The Woolf Fisher Research Centre at the University of Auckland, led by Dr Stuart McNaughton, is currently carrying out research to find out how we teach 21st century skills, such as critical thinking, self-regulation and collaborative reasoning, using digital technologies. As part of this research, Room 9 @ Pt England were observed by a member of the Woolf Fisher team yesterday. My focus during this observation was the teaching of prosocial skills in a digital world by integrating Cybersmart learning and the key competency of relating to others.
As a hook to engage the learners in a fun and positive way, I chose a movie created by Room 18 @ Pt England for this year's Manaiakalani Film Festival, Make Kindness Go Viral! My lesson plan involved learners using positive words and their manners to find a buddy so that they were able to interact and take turns in a conversation as they brainstormed ideas and relevant vocabulary.
Following our Think, Pair, Share brainstorm for the whole class, each student accessed the digital resources by making a personal copy of this DLO.
Overall, this Cybersmart lesson was highly effective in promoting positive social skills and relationships between the students, while making deliberate and specific connections to the positive communications they create when crafting quality blog comments as part of the Cybersmart programme. It was also fantastic to listen to and read the rich language that was selected to create these comments.
An engaging afternoon was spent sparking connections with Rachel Williams at the Woolf Fisher Research Centre at the University of Auckland yesterday to support my Spark-MIT 2016 inquiry. Rachel is addressing the summer slide in literacy specifically within Manaiakalani and created a pilot holiday blogging programme, Summer Learning Journey, which ran over three weeks in January 2016. Blogging was chosen for this initiative as a positive way to hook learners into creating and sharing more writing. Eight 1:1 digital classes across three Manaiakalani schools participated in the pilot programme with approximately one-third of those learners actively blogging during this time.
How does this relate to my inquiry? As the programme is set to expand during the July holidays, it offers learners motivation and a framework for authentic and fun reading and writing activities in addition to any holiday leisure reading. Rachel is excited to have an opportunity to connect with the learners in Room 10 @ Ruapotaka and enable their involvement in this ubiquitous literacy journey, taking advantage of digital affordances at home and in the community. We will collaborate to enable whānau to engage and connect with this blogging journey.
