As follow up to my GAME Plan post from last week I will give you an update on how I am doing. To guide this post I will use the following three questions:
What resources will you need to carry out your plan (video, reading, experts or colleagues, etc)?
The main resources I will use are Dicovery Educators Network (DEN), ISTE, and my school's Tech Committee. I have signed up for a webinar coming in the following weeks with DEN. The webinar is on all the updates to the DEN and to Discovery Education streaming. I am excited about this because both resources are really cool and they always make lots of updates during the summer. For my professional development plan I am working with my Tech Committee to develop a training on Google Apps. We have a training staff meeting scheduled for Monday, Sept. 27th. At the training I will be teaching how to use GMail as an educator.
What additional information do you need?
The webinar I have signed up for is something I can't really prepare for or need anything for. The Tech Committee training though I need to prepare a lot for. I personally use GMail for my e-mail and know lots of tricks including themes and labs. I will be watching the Google Apps for Education training videos though to learn new tricks. I actually meet the lady this summer that designed these training videos so I know they have lots of good ideas. Then I need to make a plan for my part of the presentation. Does anyone have any tips for GMail or any other Google Apps?
What steps have you been able to take so far?
So far I have been able to sign-up for the webinar and see an brief description of what will be going on during the webinar. For Google Apps I have been using several of them for years so I have lots of background information to build on. This prior knowledge will be great to teach to my fellow teachers so that they can be more effective at their job.
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Google Reader is the app I use most often. I can quickly scan information, keep it if I want to reference it in the future, keep it "unread" if I don't have the time to read it when I'm scanning, and/or delete it. This permits me to keep abreast of about 80 blogs very efficiently.
ReplyDeleteWhat are your tips for GMail?
I am interested to hear an undate from you on the new updates of Discovery Education Network. I use that often for video clips, but have not used anything else. I need to try so of the other options. It sounds as if I am missins out of some great tools for my class.
ReplyDeleteI also use google reader as source for collecting and organizing blogs that I follow. Great tool, please check it out.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I was curious as to how you use Gmail as a teaching tool? I understand thaat your presentation was detailed, but could you give a few examples. I have never heard of that as a resource tool in the classroom.
Thanks!
I also have done some things with Google reader. Mostly i use it to follow my classmates blogs.
ReplyDeleteI use GMail to improve my teaching because it is a great way to keep track of students and parent contacts. I use labels to archive e-mails and keep them easily accessible. Then GMail also keeps a great contact book that updates mostly automatically. I also use Google chat to talk to other teachers during the day.
Luke
Luke,
ReplyDeleteYou are getting a great start to your GAME plan. It is so good that your tech director is working with you. I have never attended a webinar before. I can't wait to hear about yours. Please let us know what you find out. I don't use Google, but after reading how you use it, it may be something I might want to look into. Thanks for the idea.
Tami