Jacob Walker Professional Blog

DI Intensive Week 9 This is the end!!  (not really though) After nine weeks of intense digital learning, I have consolidated my knowledge of LCS tools and strategies, trialled a new initiative, come up with an inquiry and developed my understanding of HTML. I have learnt the tools of the trade and I can now say I am well prepared for what the changing and modernised curriculum is asking me to teach and to achieve for my students. I have today become a Level 1 Certified Google educator and some could call me a Level 1 Manaiakalani digital educator (although some might not). This has been well worth the time and effort, and I am very grateful for Dorothy and James' time spent working with the group. I look forward to bringing my new knowledge into Ako Hiko and hopefully I can implement some changes in our cluster.

DI Intensive Week 8 Today we have been looking at the new Google sites. The new sites are very user friendly and are really easy to use. In saying this though, for more complex websites the new sites will not be the one to use. Instead I strongly (along with everyone else) suggest that you stick with the old sites. New sites no longer give you the ability to use HTML which is a big drawback. They are also stricter on inserting videos from non google compatible websites. Another drawback to the New sites is that it does limit the way you insert images and where they can be placed. Although this isn't the end of the world, it does make resizing images an issue. All in all though, after assessing all the negatives, there are still positives for the New Sites. The time it takes to create a simple website is a positive, especially if we are trying to develop new learning tools within a short time frame. As our practice we created a simple site to share our class websites. A link...

Week 8 Term 2 2017 I have been busy building on my idea for a website that can link to resources which are directly linked to the NZ curriculum and also E-astle console goals. The idea behind this, is that students at my school often make goals based on their Astle console results, yet as a second year teacher I struggle with finding resources, that not only engage, but are clear and linked to their goals. This was my initial reasoning behind creating this site as I wanted to increase engagement at school and at home with an easy to access resource. However, today has changed that reasoning. Talking with Andy Crow from Critical, we discussed and managed to pull out more reasons than I could have initially expected, that underpinned why I was trying to create this. Andy forced me to think about not just my perspective but also that of other teachers who might want to use this resource. What is the aim behind the website? Was it just resourcing, or engagement? What about teachers w...

Week 6: DI Intensive - Website Design/HTML Practice This week we have continued with creating sites, except instead of going down the standard basic road, I and a few others have looked at how to embed code into an image using HTML. This is great for creating easy flow sites which are attractive to look at and convenient to use. We created our sites based around the Professional Teaching Standards. As teachers we continually collect evidence and through the sites we have created, this will link to our blog, which will contain all our linked evidence. Although I am still in the process of creating mine, I feel once I have created a template this could be shared between my colleagues which will go forth as a digital CV. Playing with HTML is not easy and is time consuming, but I think with continued practice this will become second nature and creating these more intricate sites will become a quick task which can be easily whipped up on a weekend. Have a look at what I have creat...

DI Intensive Week 5 This week we have been looking at how to build a website and ways in which we can integrate this into our class work routines. I have built sites before and I am currently building one through the new google sites for my role as ICT PLD administrator at Wesley Intermediate.  The new google sites are a breeze to use, but are limited and are for those who need a quick easy way to get into building sites. Today however we did not use the new sites we used the old version. This allows HTML use and can be fine tuned. I liked building a work portal from scratch, and it has been interesting to go through the process of creating a different way for the students to go about their tasks. I will be trialling this in the coming weeks. My Google Site