Diving into multimodal design has been a total game-changer for my teaching. I’m learning that a class site shouldn’t just be a wall of text; by mixing in videos, graphics, and interactive bits, I can create a “multi-textual” space that actually speaks the same language as my students.

This shift is all about building T-shaped literacy. I want my students to have that deep subject knowledge, but also the “horizontal” skills—like digital savvy and visual thinking—to navigate the real world. Figuring out the “how-to” behind an engaging site—balancing cool visuals with clear info—has shown me that good design is actually just good teaching.

The best part? It’s a huge win for engaging whānau. Instead of dry updates, families get a vibrant window into our classroom life. Using rich media makes the learning journey visible and accessible, building a much stronger, more inclusive bridge between school and home. It’s not just about looking good; it’s about making sure everyone feels connected.

Here’s the site I worked on today.

https://sites.google.com/wigramprimary.school.nz/jwkindness2026/home

I really enjoyed having the time to dive deeper into Google Sheets. While I use Sheets daily for planning and assessment, I haven’t been taking advance of it’s full functionality.

One highlight for me was discovering the “Split Text to Columns” feature—it’s an absolute game changer for saving time! I also learned how to use the function =sparkline to create mini-progress charts directly within a cell. These along with if then statement to highlight high and low flyers are going to make my data (team data) much more visual and far easier to manage.

Exploring QR codes, Google My Maps and Forms was really interesting. While I’m still brainstorming how to integrate these into the junior school curriculum, I can already see the personal benefits. I’m looking forward to using My Maps for planning my next trip away.

Great to know data from Forms can go straight into sheets for data analysis. Here’s the form I made today.

Tahlia appears to have started her blog posts in May 2023. She has posted most months apart from January. This is probably due to having no school in January. There also seems to be a mid year dip in blog posts possibly due to mid year holidays.

Great reminder of the power of play/create! Even though  am quite familar with stop motion and slides I never thought to use slides to create animations. I also love the way it can be used as a Pick-a-Path interactive tool for a Pick-a-path story or for quiz style learning.  Mote recorder allow for instructions to be read to students. It also allows children to match grapheme to phoneme.

New learning was around YouTube Channels and playlist. What a game changer! I was also just searched for videos.

It was really interesting to hear more about the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy today. I’m familiar with Learn, Creat, Share and it was a good reminder about learning being Connected – Ubiquitous – Visible – Empowered. My new learning was around the Effective Practise,  Recognise, Amplify, Turbocharge.

It was great learning about all the extra features of Google Meet and think this will be a useful tool for me.  I’m also keen to learn more about Google Keep and Tasks to improve work flow.