Google’s Hidden Goldmine: Discover the treasures you never knew you had - Rachel Duckworth

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-duckworth-nz/?isSelfProfile=false  

Chrome

Create QR codes

Tab Groups

Tab vertically

Send to your device

Docs

docs.new etc

@ for smart notes 

Create a template - /template

Gmail

Scheduled send 

Undo send

Enable Offline Mail

Create automated tasks in Studio for Gmail and other apps. You can use Discover and Flow.

Google Art and Culture

Say What You See

Geo Artwork

Cultural Crosswords

Data Gif Maker

AI Quests

Gemini Notebook: Your AI Partner for Special Education - Dr. Lynne Herr

Game Changers for Staff! 

bit.ly/christchurchlynne

EduGems - Welcome to EduGems! This is a growing collection of pre-made prompts ("Gems") for educators to use with Google Gemini.

🖱️ Click on any item below to get details on that Gem, with options to use or make your own copy of the Gem.

✨ When you click to use a Gem, it will open in Gemini. Press "Enter" or the Submit button to launch the Gem.

🤔 If better results are needed, choose "Thinking" or "Pro" instead of "Fast" for the Gemini model. 

Gemini - data can not leak out, so it's fine to include identifying data; however, data can leak in if Gemini needs more information from the web.

Notebook - data is limited to what you add to it. No leaking in or out.

In Notebook, add a student IEP and then chat with it through the chat - eg I am a new teacher to the student in the notebook; tell me about the student. The numbers in the answer will take you directly to the part in the IEP. Create a teacher guide using Studio. Sketchnotes for turning complicated documents into Sketchnotes.

Making interactive games in Pro Vibe Coding with Gemini Canvas

Vibe Coding with Gemini Canvas

Vibe Coding lets you code without knowing coding languages.

Prompts create visual representations of text through Sketchnotes, infographics, and other graphics using your own vetted content.

Flash is more ethical because it uses fewer environmental resources; the higher up AI is, the more resources are required.

Google Summit - Keynote - Chris Harte

 The speed of change is quick - always has been - is it getting faster?

AI - always revisit the purpose above all else!

Fragile world currently - teacher shortage, wars, global warming - extreme events all impacting children's education.

How do we connect ākonga to learning?

How do we get ākonga to connect with the world without overloading them or their teachers? How do you keep people positive and avoid a "world is ending" spin?

In many ways, nothing changes for teachers with AI

• Relational Connection & Empathy: AI cannot build trust, offer genuine empathy, or understand the complex emotional, home, or social factors impacting ākonga. The human bond remains the primary driver of student engagement and safety.
• What can AI do to support the teacher in this area? - AI handles time-consuming administrative tasks—such as drafting initial emails, organising schedules, or marking routine quizzes—freeing up hours each week. Teachers can reinvest that time in one-on-one check-ins, restorative conversations, and building authentic relationships with ākonga.

• Core Purpose & Pedagogical Intent: The "why" of education—fostering critical thinking, curiosity, character, and citizenship—remains identical. AI changes how tasks are done, but not the ultimate goal of learning.
• What can AI do to support the teacher in this area? - Teachers can use AI to brainstorm innovative lesson ideas, rich inquiry questions, or real-world problem scenarios aligned with their core learning goals. The AI acts as a thought partner, while the teacher shapes the pedagogy to ensure it fosters genuine critical thinking and curiosity.

• Understanding the Learner: Knowing a student's unique strengths, struggles, culture, and readiness requires human observation, active listening, and relationship-building that no algorithm can replicate.
• What can AI do to support the teacher in this area? - AI can rapidly differentiate learning materials. A teacher can take a single complex text or task and ask AI to generate versions at multiple reading levels, translate it into different home languages, or adapt it for neurodivergent learners—ensuring every student can access the curriculum at their readiness level.

• Ethical Guidance & Role Modelling: Teachers remain the essential moral compass in the classroom, modelling integrity, cultural responsiveness (such as Tikanga and Te Ao Māori values), resilience, and respectful discourse.
• What can AI do to support the teacher in this area? - AI provides a live, authentic "teaching moment" for the classroom. Teachers can bring AI outputs into lessons and invite students to evaluate them for bias, factual inaccuracies, or lack of cultural perspective—modelling critical thinking, digital citizenship, and ethical awareness in real time.

