The end of the DFI has come around fast - started with three face-to-face meetings and then we were all in lockdown and this group continued online.  It's been an excellent course, supported by the daily immersion in digital technologies while teaching, meeting, socializing, shopping - all online.
I think we have a great opportunity to re-invent schooling for our secondary students.  Many have thrived online.  They have experienced access to resources, teacher feedback, and choice over their work time that is not always available on site at school.  There are others who need face-to-face guidance and perhaps less time seated in a classroom.  My future hope is see a mix of online learning, seminars, work-experience, mentoring and personalised guidance with the College as a hub of learning and development for our young people, not simply corridors of classrooms, bells, reluctant attendees and disengaged learners.

Today we sat the Level 1 Exam, and I passed so that is a bonus to finish an excellent nine days of learning with wonderful, patient facilitators and focused, generous classmates.  Thank you all!

.......   oh well, my "Scratch" was a fail!  I didn't embed the one I made - live and learn.   I had my cat jumping down, meowing, getting bigger and then jumping back to where she started - it was awesome!

Day 8:  DFI online.  The day started with a focus on Empowerment - the way our digital technologies empower students and teachers to learn and communicate.  Dorothy highlighted the low-decile community where Manaiakalani first began.  I teach in a disadvantaged community in the Far North and in recent days we have pushed for our students and families to get the same benefits as other schools from the MOE's provision of devices.  Our families have previously worked very hard to provide their students with a device, and it's great to know they can be relived of that financial burden - equity of access is vital.  Once the device and connectivity is provided our students have the same access to ideas and learning as any student in NZ, or the world.

A quick overview of potential and existing new technologies from Gerhard followed.   Like him I often refer back to the Jetsons as I see and use the communications technology we have at our finger-tips today - especially face-time and other video-call tools we now have and rely on while we are all in lock-down.  ( I come by the Jetsons reference more readily perhaps, having been a TV-watcher in the 60s.)  The moral challenges of choosing who should die when a self-drive car malfunctions were troubling.

Kerry introduced and discussed the new Digital Technologies curriculum, an area that I am not familiar with.  I was able to view some of the resources that are in place to help us teachers understand the concepts of computational thinking. 

And in the "create" part of the day, I produced by first "Scratch" project - see below - I love cats!

Oh - and I registered for the Google exam next week - certainly not feeling very confident about that!