Showing posts with label Google Apps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google Apps. Show all posts

10 Reshare-Worthy #GAFE #googleedu Tweets (Just In Case You Missed them) 🐦

#10

 Here are my 10 latest #GAFE #googleedu tweets, just in case you missed them.

 1. Google Keep's "Grab Image Text"
2. Google Tools to Support Literacy

 3. The new Google for Education Certified Trainer Program

 4. Google Cast Now Built in Chrome

 5. Google Keep Tips

 6. Google Apps Guidebook Written by Students

 7. Hangouts on Air Moving to YouTube

 8. Google Updates for Back to School

 9. What Google Looks For When Hiring Engineers

 10. How to Book and Subscribe to a Resource in Google Calendar, for Organizations
Hope you're off to a spectacular start this school year!


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Boom! All 7 "Collaboration & Community" Sessions at the 2015 Google EduOnAir Conference, in One Spot



I created this springboard to the seven "Collaboration and Community" Sessions at the 2015 Google Education on Air Conference, for a presentation next month. I thought other educators who are interested in collaboration might also find it useful.

 1. Helping Your Students Collaborate with Google Apps

Intended audience: Educator 
Level: Beginner; elementary

 +Rolland Chidiac describes how GAFE has changed the culture of his classroom, beyond the technology.

Watch on Demand w/ Q and A
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2. Using Google+ to develop stronger classroom community and enhance student learning

 Intended audience: Educator. 
Level: Beginner; high school / upper secondary.

 Google Education Trainer and English teacher +Adam Schoenbart  shares in detail how he uses Google+ to build his own informal classroom community. Tips and challenges are included.

Watch on Demand w/ Q and A

 Presentation Materials: Slide show


My biggest takeaway: Teacher has high expectations for student posts. They must be (1) authentic, (2) passionate, and (3) appropriate. Teacher should model expected behavior.
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3. Transforming traditional curriculum design to embrace collaboration and critical thinking

Intended audience: Administrator
Level: Anyone; middle school / early secondary

John Bosselman, Kerstyn Comley, and Jon Cheyne describe R.E.A.L (Realm of Experiential and Alternative Learning) in the UK.

Examines: "how technology is being used in the UK to embrace the concept of schools as communities of learners where students and teachers learn with and from each other." Covers: (1) real need (relevance), (2) integrated knowledge (using Google Docs and Google Classroom), and (3) community of learners (using a private Google+ community).

Watch on Demand Link with Q and A
Presentation materials: Slide show

My biggest takeaways:  I didn't know about the R.E.A.L. project, so this presentation opened my eyes. I pronounce this project-based learning model most worthy of exploration!

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4. My County Edu, collaborative learning

Intended audience: Administrator
Level: Intermediate; general

+Yair Farby, an educator in Israel, describes My County Edu, a multi-faceted unit, which "brings pupils who do not live in the same city, town or village to a virtual area where they can collaborate." (6th grade and up) "Together they explore and learn about their geographical, historical and social environment. Students create digital learning materials and meet virtually and physically."

Watch on Demand Link with Q and A


My main takeaways: I like this well-developed, community-building, cross-curricular unit, and I am impressed with the seamless integration of various Google products (docs, maps, forms, hangouts). Love the Teachers Manual and ICT Tools.

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5. Experiential and project based learning with Google Play for Education

 Intended Audience: Administrator
Level: Anyone; general

 Description: Panelists Bill Mackenzie, Amy Dougherty (not sure if I got Amy's last name right), and Matt Allen describe how they use Google Play for Education in their classrooms.

 Watch on Demand Link with Q and A


My main takeaways: 

1. I enjoyed the transformative stories of the three panelists at the beginning.

2. Bill Mackenzie: If students want to learn, they will do so outside the classroom. Let's provide them with the resources to make that possible, such as providing Chromebooks to libraries.
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6. Google Apps for Elementary Education

Intended audience: Anyone
Level: Beginner; upper elementary / primary

Description: Google Certified Teacher and Google Education Trainer +Donnie Piercey takes us on a whirlwind tour of Google Apps that can be used in the elementary classroom. Assisting: James Allen, Librarian at Oldham County Schools, and Donnie's 5th grade student Kayla of Eminence Schools, Kentucky.

Watch on Demand Link with Q and A
Presentation materials: Donnie's Google Doc wins the prize for so much fantastic detail. :)


My main takeaways: I enjoyed Donnie's lightheartedness throughout the session. The video and the doc provide lots of ideas that a teacher can try out right away. 