• Professional Judgment & Critical Evaluation: Teachers must still curate, evaluate, and adapt learning experiences. Whether content comes from a textbook, a website, or AI, human expertise is required to determine its quality, relevance, and appropriateness.
• What can AI do to support the teacher in this area? - AI serves as a draft generator rather than a final product. Teachers use their professional judgment to refine AI-suggested lesson plans or rubrics, tailoring the content to integrate local contexts, cultural values (such as Tikanga and Te Ao Māori), and the specific interests of their cohort.

• Creating a Supportive Community: Classrooms are social environments where teachers cultivate collaboration, conflict resolution, and collective belonging by managing the room's physical and social dynamics.
• What can AI do to support the teacher in this area? - AI can assist in designing collaborative group activities, icebreakers, and role-playing scenarios tailored to class interests. This allows the teacher to focus on facilitating group dynamics, resolving peer conflicts, and cultivating a safe, inclusive classroom environment.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hartechris/?isSelfProfile=false

Liz Kane - Literacy Day 3

 

“Step one in classroom management: respect the fact that children go to school to learn, and create the conditions that promote their ability to do so. Children are highly distractible and should be supported to focus, so they can learn. Social seating is for social activities.” - Dr Pamela Snow

Consider how the classroom set up can facilitate:

• checking for understanding throughout lessons
• protect and support your student’s attention

Words from specific subjects, as the others they will hear day to day.

Steps for teaching

1. Say the word out loud
2. Child-friendly definition
3. Use the word in context
4. Check for understanding - examples and non-examples

Lesson

Spelling

Words, suffixes, etc

Two Questions we need to ask?]

1. Does the base end in a consonant + y ?
2. Does the suffix begin with any letter except i?

Worksheet to reduce cognitive overload as the task is not to draw a table!

Sentence practice

Reading

Paragraph Planning

Takeaways - Leaderships

• Cognitive Load Theory - implications for leadership: 
• Leadership understanding the theory so they can reduce teacher cognitive overload and then support teachers to reduce ākonga cognitive overload. 
• Strategic Plan space for cognitive overload lens when creating? 
• Environment - what's non-negotiable (e.g. eg moving around school, in class, book work, social vs learning)? Own desks? 
• Resourcing/Photocopying will be needed at times to focus on learning rather than page set-up.
• Where does agency fit in?

• Review, review, review - implications for leadership: 
• When do we review new teacher learning? Admin quote linking back to learning
• Review learning of Structured Literacy in teams?
• Strategy Plan 2027 consolidating 2026 new learning.

• Perky Pace so you ensure you eliminate lagging, stick to the learning, TAPA and preparation - implications for leadership: 
• Making time and space for preparation and TAPA - less admin? How do we free up time?
• Honouring each other's time

• Teacher Knowledge crucial! - implications for leadership: 
• Time to develop Staff or team to develop knowledge, ensuring connection back to the strategic plan

• Whole-class teaching is crucial- whole class, then target small group for Tier 2, not for whole class - implications for leadership: 
• Change our mindset that all ākonga do need small group work; only targeted ākonga get small group
• Non-negotiable

• Dibels/ORF is just a screening tool, not an assessment - implications for leadership: 
• What assessment tools do we use to get our reading OTJ?

Takeaways - LSC DP

• Cognitive Load Theory - implications for LSC/DP
• Front-loading LAs for the Code
• See some literacy classes
• Tutoring after lunch
• Continuing with Reset Room to support expectations

• Review, Review, Review - implications for LSC/DP
• Continuing with reviews of previous learning from RTLB/MOE/colleagues and CAP's
• Create Reset Room clipboards
• Review our processes and systems to ensure cognitive load is not excessive

• Teacher Knowledge crucial! - implications for leadership: 
• Review systems and procedures
• Meet with teams once a term at the end - re caps, expectations and PB4L data to support following term planning
• Transfer science of knowledge learning to start-of-year values, expectations and processes

Liz Kane Literacy - Day Two

 

Fluency Writing

Fluency - “...the combination of accuracy, automaticity and oral reading prosody which, taken together, facilitate the reader's construction of meaning” -Kuhn et al. (2010)

“Fluency is only important because of its contribution to comprehension“ - Accuracy is very important and the starting point for fluency! If miss words can change meaning and therefore comprehension.

