DFI - Week 9 - accreditation

Accreditation opportunities

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

1. Google Exam: An opportunity to gain a globally recognised award for teachers.

2. Review content from the Google Training Centre Modules. 

3. Apple Teacher Exams Apple Learning Centre

4. Screencastify Master the Screencast

5. WeVideo Education Ambassadors

6. BookCreator Certified Author

7. Hāpara Champion

Google Certified Educator Level 1

Level 2 passed

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.

DFI - week 8 - Useful Blogger Tip - post from email

Kia ora,

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.

--

Ngā mihi  / Kind regards.

--

Matt Harrison

Leader of Digital Technologies & Curriculum Development

BA Hons, PGCE Applied ICT, Post Grad.Cert Applied Practice (Digital & Collaborative Learning)

PO Box 154, 140 Hampden Street, Hokitika 7842 

Phone: +64 3 755 6169 | 

DFI - Week 8 - Computational Thinking - Edem626 - UC

CT Things that came up today

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.\

1. Happy Cow Milk
2. Halter $29m cowgorithm

We have started to use Trimble SketchUp For Schools (formerly Google SketchUp).

So it was interesting to see the Trimble work in Port Otago.

I was already familiar with the DTEC curriculum but the slideshow also had good Te Reo translations for Hangarau Matihiko Progress Outcomes terminologies.

Bucky shared some good links for game creation / character design

1. Hiberworld which I thought was a nice 3D example of a template based game generator.
2. HeroForge - looked like an interesting 3D character creator app

I shared the work of #Dan Milward & Gerard McManus - :  Te HikoTāraro

Dan Milward (working with Game Praxis) has also produced a Game Jam Cards - a game concept development card pack which makes for a creative group exercise. Here is a quick random generator app: http://ygd.bafta.org/resources/game-idea-generator 

I shared links to Drone coding https://sites.google.com/westlandhigh.school.nz/technology/new-dtec/9-10-computing/drones which uses Tello drones with https://learn.droneblocks.io/ for teaching & learning coding. The license cost US$500 could be shared between upto 10 teachers from a collection of schools.

I had registered for the Cyclone "Build Better Worlds" Minecraft Edu competition. I shared my learning site's Minecraft page: https://sites.google.com/westlandhigh.school.nz/technology/new-dtec/9-10-computing/minecraft-edu

I shared the folder of resources from the Cyclone teachers webinar: https://cycloneenable-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/danny_bedingfield_cyclone_co_nz/ErRBKv0tVWxGn3tPiFchixAB569n3SkmictRYK2uzZcdDg?e=7sKvBQ

Teachers Pay Teachers

I found these two resources are useful for CT with Minecraft Edu

1. $5 Minecraft Pixel Art worksheets - Image Binary Representation -https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Minecraft-themed-BINARY-BUNDLE-Simple-Binary-Encoding-Worksheets-Project-6401524 
2. $10 Minecraft Edu posters and Lesson Plans https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Minecraft-Education-Introduction-Unit-6138907

ECE CT etc.

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/

DFI - Week 7 - Ubik Devices - DDDO - 3D VR & AR

UBIK

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.

Digital Dig: bit.ly/DFIdigitaldig

My Slides:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XtVmQqi0LtyHsQx3AVEXwjskwqRko4DdGjwWuDuLAXI/edit?usp=sharing

DFI - Week 6 - Google Learning Sites Accessibility

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.

This is an NCEA requirement for Digital Technologies Levels 1-3. I've made a learning site page with Relevant Implications posters: https://sites.google.com/westlandhigh.school.nz/technology/new-dtec/12-13-dthm/implications

Two excellence Accessibility tips

• Clear Print Accessibility Guidelines
• github.com/UKHomeOffice/posters/raw/master/accessibility/dos-donts/posters_en-UK/accessibility-posters-set.pdf

Positives of Today

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.