Digital Fluency Intensive - Collaborate

The importance of creativity was a dominant theme in todays session. It is evident that creativity is an essential skill that our learners need to possess for the future as these "creative skills help students become better problem solvers, communicators and collaborators" (Everyone can create, Apple, 2008). 

Kohl (2008) describes creativity in young people as "the process of forming original ideas through exploration and discovery", it is clear this is an important element of the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy. Furthermore, the value of using modern technologies to stimulate this creativity and therefore drive student engagement is evident within the Manaiakalani pedagogy. 

Today's session highlighted to me the importance of Multi Modal Learning, an important take home message was the importance of having a 'hook' when creating tasks for my learners - this ensures engagement. 

In addition to a hook, I need to ensure my content looks engaging online - by ensuring I present my information using different modes i.e. poem, video, audiobook - I know this will appeal to all my learners. This will result in my lessons appearing much more engaging and will appeal to a wider range of students. I have found that google sites are an effective way to present this information. 

Another take home message was the importance of students being creators of information and not just consumers - through exposing students to meaningful creative tasks we can ensure that students are drivers of their own learning.
One trick that I learnt today that I will be using with my learners relates to documents I want them to copy. 

• By changing the end of a slide link from 'present' to 'copy' and sharing this link with my students - this ensures that when they click on this link it will ask them 'do you want to make a copy of this document' instead of just opening up the document.

Another component of the session today was working with google sites. Although I already use google sites with my students it was good to learn a few more tips around adding buttons and looking into some different design features. Attached is the link to our google site which I created alongside some other teachers. 

Resources

Kohl, M. A. (2008). Fostering creativity. Excelligence Learning Corporation.