We are wired to comprehend at the spoken rate.

We comprehend the sound of talking, so make the reading fluency sound like talking, not a robot.

Start fluency at the letter level, then words, sentences and passages/books

The power of repeated reading

• Research suggests reading a text three to five times
• Texts should be at a level above students' proficient reading level.
• Students practice in pairs, and the teacher circulates, checking in and giving feedback.
• Intervention students can read the same text across a week

Be selective about the bits you echo read or choral read; do not just do paragraph 1 = model read, paragraph 2 = echo read, etc. TAPA to determine what parts to read the different ways.

Performance reading important; it allows passion, creativity, and experience in performing

We are learning to identify and use appositives in a sentence

Why teach Appositives?

• Provides the third strategy for creating topic and concluding sentences
• Familiarises students with a form that is often seen in text and rarely heard in spoken language
• Enables students to vary sentence structure
• Enables students to add information and complexity to a sentence
• Reinforces academic knowledge and vocabulary
• Can serve as a comprehension check

Examples

The blue whale, an endangered marine mammal, faces threats from ship strikes and entanglement.

Dame Lisa Carrington, our most awarded Olympian, is currently unbeatable in the K1 and K2

races.

Non-examples

Stacey, battling against the wind, searched for the lost dog.

My brother, who lives in Christchurch, is coming home for Christmas.

Sequence of appositive activities

1. Identify appositives

2. Match appositives

3. Fill in appositives

4. Brainstorm appositives

5. Given an appositive, write a sentence

6. Given a topic, write a sentence with an appositive

Paragraph Writing

“If you want to move students from writing effective sentences to coherent paragraphs...you’ll need to teach them how to plan before they write.” – The Writing Revolution 2.0, Hochman & Wexler,

p. 115

Sequence of SPO Scaffolding Activities:

1. Create an SPO with the whole class.
2. Distinguish a TS from details.
3. Identify TS and sequence details.
4. Given TS, select relevant details from list.
5. Eliminate irrelevant detail(s) from a list or SPO.
6. Given TS, generate details.
7. Practice the three strategies for writing a TS and CS.
8. Given topic/prompt, generate TS.
9. Given details, generate TS.
10. Given TS and details, generate CS.
11. Given topic/prompt, construct SPO independently.

Teaching Spelling for Proficient Writing

What we can write, we can read. We cannot always write what we read (spelling)

Orthographic Mapping

The process our brains use to store words in long-term memory so we can retrieve them for accurate reading and spelling.

We are gluing spelling to pronunciation and meaning.

Review - IMPORTANT

What is the purpose? Learning. Accuracy and automaticity.

What is reviewed?

• Recent
• Tricky
• Retrieved from long-term memory

Targeted support

Fundamental Question:

What skills do these students need more practice with?

Alphabet knowledge/Phonemic Awareness

Students need to:

• Recognise the names, sounds and formations of letters
• Blend sounds to say words
• Segment sounds within words

Decoding and Encoding (developing)

Students need to:

• Decode words in isolation and in texts
• Encode words in isolation and in texts
• Begin to read words with more than 3 sounds.

Decoding and Encoding (advancing)

Students need to:

• Decode multi-syllable words by breaking into syllables
• Chunking words into decodable parts using prefixes and suffixes
• Build an increasing understanding of morphemes

Multi-syllable words (Anita Archer)

• Circle the prefixes.
• Circle the suffixes.
• Underline the vowels.
• Say the parts of the word.
• Say the whole word.
• Make it a real word.

Two realities of English

1. 80% of multisyllabic words have an affix (prefix and suffix).
2. Every word part contains letters that represent one vowel sound.

