Session 6 of DFI - Dealing with Data

The Manaiakalani Pedagogy Dorothy shared with us today was the Empowered part. She talked about the Empowering to include teachers and our young people and whanau. Some also use the word 'Agency'. 

Technology is not just a tool it should be empowering our young people.  Dorothy shared some of the disempowerment that happens in the community in which she lives and all the varying ways data is currently being collected e.g. chip in pre-schoolers clothes to collect the amount of oral language that is spoken at home.

I really liked the idea of taking the 5+ a day challenge - the conversation goes back and forth 5 times. This is going to be something that I am going to take back to the classroom and work on. I will become creative with a symbol that I might use to ensure coverage across all students during the day as our class builds up!!  Researchers say that in the digital age, young people who are blogging regularly and receiving feedback with communication (+5) on their blogs are able to accelerate their learning.

If the learning and teaching is not visible we are disempowering our young people.

Empowering comes from visibility and comes from being appropriately connected with other people.  Our digital technology is not just a tool.


In DFI we are being empowered to become fluent in using the technology and confident in using it. We need to capitalise on the opportunities that are available to us. The internet is a wealth of knowledge.       

A very useful slide to remember

We looked at google forms

Google forms connect to spreadsheets.  I will make a google form as part of our sign in, in the classroom in the morning. inserting pictures to assist the students with answering the forms.  We get to forms by searching the omnibox- forms.google.com


We also looked at Google my maps - owning our maps

This could be used in the classroom for our mapping in Enviroschools. It would be great to map the different things we found on our walk around the school and we could also colour some of the pins to show those things that are sustainable.
I can also see how we could show other information from our Mihi.

We analysed some data gained from one of the students blog at school to create a Blog Analysis. This activity showed how easy it actually was!! This could be useful in my Junior Class for displaying the progress the students are making with their word writing - which is our 'Inquiry'. Fantastic and super timing - thanks Dave!!! It will be easy for the students to view as well and can be uploaded straight onto their learning journal.

I really enjoyed today. There was lots of new learning but I can see how it can decrease work load by making somethings really simple especially the recording of the students known sight words, I now don't need to count them instead function key and sum.