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7. Developing Student Awareness in Building a Community

Intended audience: Anyone
Level: Beginner; high school / upper secondary

Description: Google Certified Teacher and ICT teacher Gary Garcia of Saint Pedro Poveda College, Philippines describes his Talaban (Tagalog: to "effect" or "to be affected") project, a student outreach project to make a positive change in the community.

Watch on Demand Site with Q and A

My main takeaway: Clearly, Gary Garcia is a passionate, caring educator. His stories about inequity are compelling.

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Have time for a marathon watch? Check out my Playlist of all of the "Collaboration and Community" recordings.

Together ... We can.


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The Paperless Classroom According to Our Science Teacher Ms. Brown

I learned a lot from our 7th and 8th grade Middle School science teacher Moka Brown about how she manages her paperless classroom.

Does she ever use paper? "Just for tests", she reports.


Time-stamped index:
05:50 - Intro to Doctopus
07:31 - How Moka Brown started on her paperless journey 
09:41 - Haiku Learning demo 
11:45 - Students' reaction to the new system
13:49 - Video casts for mini-lectures under 5 minutes
16:28 - Run-through of Doctopus
24:34 - About Goobric.
29:47 - Customized textbook in Haiku Learning
30:42 - Marking on paper substitute: free program Skim
32:22 - Pros and cons of Chromebooks
36:14 - Chromebook management
38:05 - Students take charge of their own learning
40:59 - Moka's motivation for going paperless
41:44 - Recommendation for beginners - Juno Ed
43:53 - Moka available for help via email mokabrown@seaburyhall.org
44:14 - Doctopus and the availability of Andrew Stillman
45:27 - Check out script section of Google spreadsheets
Show notes: http://bit.ly/gr17paperless

Thanks for agreeing to come on Google Rocks! Hawaii HOA, Ms. Brown!
P.S. Other colleagues I've begged to come on the HOA are Sean Wilson on Special Ed and Mitch Krulewich on the Flipped Classroom. Thanks, guys!
(◕‿◕✿)



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My 10 Favorite Google Tips of the 100 Shared by @EdReach





Edreach's recent Google Educast #100 celebrated 100 Google Tips (very clever :D).

What a head-dizzying goldmine of ideas!

I've selected 10 TIPS to recommend because:
  1. I did not know about these tips before.
  2. I love them.
  3. I love these tips so much I'm going to recommend them to our faculty.
  4. The number 10 is not nearly as overwhelming as 100. :)
You, of course, will have your own curated list. Check out the amazing full interactive list of 100 Google Tips here.

A BIG SHOUT-OUT to The EdReach Network for keeping us current with The Google Educast weekly vodcasts, and to the innovative Google Certified Teachers who put this particular list together.

EdReach does the hangout thing right, with their Show Notes Archive for we list/link lovers to have a look at later.

So, in sharing order, here are my 10 favorite tips. I starred ☆ my personal Top 3.

1. Script Central (shared by Fred Delventhal - "Lose your fear of scripts") - a Sandbox site created by Jay Atwood, a Google Certified Teacher and Trainer. Central is the operative word here.

2. Google Public Data Explorer (shared by Tasha Bergson-Michelson) - "makes large, public-interest datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand. You don't have to be a data expert to navigate between different views, make your own comparisons, and share your findings." Google Support

(Look at how the population of Hawaii, recorded only since 1950, has changed)




3. Create a Photo Slideshow on YouTube (shared by Juan De Luca).

4. ☆Twisted Wave  (shared by Nick Cusumano). You can create podcasts in Google Drive!

"TwistedWave is a full featured audio editor that allows you to: - Edit audio files from your computer or your Google Drive, - Apply effects, - Save in one of many supported file formats, and export the file back to your disk, Google Drive or SoundCloud." Chrome Store.

I am going to try this!

5. ☆ Edutraining by Google - (shared by Kimberly Zimmer). This is the home base of Google Apps training. There are lesson plans for everything.

6. Spanning (shared by Juan De Luca). Stats for Google Drive - take a visual look at how you're using your storage in your Google Drive.

(This is what my personal Google Drive account looks like today)



7. Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness, and World Peace by Chade-Meng Tan, one of Google's early engineers (shared by host Kevin Brookhouser). I'm ordering this book. It sounds great!

8. Chromeexperiments.com (Kim) A gallery of user-submitted JavaScripts to enjoy.

9. World Time Buddy Chrome App - (Nick). This is a handy little time converter app that you can use with Google Calendar.

10. ☆ Chrome AT Toolbox (Nick). A database of Assistive Technology apps and extensions, searchable by task, profile and keyword. There's even a Google+ Community forum: Google Chrome A.T.


