Skip to main content

EdCamp Still Rules

By
  Looking Back at 10 years of EdCamps Oh how the time flies, EdCamp Madison is turning 10 this year!  It will be held Saturday, February 3rd at Sun Prairie West High School. Which can be found at 2850 Ironwood Drive in Sun Prairie Wisconsin from 8:30 am - 3:00 pm.  Get more information and register here: https://sites.google.com/sunprairieschools.org/edcampmadwi/home   I will always remember sitting in my first EdCamp opening session at the very first EdCamp Madison and having no clue what I was in for. So, I’d like to take this space to go over some of the basic rules of EdCamp. No One Will Pitch It for You EdCamps are unconferences. By this I mean that they have a blank slate of sessions for the day. There may be a few predetermined sessions, but ultimately the session topics are determined by attendees during the pitch & plan session that opens the day. If an idea gets pitched there will be a session on it. If a topic doesn’t get pitched, there won’t be a session on it. So, it i
Post a Comment

Leveling up my GAFE App-titude

Image
By


I took the exam for and gained my Google Level 2 Certification today.




The training made me realize that I knew the basics of Drive, Docs, and Sildes really well.  But I extended my knowledge of Sheets and Forms.  In addition, I learned about a whole world of Google apps that I either had barely scratched the surface of (like YouTube) or was clueless about (like Expeditions).  The training was so worth it!

Google Certification may not be something you're interested in.  But, I recommend you at least find out more about the Google tools that are out there to help personalize the way students access information, engage with information, and express understanding.  Just learning about one more tool, could help empower more students.

Here are some of the great things I leaned about.


My Maps in the Classroom

Users create personal maps and add media to locations to tell a story.







Google Earth Tour Builder:

Virtual field trips created by educators or STUDENTS! A great tool for creation.  Telling tales both fiction and non-fictional, personal or global.



Google Cultural Institute:

Explore artworks, historical sites, and stories from around the world.





Google Expeditions

Using Google Cardboard to take immersive virtual field trips. 




Annotations in YouTube

Add text and links within your YouTube videos with ease.


Add Cards to YouTube

Use cards to direct viewers to specific urls from your video. Can be used for a variety of purposes.



Google Research in Docs - allows for Scholar research as well right from tool!

Don't exit Google Docs when you're looking for information and images!




Google Trends

Take the pulse of the world or track interest of topics over time.






I'm not allowed to discuss the tests because of a nondisclosure agreement. But, if you'd like to just learn about the tools for fun or for certification, head to the Google for Education Training Center.
There is so much available in Google Apps for Education, I feel like I'm really going to have to just make or find a list of all the tools available to our students that we have yet to explore.

I guess I could Google it.


My next plan is to dig into their Chromebook training as we are going 1:1 in our school next year.




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twitter Cards for Blogger

By
So, I’ve been seeing people with beautiful Twitter Cards in my Twitter Stream. They make it clear that there is a web page to visit and give a quick preview of what would be found. Something like the one below: I’ve been wondering how to get one of the cards to appear when I tweet out a link to my latest blog post.  Since I use Blogger, there is not a simple button to click to turn this on.  I had to find a way to paste new code into the HTML code of my blog.  It took some searching from multiple sites to get a completely functional.   This site though was quite helpful.  But, I’d like to walk you through my process and hopefully it helps a few out. There are a few types of Twitter Cards.  Two that at most frequently see are the basic summary card and the summary card with large image.  Below you can see the layout of each, but realize that they both have the same content pieces. This is going to look like a lot more work than it will actually be
14 comments
Read more

Pear Deck 101 + Q&A

By
  Last week, I presented as a part of Pear Deck’s Pear Fair 2020. My presentation was Pear Deck 101 for Google Slides. During the presentation, there was a live chat. Many people said it went too fast for a 101 Session. Luckily, it was recorded so it can be rewatched.  Also, many said that they wanted to know how to build a Pear Deck first. I structured the presentation to show what Pear Deck was before showing how to make one. Perhaps that wasn’t the best structure. But, I’m going to stick with my philosophy of showing what something is before showing how to make it. The presentation, which can be watched below, was structured in several different sections What is Pear Deck? Providing an overview of the experience from the Teacher and Student perspectives. How do you build a Pear Deck in Google Slides? How do you start a Pear Deck presentation? How do you end a Pear Deck presentation? Here is the Slideshow I shared during the session bit.ly/pearfair101 Time really flew in the sess
2 comments
Read more

Using Infinite Campus to Give Grades Meaning

By
At Brookfield Central High School have just passed the three week grading period and are approaching the first parent teacher conferences of the year. My thoughts are turning to clarifying my grading practices to students and parents as more scores are being entered into the gradebook.  I have completely restructured the grade reporting in my online gradebook this year.  This was due to struggles I had last year in trying to implement what I believe to be best grading practices into my grade reporting.  Much of my grading philosophy has been informed by Robert Marzano and Marzano Research, specifically the wonderful book Classroom Assessment & Grading that Works .   Traditionally, as I prepare for teacher conferences, I use a student summary report I print from our online gradebook to guide the discussion with parents.  Our grading program in my district is Infinite Campus (IC).  I really like the software and find it extremely easy to use.  Below you’ll see a sample st
Post a Comment
Read more