When I did PGCE Applied ICT & QTS teacher training in the UK I gained British Computing Society - ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence) Level 2
and Certiport's MOS (Microsoft Office Specialist) - Advanced Word, Excel, PowerPoint.
I paid the $10 fee myself at the start of this DFI course and have passed the Google Certified Educator Level 1, I am now looking at further accreditation. I found today's Opportunities slide deck interesting to see the other Educator certs available.
Deep Dive: External Recognition Opportunities
Google Exam: An opportunity to gain a globally recognised award for teachers.
I expected the $25 exam to have practical scenarios and to be harder. I think the multiple choice / drag& drop questions would be harder for ESOL students because it was more about reading comprehension and catching the red herrings.
Microsoft Minecraft Edu PD
I have started to experiment with the delivery of Computational Thinking with Minecraft Edu. I've had a discusion with the HoD Maths to swap ideas on how I can integrate our DTEC CT curriculm so that it chimes in with the Y9 (measurement and number) and Y10 (statistics) maths topics. So I was pleased to see Cyclone is doing more PD with teachers for using Minecraft Edu. Here is a MinecraftEdu with maths for next Wed. We have an open evening hui at that time for senior subject selection, so hopefully they will share links to a webinar video / resources.
My initial thoughts are to integrate with our Droneblocks.io coding of Tello Drones to measure and calculate perimeter, area and volume (for Y9) and to use drone racing results bivariant data (for Y10 statistics). But the MinecraftEdu will be ideal for Y7-8 students.
CS Unplugged @ Home
I'm always impressed by the mahi of UC Computer Science Education with Tim Bell, so I was pleased to see today's tip of CSUnplugged@home. I will share this with our feeder school HPS's DTEC co-ordinator.
thanks to Phil for the Blogger Tip to enable posting from email. This is a test.
It's good to know that the 'post as draft' allows you to edit it for more features / functions.
Reflections on Scratch.
I liked the intro to Scratch using OMGTech's 'Waka Wero'. I will use this with my Hangarau Matihiko class. For new teachers, it's worth remembering to remind students to 'verify email' so that they can share work.
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Ngā mihi / Kind regards.
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Matt Harrison
Leader of Digital Technologies & Curriculum Development
BA Hons, PGCE Applied ICT, Post Grad.Cert Applied Practice (Digital & Collaborative Learning)
I appreciated the Future of Tech in NZ slideshow. I was aware of many of the ideas but found it refreshing and there were some good new examples of NZ Companies with innovative tech that will be relatable to my rural students.\
I thought the Cubetto looked cool and maybe my wife's early learning centre could get them, however, they are quite expensive and out of stock in Aus : https://www.primotoys.com/
In terms of ubiquitous apps for accessible and always on learning that is device agnostic, I have been using Aframe.io for students to code VR 3D spaces and 360 VR Tours. This can be used with any device that has internet access because it is an online IDE with links to Github called https://glitch.com/. It involves writing HTML with extra AFrame.io tags, such as <a-sphere>, which can be referenced from the documentation.
For differentiation I have introduced non-coders to CoSpaces.io/edu/ which is a proprietary block based visual IDE. To make /view the 3D work people can use a platform specific app for Android, iOS or on desktop/Chromebook they can login to the main website.
3D for the Samsung - Solve for Tomorrow Competition
My 7-8 STEM class has been designing 'tiny houses' to solve the housing crisis using TinkerCAD.com. Some have asked about using FloorPlanner.com which is a great way to visualise the interiors. They can easily drag and drop / move and resize walls, windows and furniture.
My 9-10 Computing class also has been trying to use Design Thinking to enter the competition. They have been working on SketchUp for Schools. SketchUp also has available furniture through the 3D Warehouse marketplace.
My 1213DTHM class has used TinkerCAD and MagicaVoxel (not suitable for Chromebook). Today, whilst looking for a Chromebook app to do 3D modelling and animation I stumbled across Vectary.com.