Morphology

The study of morphemes

Morpheme

Morph (form) + eme (little bit)

The smallest meaningful unit in a word or a word itself.

https://www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/matrix/ 

Takeaways

Liz Kane Literacy - Day One

 Day One

Science of Learning 

Word recognition

(PA, decoding, accurate

word reading)

X

Language Comprehension

(understand spoken

language)

=

Reading Comprehension

Overlearning is another way of saying automaticity

Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction

Successful teachers spend more time in guided practice, asking questions, checking for understanding and

correcting errors.

When material is overlearned, it can be recalled automatically and doesn't take up any space in working memory. - Rosenshine

Does everyone remember what we learned yesterday? Or who can tell me what we learned yesterday?

Vs

Let’s review what we learned yesterday.

Questioning

• ask a large number of questions
• ask students to explain what they have learned
• check responses of all students
• Provide feedback and corrections

“Have you understood? vs What have you understood?”

Stages of Practice

• Guide student practice
• Obtain a high success rate
• Independent practice
• Monitor students in independent practice

Students need extensive, successful, independent practice in order for skills and knowledge to become automatic. - Rosenshine

Different reading strategies and modalities serve unique purposes in literacy instruction, fluency development, and comprehension.

Instructional & Oral Reading Strategies

• Echo Reading: The teacher or a proficient reader reads a line or short sentence aloud with proper expression and pacing, and the student immediately reads the exact same passage back ("echoing"). Exceptional for building fluency, inflection, and decoding confidence in struggling readers.

• Choral Reading: A group or class reads the same text aloud together in unison at a shared pace. Reduces anxiety for lower-confidence readers and reinforces proper pacing, cadence, and pronunciation without putting individual students on the spot.

• Shared Reading: The teacher explicitly models reading strategies while using a visible text (such as a big book or projector). The teacher handles most of the reading while prompting students to join in on familiar phrases, analyze words, or make predictions.

• Guided Reading: Small-group instruction where a teacher works directly with a small set of students who share similar reading levels. The teacher introduces a targeted text, supports students as they read independently at their own pace, and guides comprehension strategies.

• Partner / Paired Reading: Two students take turns reading a text aloud to each other. Often pairs a stronger reader with a emerging reader to provide peer scaffolding, peer correction, and continuous engagement.

• Buddy Reading: Similar to paired reading, but typically pairs students from different grade levels (e.g., a 5th grader reading with a 1st grader). Builds mentorship, active listening, and confidence for both students.

• Popcorn Reading / Round Robin: Students take turns reading passages aloud sequentially or calling on peers at random. (Note: Largely discouraged in modern pedagogy because it induces performance anxiety, disrupts comprehension, and leaves inactive students disengaged).

• Whisper Reading: Students read aloud independently, but at a soft whisper level. Allows a teacher moving around the room to assess individual decoding and fluency without students distracting one another.

Knowledge

Connection for memory - Phone = talking and listening so Phoneme is the sound

Graph is a visual, so grapheme is the visual of the sound - letters

what do words mean eg ed means in the past

Principles of Structured Literacy

• Systematic & Cumulative - Follows a scope and sequence, simple to complex, builds on prior learning
• Explicit - Simple, direct, reduces cognitive load
• Diagnostic - Monitoring, responsive, aiming for mastery

Cognitive Load Theory

Our job is to cause learning by

• reviewing prior learning
• teach explicity
• guide practice to independence 

This enables information to be stored in long-term memory.

I do we do you do or I do we do we do we do we do you do

Is the task writing the long date or doing the activity? 

Implications

• Be very clear about what we want the students to learn
• Teach systematically and cumulatively
• Be direct and explicit - cut out redundant information
• Give worked examples - modelling
• Daily review and retrieval practice
• Predictable routines with low variance - lining up, seating plan
• Checking for understanding

Students now need more interactive lessons than in the past

I do, We do, You do! I speak, we speak you speak, I write, we write, you write

Perky Pace

Four Principles of Structured Literacy

1. Systematic
2. Cumulative
3. Explicit
4. Diagnostic

The fundamental goal of understanding CLT is to...

➢ Optimise Intrinsic Load

➢ Minimise Extraneous Load

Whole Class Reading

Whole Class Reading – why?

“By and large, your initial instruction should begin with effective, explicit teaching at a whole class

level. During this time, learners needing further support or further extension can be supported in the moment, and later on in the lesson, as responsibility is released to students.”

