Blended Learning Google Apps for Education Course

I have been absent from Yes Tech! for too long.  Much of my time has been spent creating materials for a 10 week blended learning professional learning course on Google Apps for Education that is being offered to teachers in my district. It is a lot of work, but it is filling a need for several teachers who want to use Google Apps in their classroom.  The course is a blend of face-to-face and online sessions, with participants being able to choose options that work best for their learning style and schedule.  Each week, they can either attend an in-person workshop that focuses on one of the GAFE tools or attend online at a time of their own choosing.  The course will take approximately ten hours for participants to complete over the course of two months, October 15 through December 15, 2012. The goal is for teachers to explore and become comfortable using Google Apps personally and with students.

The course lives on the district Moodle site.  I use Camtasia to record instructional videos for each topic, and am building the course as I go.  If the course is effective, I will be able to offer the course again and again, with some minor tweaking of the content and activities.  I’m learning lots in the process as I explore each tool in depth so that I can create handouts and videos.

I took a Michigan Learnport online course on blended learning in September, and I learned some excellent online teaching strategies.  I designed the GAFE blended learning course as part of the Learnport course and decided to jump right in and give it a try rather than wait until I had the entire course created, which could have possibly taken months. Doing it this way has forced me to devote a solid chunk of time on something that could possibly make a positive impact in many classrooms across the district.  Right now, all the content is only in Moodle.  I  plan to share the instructional materials in other ways when I can (Walled Lake Instructional Tech Website or a new Google Site).

Walled Lake Spice it Up! Technology Conference

 



 

 

Walled Lake Consolidated Schools hosted its 8th annual Spice it Up! Technology Conference on Thursday, August 23, 2012 at Sarah Banks Middle School.  It was the best yet! 325-350 teachers and administrators attended this voluntary professional development event to help them learn new ways to incorporate technology into their instructional practices.  I coordinate the event and it is one of the highlights of my year!

John Sowash was the keynote speaker and he was outstanding!  I thought that he connected with the audience and was inspirational; his message was a fantastic start to the day. He spoke about the importance of setting high expectations, including projects where students create and publish to a world-wide audience, and the critical need to teach tech/info literacy skills.  His stories and visuals drove his points home.

We used Edmodo as a platform for presenters to share resources and for attendees to ask questions and post ideas. Hopefully the conversation will continue after the conference!   116 people visited the site, so roughly a third of our attendees used Edmodo during the conference.  Edmodo was new to most of the attendees, so using it for the conference introduced the tool to them, which was great - my guess is that many will now use it with their colleagues and students.

The conference came just a few weeks after all the teachers in the district received a new iPad and laptop. We are so fortunate! I wish we had scheduled more beginner iPad sessions.  Of course there are plans to offer a variety of training & support in the next month or so!

The conference would not be possible without the Walled Lake presenters, who volunteered their time to plan and share their experiences with their colleagues.  They were fantastic!  Thank you JP Arens, Jon Bison, Jennifer Bond, Laura Brown, Kim Chumney, Lynn Dunn, Cindy Goris, Dennis Graham, Barbie Green, John Gregg, Krista Harmsworth, Mark Hess, Kelly Holubeck-Gotts, Deb Jess, Laura King, Caron LaBlanc, Jennifer LaCross, Mark Lada, Kim Loszewski, Scott MacIsaac, Michele McKendry, Randy Micallef, Kathren O'Brien, Ryan Ossenmacher, Rob Osterman, Barb Ozminkowski, Brad Paddock, Davida Pesick, Jennifer Phillips, Kelly Reuter, Theresa Robinson, Cheryl Roden, Gina Sartor, Jessica Schultz, Jennifer Shamberger, Pam Shoemaker, David Stanton, Amy Stasak, Renee Valentine, Katie Weingarden, and Jane Wendyker.

The administrators at Sarah Banks Middle School, Brad Paddock & David Stanton, were so helpful and accommodating in the days leading up to and on the day of the conference, and the IT Department was there in full force to assist attendees as needed.  There are so many others to thank; it was a prize effort by many, and is truly an event that positively impacts the learning that occurs in classrooms across the district.

 

NETS for Coaches

ISTE has NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) for students, teachers, administrators, computer science teachers, and coaches.  A session was offered at the ISTE Conference on the newly released NETS for Coaches, so I made sure I attended.  I enjoyed the discussion that took place among other technology integration specialists like me.  I plan to use these standards to help guide me as I work with teachers this coming school year - There are supposed to be rubrics to go along with each standard, but I cannot locate them -  perhaps they have not yet been released.  The white paper that is available to ISTE members is excellent.

