Attending the Cluster Hui

On Friday, we attended the annual Manaiakalani Hui. This was an incredible day where we were able to connect with colleagues from across the cluster and hear from a large number of the amazing people who are making significant changes to the lives of our ākonga.

The day started with the Manaiakalani Ambassadors sharing their learn-create-share in a number of interesting ways. Through this presentation, ākonga who show learning which is ubiquitous, empowered, connected and visible was evident (to learn more about this, have a look at Dorothy's blog post here).

I have accumulated the rest of my learning from the day by creating this (retrospective) sketchnote:

Throughout the day, I also used twitter as a platform to share:

Overall, it was great to see such amazing inquiry that is happening in our schools in a number of ways. Inquiry is such an important part of what happens as a teacher and it is so important to remain future-focused teachers. The importance of inquiry was definitely evident through everyone who shared at the Hui.

Learning the ropes on twitter

Before today, I had made a twitter account and had tweeted one tweet. Little did I know of the value behind twitter for teachers! 

Today, we were joined by James Hopkins through google hangouts. James shared with us his journey through his teaching career up until today and the value twitter provided for him as an educator. Twitter provides a professional learning network (PLN) and a form of professional development which is constantly at your finger tips.

We took part in a twitter chat with the hashtag #MDTAchat. These slides explain the provocation and questions we were challenged with.

Here is our twitter chat:

• On twitter
• On storify (displaying our chat)

This was a great share task where our thinking was challenged, our PLN was expanded, and we had growth in our confidence on twitter.

My goal will be to keep up with using twitter to connect with and expand my PLN.