ blogs where they can publish and celebrate their work.

As I worked on redesigning my site, I realised that a clear structure can make a significant difference to the learner experience. I think this new layout will be much easier for students to navigate and will encourage them to move confidently through the learning process—from learning new concepts, to creating meaningful work, and finally sharing their learning with an authentic audience. I also noticed that aligning my site more closely with the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy has strengthened its purpose and made it more intentional. I am looking forward to seeing how this improved structure supports greater learner independence, engagement, and ownership of learning throughout the year.

My Site

Collaborate – sites

Here’s a link to the site I created 

Today’s learning strengthened my understanding of the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy, particularly around the idea of visible learning. A key takeaway for me was the importance of making learning clear and accessible—both for the teacher and the learner. It made me reflect on whether my students can can clearly see the learning journey. When learning is visible, there is less confusion and students are more aware of what they are working towards and why.

I also developed my thinking around using multimodal approaches, particularly through Google Sites. This has helped build my confidence in creating learning that supports both behavioural and cognitive engagement. I can see how presenting content in different ways can make learning more interactive and meaningful, while also improving my own workflow as I design and organise content more effectively.

There are strong connections to how this can be used in my classroom. Google Sites offers a great opportunity to increase student engagement by drawing learners into their work in a more personalised way. It supports learners to work at their own pace, encourages ownership, and has the potential to accelerate achievement while also empowering students in their learning journey.

On a personal level, this learning has reinforced the value of making things more visible and organised. Whether it’s planning, setting goals, or managing tasks, I can see how applying this idea of visible learning can help improve my own confidence and workflow outside of the classroom as well.

DFI – Dealing with Data

Today’s learning helped deepen my understanding of the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy, particularly the importance of sharing student work. One key idea that stood out was how publishing work through Edublogs helps to “finish” the learning process. When students share their work, it gives them a sense of completion and satisfaction, and also provides a strong motivation to produce something they are proud of. I can see how this step is not just an add-on, but an essential part of the learning journey.

I also developed more confidence in using digital tools, especially Google Forms. It was helpful to explore different types of questions and learn how to insert images, which makes forms more engaging and accessible. The linear scale feature stood out to me as something I could use for gathering feedback from students. In addition, learning how to use Google Maps was really valuable, and I can see many practical ways to incorporate it into my teaching.

There are clear connections to my classroom practice. I already use Google Forms in maths lessons, but I now feel more confident in expanding how I use them. I would also like to introduce Google Maps as a tool for learning, as it could be a great way to make lessons more interactive and relevant for students.

Outside of the classroom, I can also see how these tools will be useful in my personal life. In particular, Google Maps will be helpful for planning my upcoming South Island trip, where I’ll be travelling around in a van with my sister and brother-in-law. It will be a great way to map out our journey and explore different locations along the way

 

Tolati Data Case Study

The data shows that the student was much more active with blogging in 2024 than in 2025. In 2024, they posted regularly and consistently, with a high number of blogs each month and a peak of 34 posts. However, in 2025, their blogging started at a moderate level but gradually decreased over time. From around August onwards, the number of posts dropped significantly to just 1–2 per month. Overall, this shows a clear drop in both the number of blogs and consistency, suggesting the student became less engaged as time went on or the teacher changed her teaching structure.

DFI Day 3 – Media

Today I enjoyed learning about the hook to engage learners from the manaiakalani pedagogy, it really makes sense and aligns well with our ‘create’ learning.

I learnt more about youtube and created my own channel.  That is something that I can add to for students learning and use in my teaching.  I also learnt about sisomo which stands for sight, sound and motion.  I will enjoy using mask within google drawings to change the shape of inserted pictures. I will continue working on creating a shape google drawing that I can get students to draw their own car, animal or super hero mask. Overall I have developed my confidence when using these google tools in my classroom.

Below is my infographic I created about graphs.  I think students wuill enjoy creating their own infographic if they have the information already given to them.

DFI Day 2 Workflow

In day 2 of DFI I enjoyed being reminded of the Manaikalani pedagogy and the lesson bytes included on the web page.  I learnt a few more tools that will will help me use g-mail and calendar that will be helpful this year.  I think with my learners I could share with them Google Keep. This is a great tool I learnt for saving pages to share and also when writing lists.  I can also use this in my personal life too  for shopping lists.

The ‘Create’ part of  today was creating a recording while reflecting about a blog post.

Mine is attached below.

Core Business DFI Day 1

It was great to hear a refresh of the Manaikalani kaupapa and pedagogy.  It has made me want to use the framework of Learn, Create, Share in more of my classes. 

 

I learnt how to organise my folders better in G Drive and I also loved that I learnt to edit the names of bookmarks and be able to put more icons at the top of my screen bookmark. This was just an introduction but I am sure with more continued use I will gain confidence when working in google.. 

 

With my learners I could get them to create a document and introduce them to smart chips.  I have never used this before and it was fun to learn what is capable when creating emails from within documents and inserting dates. I think I could use this in my personal life too to improve my capability and workflow.  

 

This is an image of what I created today that I could start using with my math classes when introducing vocabulary.

 

 

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