There are six standards and 28 performance indicators.  To summarize:

Visionary Leadership:  Shared Vision, Strategic Planning, Advocacy, Innovation/Change

Teaching, Learning, & Assessment:  Content/Technology Standards, Research-based Learning, Meaningful/Relevant Learning, Creativity, Higher-order Thinking, Differentiation, Instructional Design, Assessment, Data Analysis

Digital-age Learning Environments: Classroom Management, Online/Blended Learning, Selecting Adaptive/Assistive Technology, Basic Troubleshooting, Selecting Digital Resources, Communication/Collaboration with Community

Professional Learning & Program Evaluation: Need Assessment, Professional Learning, Evaluation

Digital Citizenship: Digital Equity, Safe/Legal/Healthy/Ethical Use, Diversity/Cultural Understanding/Global Awareness

Content Knowledge & Professional Growth: Emerging technologies, TPACK, technology skills, technology standards, organizational change, leadership, project management, adult learning

ISTE 2012

I had the pleasure of attending the ISTE Conference in San Diego. WOW!   It's been a few weeks now, but today is the first day I've been home and able to do some reflection.  I stayed for a few extra days to enjoy the lovely sunny 70 degree  weather - I visited the San Diego Zoo and the US Midway Museum (time well spent).  The day after I got home, I left again to spend time in beautiful northern Michigan - golfing, boating, and visiting with family.

I learned just a few weeks before the conference that I could attend, thanks to the MACUL organization.  I am humbled to be elected as their President Elect, so I'm looking forward to my year in training from this year's President, Steve Schiller.

There will be several blog entries coming in the next several days about what I learned at the conference.

I most enjoyed attending the ISTE Affiliate meeting.  The day before the main conference began, a full-day meeting was held and attended by all of ISTE Affiliate group (MACUL-like groups from all over the USA and a few other countries) leaders. We discussed ideas and strategies to make our respective organizations stronger.  I appreciated all of the networking opportunities and feel proud to be a part of MACUL, one of the largest and most vibrant affiliate groups.  Our Executive Director, Ric Wiltse, is on the ISTE Board and had a role in planning and facilitating the meeting - I also learned that he was elected to be ISTE's new treasurer!

I attended the conference through a "MACUL lens" - looking for ideas to tweak or replicate, hunting for presenters that we might want to invite to our conference, and networking with ed tech leaders from other states. Overall, I left the ISTE Conference with a strong feeling that MACUL serves and leads its members in innovative ways that make a difference at the classroom level.

 

Apply to Participate in the 2012 AT&T/MACUL Student Technology Showcase

On behalf of AT&T and MACUL, we would like to invite you to participate in the Lansing Student Technology Showcase scheduled for November 28, 2012. We are looking forward to having you and your students join us. The Showcase has always been an exciting opportunity for students to showcase their projects to their state representatives and senators.

Registration is now open and you can register online at: http://classroomhelp.com/showcase/ and then follow the registration link. Please use care when filling out the registration since the text will be used in the showcase booklet. You will have the opportunity to edit/change your project description.

This is a wonderful opportunity for teachers and students to show their legislators (at the MI Capitol Building) how technology positively impacts learning.  It's a great advocacy experience for kids!

Apply for a MACUL Grant

Do you have an idea for a project that involves effective instructional uses of the computer or related-equipment?  Apply for a MACUL grant!  Projects should focus on an instructional use of the computer or related equipment, which has the potential of being replicated in other educational settings.

Grant limit: $1500

Deadline:  noon, June 15, 2012

See the requirements and grant writing tips on the MACUL website.

Google Docs Lesson: Fakebook

I have been facilitating “Introduction to Google Apps” workshops across the Walled Lake Consolidated School District in preparation for a full-scale implementation of Google Apps in the fall.  I am finding that many teachers are anxious when they think about the changes that will occur next school year when students use cloud-based productivity applications (Google Apps for Education) instead of productivity software (MS Office) that they have been accustomed to using for a decade or so. Changes are never easy, so the teachers’ feelings are normal and expected.

I’ve found that the best way to help alleviate their concerns is to show them Google Apps for Education, help them use it, and recommend some file management strategies (see resources here).   Once they log on and see how easy it is to create, edit, and share files, a little bit of their fears subside.  When they explore the instructional benefits due to the collaborative features, they often begin to feel a bit excited.

Here is an example of a teacher who decided to not wait until next fall to begin using Google Apps with students; she dove right in now.  Amy Kositzke, a 8^th grade English teacher at Clifford Smart Middle School, wanted her students to develop a deeper understanding of literary characterization. She wanted her students to focus on a character of a book they had recently read using the three elements of physical appearance, actions/behavior/speech, and interactions with others.  To do so, she found a template that was shared by another Google Apps-using teacher at docs.google.com/templates. The template was created with Google Presentation, and it looked like a Facebook page.  Most of Amy’s students were familiar with Facebook, and embraced this assignment with enthusiasm. See screenshot of a student example of a Facebook profile page of a character from the popular novel The Hunger Games below. Other slides (not shown) include interests and photos.



I asked Amy if she needed to do much direct instruction to help her students use Google Docs for an assignment like this.  She replied that she set up the framework, helped them log on, showed them how to save a copy of the file and let them go.  The students were familiar with PowerPoint and found the editing features to be similar in Google Presentation.  She plans to modify the lesson a bit for next year to include more differentiated learning.  Amy discovered that she could import slides from other presentations, so she imported a slide that included the assignment rubric to make it easy for her to grade the student projects easily and without paper.

I’m confident that the teachers will enjoy using Google Apps for Education with their students next year, thanks to creative teachers like Amy, who blaze the trail.  I look forward to sharing other examples here.