Ok, are you ready? Yesterday, I , along with two other colleagues, took the Level 1 Google Certified Educator exam. And ...... we passed!!!! I can't describe how excited I am. While I cannot give details, I can say that this exam was difficult. We were allotted 3 hours to take the exam and it took every bit of the 3 hours to complete. Now, being somewhat technology savvy, I went in thinking that this would be a breeze. Boy, was I wrong. This exam was very challenging and I feel that I had to work hard to earn that certification. We now plan on preparing ourselves for the Level 2 exam and, believe me, I will make sure to put in some extra effort in my preparation. If this is something you are interested in doing, check out this website: Google Training Center
If you would like to comment on any of these posts and share what you have done, please consider doing so. Also, if you have specific questions that you would like to ask, do that as well. Your question might end up in a post. :)
If you decide to go paperless, how are you going to get the assignments to your students? You will need to decide on a platform. What will be the method of getting assignments, papers, and quizzes to your students. There are a few out there. In the past, I played around with Edmodo. It is a pretty good platform and it has a very "facebook-ish" feel to it so students will instantly become familiar with it. But, I never could get that excited about it.
A few years ago, my school division made the change to Google Apps for Education (or GAFE). In my opinion, this was the best decision that my division has ever made. The collaboration and sharing possibilities with GAFE are incredible and has made the paperwork a lot easier. There are so many Google Apps that have very powerful use in the classroom. One of these is (appropriately named) Google Classroom. Classroom is the main source for my students getting all of their assignments.
Now, as I am singing the praises of Classroom, remember that you will only be able to use it if your school division uses GAFE. If not, then you will have to research other platforms to use (really, consider Edmodo as a viable alternative). In order to access Classroom, students will have to log in using their GAFE email address. In my division, only students grades 9 and above actually have email (internal school accounts) but all students starting in grade 2 have this login. The email part just isn't turned on until grade 9. The nice thing is that this login follows them through their entire school career as long as they stay in the division. So no need to memorize a new one each year.
Here is a short video created by Google showing some of the features of Classroom. One thing that I absolutely love about Google is that they actually LISTEN to those of us using their product to make improvements. So what you will see in the video is somewhat different from what actually appears now. All changes for the better.
One new update is that now teachers have the ability to schedule posts. A tremendous improvement so that now I can add announcements or assignments when I want and have them show in the "Stream" at a scheduled date and time when I am ready for students to view them.
There are lots of ways to set up your Classroom. For mine, I have given students the ability to comment on my posts, but not to make a post of their own. And, as always, you will have someone try to be funny and put in an inappropriate comment. Don't worry, you can delete the comment and then "mute" that student until you feel that they have learned a better way to communicate. This way, they can see everything, but they cannot make comments on any of it. The point is, you have the control over what students can do.
What I truly love about Classroom is that a student can send me a private message through Classroom (so I am the only one who sees the message) and then I will get an email saying that I have a message from a student. This has been very beneficial this past year to clear up student questions that the student was too shy or embarrassed to ask during class. I can reply directly in Classroom, or if I feel that I really need a one-to-one conversation with the student, I can pull then aside the next day. I always acknowledge that I have received a message from a student so they know that I am paying attention and care about their questions or concerns.
Now, I am in no way being paid by Google to market their products (but, boy, wouldn't that be nice) so when I am extolling the virtues of all things Google, it is because I have tried them out in my own classes and have realized their value. But, if you are looking for a way to go paperless and for a platform to use, do your research.
I am a little OCD. I admit it. I try to have a plan for everything. I am not one of these spontaneous people who can get up and go and have a wonderful time doing it. I have to have a plan first. How long will it take to get there? Where will I stop along the way? What will I do during each scheduled second of the activity? Getting a little glimpse of my world?
But this mindset turned out to be very beneficial during my transition to a paperless classroom. I had a plan for just about every scenario that happened during the day. I think this is what helped me to keep my head above water. I planned for it. Now, I am not suggesting that if this is something that you would like to try that you plan out every contingency, but a bit of proper planning is a must for success.
Here are some of the things I planned for ahead of the first day of school that helped tremendously during the year:
I numbered everything. I am a math teacher so we use calculators in my room. I learned a long time ago to number my calculators and every student gets the same calculator everyday. Makes them a little more accountable for them. I figured, why not use this for the computers as well? So I arranged my desks in groups of three (I learned a long time ago that more than three desks grouped together is just asking for trouble.) Then I numbered the desks. Each child is assigned a number. That is the desk they sit at, the calculator they use, and the computer assigned to them. If I had to move a student around (and you know it will happen) the computer stays and they just use the new computer at their new seat. We are all on the Cloud anyway, so this was not a big deal.
I also used a Blended classroom model this year (more info about that in an upcoming post). I had a plan for students who could not access technology at home so they were not left behind.
I had a list of consequences for certain behavior infractions that involved the computers. These consequences progressively got steeper and steeper for those kids who were a little harder and catching on the first time (or the second, or the third ....).
Have a contingency plan for those days where the internet or the network goes down. This will happen. It is not fun, but I had planned for it so the day was not a complete disaster and we were able to continue with flow of the class.
Know your equipment!! This is one of the most important pieces of advice I can give. I bought myself one of the computers that my students were going to use and I learned it inside and out the summer before the school year started. This way, I could fix anything that a student did (purposely or not) to the computer without having to call in the experts. This showed my students that I was knowledgeable enough about the equipment that they could not pull one over on me.
Check your machines. Look at the history. See what got saved to the hard drive. Be vigilant with your monitoring of students on technology.
Have a list of rules that must be followed regarding technology use and be consistent with it!!
Hopefully, this will at least get you thinking about how to use your technology in your classroom.
A few short weeks ago concluded my 18th year in the classroom and my first year going paperless (or as paperless as I was able to get). I learned quite a few things over the course of this year. I learned what worked pretty well and what I need to work on for the future. But before I get into that, here is some background: I began my teaching career with the 1998-1999 school year. I was hired to teach math, computer applications, and web page design in a middle school. I really didn't know much about any of the topics I was hired to teach. I spent a lot of time that first year teaching myself how to do everything. With the computer classes in particular, I was literally one week ahead of the concepts I was teaching to my students. Of course, it got easier as I went along and I developed a love of all things technology. When I transferred to another school district, I was hired to teach math only. I really missed the technology, but I loved my new district and thought that the trade off was pretty good. Fast forward to about a year ago. Over time, I have learned to listen very carefully to that little voice inside that guides me and prompts me to do certain things. Call it the Holy Ghost, intuition, or whatever. I have learned that when it talks, I had better listen. So this voice told me to shake things up. I was fortunate enough to receive a class set of 25 small laptops to use in my classroom the following year. I feel extremely lucky that I asked the right person, in the right place, at the right time for this. So all that summer, I researched. I had a vague plan with an idea for implimentation, but no clear set plans. So I got to work....
