My first post!

After heaps of great feedback from some of my whaanau at mahi who participated in DFI last term I decided to sign up for the DFI experience. 🙌🙊🙋

Relying solely on technology to teach (due to covid) was definitely something unusual! And even though I assumed I was "tech savvy" this experience truly proved me wrong. I started a teaching position in China in September and was in Beijing when the outbreak started. We had just finished Chinese New Year and were in preparations to return to school.

As soon as the outbreak was released in the media and the numbers of effected were high the school I was employed by at the time made the decision to take our learning online. I was working in the Early Childhood Department of our school which meant trying to cater to four year olds via distance learning and through online applications. The struggle was real... 😖👀

Not only did my student's not have support in English at home a lot of the applications or tools I was experienced in were not available in China like google. Let's just say it was a hard 6 months of online learning.

Which brings me to the now... I have now returned and am outdated! Which is why I have decided to jump on this waka and level up i te ao Matihiko...

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy? It was awesome to hear the background story of Manaiakalani and the timatanga. A lot of the time I forget that what I have learnt should be shared which is why I think the Learn, Create, Share model is amazing.

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I believe in working smarter not harder so up skilling in the use of google and the extensions will                     then make my work load more effective to the eye and efficient when creating because I will be more             familiar and confident with the tools.

• What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

            Everything, google groups, organisation of my drive and even just being more organised when                     saving documents. Lets just say someone (me) will now have pictures of me all over the world with all my famous friends thanks to remove.bg. I can't wait to share 😉

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

        What I found most exciting was how to manipulate tables, something so simple yet so effective!

Kia mau tonu mai for my next post... Are you excited? because I am!