Dr. Nathaniel Swain, Harnessing the Science of Learning,
p. 181

We don't need to teach Tier One, as they will learn these as high frequency

We focus on and teach Tier Two, not Tier Three, as low frequency and very context dependent.

Whole-class teaching and then targeted interventions for those who need it, rather than several groups reading different novels.

1. We say the word to articulate the word
2. Child-friendly definition
3. The word in context
4. Check for understanding with examples and non-examples

Using structured literacy approaches with School Journals, Connected, etc

Regardless of decoding proficiency, all students need to access year-level texts to develop skills and knowledge alongside their peers, such as vocabulary, comprehension, and content knowledge.

Spelling Lesson - The Code

Every lesson starts with a review

Focus on the explicit teaching and reducing the cognitive load at a perky pace.

The 4 elements of a Code Lesson

1. Review
2. Teach
3. Practice
4. Apply

Whole Class Writing

Sentence Types and Conjunctions

Alphabet Visual even senior ākonga have gaps

Sentence structure is not the type. 

When thinking about type of sentences think about the job the sentences do!

There are four different sentence types.

1. statement

2. question

3. command

4. exclamation

Each sentence type is used for a different purpose.

Statement

• A statement tells us something

• It ends in a full stop (.)

Examples

I like eating ice-cream.

Since Lake Taupo is near the mountains, it is very cold.

Question

• A question asks something

• It ends in a question mark (?)

Examples

Have you ever seen a whale?

The sun is shining, but should I go for a swim?

Command

• A command tells us to do something

• It can end in a full stop (.) or an exclamation mark (!)

• You can always put a please in front of a command

Examples

Line up by the pool.

As soon as you are ready, put your chairs up andget your school bag.

Exclamation

• A sentence with specific vocabulary to express

force or strong emotion

• It ends in an exclamation mark (!)

That was terrible!

Marine reserves, underwater national parks, must be protected!

A clause has a subject (The dog) and predicate(verb/verb phrase) (ran or ran quickly).

The dog ran. 

The dog ran quickly.

A clause is a group of words with a subject and predicate.

They are the building blocks of sentences.

A phrase is a group of words that work together to make meaning.

It is missing either a subject or predicate.

wags her tail

The dog

What makes a sentence?

A sentence must contain a SUBJECT and a PREDICATE.

SUBJECT - who/what sentence is aboutwill contain a noun or a pronoun (a thing, person or place)

PREDICATE - what the subject does will always contain a verb (something that shows an action)

Example

The Siberian tiger pounced on the unsuspecting deer.

What makes a simple sentence?

Has one subject and predicate. It is not necessarily simplistic.

Example

The Siberian tiger pounced on the unsuspecting deer.

Conjunctions - There are two types of conjunctions:

Coordinating Conjunctions: can make the sentence a compound sentence

Conjunctions that can join two or more independent clauses. This creates a compound sentence.

The storm was getting closer, so the campers quickly packed away their gear.

Independent clause      coordinating     conjunction  Independent clause

We add a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence.

Subordinating Conjunctions: make a complex sentence

A subordinating conjunction is a word(s) that creates a dependent clause and shows the relationship between that clause and the main clause

Example:

While we have the time, we should pack for the trip.

Complex sentences have two clauses:

Dependent clause - A clause that cannot stand alone because it begins with a subordinating conjunction.

Example:

although she was tired

SC            S         P

Independent clause - A clause that can stand alone.

Example:

he enjoys basketball

S                 P

Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Assessment

The role of Dibels

WHY? - Screening and progress monitoring

1. How does this student compare to their peers?
2. Is this student at risk of reading failure?
3. What next to get this student back on track?

Why use ORF as a screening tool?

ORF is used to check a student’s reading health.

ORF is a one minute standardised, individually administered measure with unseen connected text.

The intent is to capture a students’ accuracy and fluency with a connected text.

Reliability & Validity Measures

Reliability – strong reliability indicates that changes in scores are due to student growth rather than test/form differences = trustworthy

Validity – strong validity indicates that the measure is measuring our skill of interest i.e. reading proficiency = useful