Aren't these fantastic? Happy exploring, and have fun with it!

 Here again is the full interactive list of 100 Google Tips. 

(◕‿◕✿ ) 


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Five Take-Aways from the Google Teacher Academy


Yes, of course there are more than five things I took away from the Google Teacher Academy!

This little list is just a pupu* to start.

1. Let's jump right to the Grand Prize (yes, I sometimes do eat dessert first!). The email invitation at the end of the training to become a member of the very active Google Certified Teachers Group assures me that the awesome learning I experienced at the Google Teacher Academy will continue. I've already consulted the archives a couple of times to answer Google-related questions, and the word is that group members are quick to respond to questions. I've elected to subscribe to the daily digest, and I definitely will be tapping into this mother lode of knowledge often.

2. I discovered that the Chrome Web Store is jammed packed with useful apps and extensions to automate tasks.

A couple of free extensions mentioned by Sean Beavers and Eric Curts grabbed my attention:

Awesome Screenshot,  to "capture the whole page or any portion, annotate it with rectangles, circles, arrows, lines and text, one-click upload to share."

Anesidora, still in beta, is an unofficial Pandora player that you can play right in your Chrome browser.

I'll be shopping for free web apps and extensions at the Chrome Web Store often.

3. I found out that Google Docs Integration with Edmodo (often called Facebook for Education) has been available since March. This opens up exciting collaboration and networking possibilities that I'd like to explore, for our Google Apps for Education (GAFE) school. (One of our teachers had expressed interest in trying Edmodo, before the Academy.)

Fellow GCT, New York librarian Brendan Breen, has had experience with Edmodo, and he offered to help me set up an experimental Edmodo group, using Google+ Hangouts. Thank you, Brendan!

4 of the 5 school librarians at GTA

4. The Data Liberation Front site is a central location for information on how to move your data in and out of Google products.

How cool is it that I found out about this site at the Academy? Love the transparency.

5. I was blown away by the in-person presentation by Kern Kelly's students of Nokomis Regional High in Central Maine. Their Tech Sherpa group has just started a live online technical support program that's available for the world every Tuesday at 3:00 EST. So inspiring!


Yes, there's more ... stay tuned!


(◕‿◕✿) @mauilibrarian2


*appetizer, in Hawaiian
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Considering OpenClass to Manage Your Classes? Check out these Resources (and the P.S.)


Pearson Promo/Intro to OpenClass


Just discovered Pearson's OpenClass, a learning management system with social and collaboration tools.  It's new and in beta and there doesn't seem to be too much in the news about it, other than its launching at EDUCAUSE in October, 2011.

OpenClass is totally free and integrates with Google Apps For Education which we have at our school, so the system is definitely worth a look for our institution!

Here are some articles announcing the launching of OpenClass.

Pearson's Announcement launching OpenClass in October, 2011. "First full-featured learning environment that's free, easy to use and scalable."

Pearson Debuts Free LMS with Google Apps Integration | Campus Technology

Pearson Llc + Google Expands LMS Business With “OpenClass” System | WiredAcademic

Pearson and Google Jump Into Learning Management With a New, Free System | Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The mastermind behind OpenClass is software engineer Adrian Sannier, who works for Pearson. Read about how he Wants to Put Learning-Management Software in the Cloud.



Adrian Sannier - Photo by Ida von Hanno Bast


If you're ready to try OpenClass, check out these tutorials:
Getting Started gives an overall view of the Help Knowledge Base.

These are direct links to some of the sections within the Base:
How to Use OpenClass Help

How to Create a Course

Course Gradebook

Course Tools

Threaded Discussions

Social Tools
Also check out the OpenClass Mobile app, downloadable at CNET Download.com.

Upcoming plans for OpenClass? An Educational Idea Exchange,
"which will make it easy to find and share the latest education methodologies, content, and curriculum. Get access to and integration with world class content from publishers and individuals alike. With the Idea Exchange, anyone can publish content to a global marketplace that includes ratings and reviews." (OpenClass website)
Pearson seems to be very responsive to questions and concerns of its customers. See The OpenClass Community Forum for an ongoing discussion on how OpenClass can be improved to meet customer needs. And take a look at the employees. I like that they respond personally to each question. No, not open source as the name might imply, but definitely a great model of openness!

Is your institution experimenting OpenClass? What do you think of it?

(◕‿◕✿)
@mauilibrarian2

P. S. Update just before posting:

I just read about United Opt Out National's boycott of Pearson. It does put a different light on things, doesn't it? Or does it?

I would love to hear your opinion.


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