DFI 7 Data

OK today we rolled into the DFI with the previously enigmatic Stef showing up to help out - presenting stuff on data, forms, mymaps and sheets. First of all though we had our weekly hangout, this time with Dorothy Burt. Dorothy presented a slideshow about the share side of things, explaining how Manaiakalani is a series of networks and connections between schools. I was struck by the fact that schools most often only meet with each other to compete, and how detrimental this attitude of competition can be.

The share part of the presentation also reminded me of a pretty heart warming story from the week. I have a level two student who is always smiling and happy and has always been a really nice kid. I knew from previous conversations that dad is in prison for dealing meth and mum might be going soon. He has quite a number of younger siblings so it wasn't a huge surprise to learn that his large number of absences were mainly because he has to stay home and baby sit. The heart warming part of the story is that he told me he now has a chromebook at home and is able to do his english work even though he isn't at school - I wonder how many other students might be in a similiar position.


The best parts of the day for me were learning about forms, sheets and some of the ins and outs of cryptocurrency. I have used forms and sheets before but not as much as I have wanted to - my top tip today is that if you want to get a quick quiz together on forms just head on over to Kahoot and copy and paste the questions and answers into a form. I will be using the same form to do some formative and summative assessment on computational thinking and will also do a couple of kahoot quizzes to mix things up a bit.
                                                                                                                                       A little graph we made of our blog posts, note the                                                                               sharp drop off from Willie after the first week.

As I have said before the amount of amazing tools and resources available "out there" in cyberspace is phenomenal and probably just overwhelming in most cases, every week I am stumbling upon some new stuff that I want to include in my sites for the juniors, but I just have to do some consolidation of what I am already doing before .

Somehow I also managed to find out that Tim is also a bit of a cryptocurrency nerd. Funnily enough it is something I have just been reading about and relates straight back into the stuff that Dorothy was talking about in terms of networking and connections.