Google Apps For Education Summit Day 1

I was lucky enough to got the the Google Apps for Education Summit a couple weeks ago and it was exactly what I needed to revamp and amp up for this coming year! Dan Russell was the keynote day one and he was mind blowing by discussing the idea of literacy and how it is not just knowing how "to read and write" because there are so many other kinds of literacy and depending on how fast you write (or type) will change the speed at which you can think, which accelerates the chances of you getting an answer right or wrong. There are so many types of literacy because there are so many types of language, including math and HTML. He went as far as to say you have to be "literate about being literate," which was so insightful to me because a lot of times students are just going through the motions and sure, they are literate, but do they understand they are literate and what that means as a whole? With Common Core coming, I think this will become more obvious, but you need to have a skill set and know when to use the right one to read, write, answer questions, and do functions within a specific domain where that skill set is the one required. Processing through all the ones you have and being aware of which one to use is a whole other type of literacy. This was an amazing way to start the conference as it already had me on my toes.

Next a little intro to edmodo and how well it works with Google Drive... I will be trying this out in the coming year, so look out for posts related to that later.

Through my IEASC program I've been learning more and more about student ePortfolios and I love the idea. I think I will have students create a Google Site and use that for their showing off their Performance Tasks and blogs throughout the year. The main idea here was to have the students take it as their own. If you are too strict with guidelines and don't let them personalize it there is no buy in, but you need buy in for them to be effective. When I did the travel commercials last year a lot of students wanted their videos showcased because they were so proud of them. That is what you want from students. The school this presenter was from actually buys a domain with the student's name as a senior gift to them so they can take their portfolio with them. They start it in elementary school, so it really is an all around portfolio that represents them. I think this is amazing. Some examples he shared with us:
www.kristopherredman.com - Junior in High School, presenting since early high school, already offered a job with TechSmith
www.kazmediaservices.com he wants to show media because that is what he wants to do as a career. He had a difficult name, so he asked for a special circumstance domain name.

I learned about Flubaroo at a recent conference, but this presentation discussed Doctopus. Both of these are scripts you can use with Google Drive. The main discussion was making things easier with Form, Sites, and Scripts. This is something that if they work in harmony, will make a teachers life much more easy because it is more organized automatically, less hand grading, and communication is clear between you, students, and parents. One of my goals this year is to keep up better on my Google Site, which will be a necessity since my students will get their assignments from it. Last year I was emailing out all the assignments, which was very tedious and time consuming. I think this will work better.

As my last session of the day I got to talk Chromebooks with someone that has been implementing them for over a year and working out a lot of the problems I faced in the month I had them last year. Don't get me wrong, I love the Chromebooks, but we had wireless issues, Java issues, app issues, and then there is the classroom management piece that goes along with it all. One of the big issues that I am worried about is the idea of building class culture. I think one of the things I do well is to build connections with students, but in front of computers they feel more individual, less connected to the class. This was the cubical feeling I got from the students last year. I think this is where I need to use some of the techniques from the blended and online course I'm taking in the IEASC program.

This was a filled day of learning, but also questions. That is the hard part. You have to take everything away and say how am I going to use this. I am still working on that part, but the school year is approaching, so it is time to get started!