This looks promising but has an expensive license if you want AR. So much so that it makes CoSpaces licenses seem affordable by comparison.
Here is something I tested and tried to export with iframe embed. Vectary charge more money for publishing publicly which is another negative. In comparison, CoSpaces does allow you to archive student work and move the licenses to a new cohort of students for Tech option rotation classes.
Accessibility Poster of DTEC Relevant Implications
Important info - Relevant Implications - Accessibility
This week has been about improving our Google Learning Sites. Apart from content and structure, Teachers, as part of UDL (Universal Design for Learning), need to understand web accessibility standards, for example having info / text inside images / banners without readable text / ALT tags. It is a NZ legal requirement for public buildings and webs sites to be accessible (e.g. ramps / lifts for wheelchair users in schools), however, we are blocking low vision users if text cannot be read aloud be screen readers.
As a web designer, we stopped creating web buttons in Photoshop when we started using CSS 2.0. Apart from being less efficient, graphical text buttons hurt a website. This is due to the issue of SEO (search engine optimisation). Web spiders cannot crawl and parse text inside images.
Teachers could be ignorant of the needs of low vision users perhaps thinking that they know their class students, however, we are trying to have visible learning for whanau - and so we need to accommodate the needs of elderly or vision impaired.
Lots of Good advice shared in the slideshow resources. Nice tip for teachers to use Google Drawing because I would have used Photoshop or Pixlr.com/e/ but using G. Drawing is more accessible for staff.
I was happy to share my site and resources because we all stand on the shoulders of others.
Today's Take Away
Personally thought it was a great tip to create Learning Site banners at W1000 x H 250 px. Learning Sites are responsive so the banner will sometimes crop when bigger. I tend to use them as a texture and then add text over the top. Setting them as 2000 x 500px produces a better non-pixelated result.
I also worked on improving the new topics. Since we are in lockdown I have had to change my plan from teaching Computational Thinking with Tello https://www.droneblocks.io to using Minecraft Edu on students Chromebooks.
I feel familiar with using Google Sites for sharing UDL content. I think that it makes sense to reuse content each year so that we are not re-inventing the wheel. My current school tech Department site is:
Here is a simple Google Form for students to sign-in to our online classes. The timestamp in the Responses Google Sheet will help show when they arrived. The form has a simple Yes/No option to upload work to be shared / reviewed. If they choose yes it progresses to the section with two ways of uploading, via G Drive or add a text share link.
I cannot embed this form here because it has an upload option.
The branching sections options based on the user's input (e.g. if they choose a particular radio button) has given me an idea to create a finite state automata like a choose your own adventure branching narrative. I have previously asked students to use Code.org App Lab to make these. But perhaps a Google Form could be easier. They could plan it with a LucidChart which could also to teach flow charts. I know this has been popular to do in Google Slides.
Mymaps.google.com is very useful. Here is a drone flight map I made which has approximately the same info for safe drone flight, which I found using the AirShare app. I had to go through a process to allow the Mavic Air 2 drone to be able to fly within the school area (under Shielded Operation).
Drones & AI
I am currently using Droneblocks.io with a Tello Drone. This is useful because they have a simulator for students to practice and test out their coding first before they launch the missions on the real drones. My big hairy audacious ambitious project is to get senior NCEA students to code AI with OpenCV so the drones can use facial recognition. This Youtube video covers similar content to the paid DroneBlocks curriculum.
The YT algorithm then fowarded me to a cool open source project to 3D print an open source robot and use arduino and RaspberryPi to make an AI robot with the inMoov Project.
These would be cool applied Computational Thinking projects. My WHS STEM colleagues already do a cardboard robot hand and Aleta Chowfin at Grey High already has a focus of coding and making something like this. However, I still have a challenge of repairing / servicing our school's 3D printer.
Google Sheets
I thought the intro to sheets was quick and comprehensive. For my own analysis of student NCEA data I was given a good tip to try Google Data Studio. https://datastudio.google.com/