Day 2 kicked off with a keynote by Rushton Hurley who was coming back to SAS after being a student here back in the 70s. Nice shoutout to the SAS superintendent who said to his teachers yesterday from the stage “I give you permission to innovate wildly“. Quote of the conference!!
Using Technology to Kick Posterior in Education.
What IS the right tool?
Who We Are In A World of Rapid Change
Teachers sometimes feel like the lamp….but they should feel like the light that enters the classroom every day.
Who can teach?
Students! Kids can teach and learn from other kids. Youtube is a prime example!
nextvista.org a platform for kids to teach via instructional videos.
Are we creating the avenues for creativity and learning in our classrooms? Are you going to teach the same way as last year?
I tend to not write as much when the keynote is actually engaging so I that’s all I have!
I enjoyed Rushton’s keynote so I stayed for his next session (and my seat was comfy): Getting Teachers to Go Google – What To and Not To Do. I was interested to see what techniques he had in mind for getting teachers to try new things out!
Nice analogy to start off with. The Beverley Hillbillies are what teachers sometimes feel like with technology. Out of place, feeling overwhelmed with change. Moment of clarity moment from @RobinThailand….The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and The Beverley Hillbillies are based on the same premise!
Things to think about:
1. Understand Change and Improvement
2. Respect Fear: You need to know what you don’t know. But don’t keep up with everything, choose the stuff that works for you.
3. Recognize Expertise: Know how to ask good questions.
4. See Potential Within Mistakes: It’s how we react to mistakes and problems with technology that’s important. Kids are used to adults freaking out when something goes wrong. Recognize reality. Things go wrong.
5. Develop An Exploratory Culture: Awfully easy to stay comfortable. Comfort is a dangerous addiction. Step away from comfort and explore. http://youtu.be/P_usNp7U8GY (embedding not allowed on this vid).
6. Show Something Cool: Find little moments in little groups. Not whole school faculty instruction! – Amen!
7. Avoid edujargon: Jargon is stifling.
8. Channel Inspiration. To get teachers to be inspired is a big challenge. The rigors of daily teaching can beat you down.
Technology makes it easier to get inspired by the world around you. #EduWin on Twitter.
9. Talk With Students: listen, empathize, and converse with students.
The Magic Question: How can I make it better?
10. Create Time: Don’t waste time re-inventing the wheel. Take time back with online resources. Advanced Search in Google to find different file types.
11. Spend Wisely.
12. Focus On What Matters.
Next up, I went to Wendy Gorton’s information session on Level Up! Taking Your Professional Development to the Next Step with Google’s Training Opportunities just so I could get a grasp on the Google Teacher Academy application process. Having gone through a similar process with Apple and their ADE application, it seems to be a worthwhile venture and something I will look in to. There were no Redditors in this session.
We had to finish off early so we went to one final session before leaving and unfortunately I fell pray to the mislabeled title and flowery description workshop. I respect anybody that puts on a workshop, it’s a fantastic thing to do but I really would love to read a title and description and know exactly what’s going on and not have to make an educated guess. I guessed wrong, I guess..too many guesses.
Overall, the GAFE summit was a good gathering of educators wrapped around a solid focal point; Google Apps. I use Google Apps extensively both for myself and my students and our teachers. I believe it’s the most effective and efficient way for educators and students to gather data, organize it, present it and share it from within the classroom to a global audience. I look forward to seeing what Google does next…