I will always always pronounce it with the short a, even if it technically is correct with the long A, but however you pronounce it, the Google Apps for Education (GAFE) summit first day was amazing. I arrived incredibly early at around 6:15 and the people in charge, those darling pixies of Googly wonderfulness, were still setting everything up. The camaraderie among those who were involved in the planning of the event was tangible. These people all smiled, laughed and were very very helpful. It made me glad just to be there.
After a quick Panera catered breakfast, the sponsor pavilion was calling to me. Of all of the sponsor tables, Read and Write for Google (http://www.texthelp.com) seemed like it would be the most useful in my classroom, so I will have to look into it a bit deeper. What it does is it helps students read the piece of writing in a Google Doc by reading it aloud to them if they are a struggling reader. They can also color code information that they would highlight for a informational essay and then in one click of a button, the highlights are imported, in color order, into another document for them to see all together. I could see this being a big help with the U.N. reports that my Sophomores will be doing this fall.
They Keynote Speaker, Claire Hughes Johnson, talked about the advancements in Google technology and the projects that Google X is working on. While not a lot of them really had to do with education, they will be shaping my students' futures with what and how they develop the technology of the future. The one everybody was the most excited to talk about was the Driverless Car, which would be really awesome because then my husband could get around town without much of a problem.
My first session was titled "Google and iOS: Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate" presented by Mike Guerena. Some of the information was good for myself, as I love iOS and I love GAFE and seeing how they could be integrated together was amazing. However, the class was more geared towards a 1:1 implementation of iPads in the classroom. I would love to have a 1:1 iPad classroom. The things he taught us about sharing documents, getting students to upload information using the iOS system and the usability of Google Docs with apps like Explain Everything and Notability (which is an awesome PDF annotating piece which I would definitely use in my classroom). Towards the end of the session, we talked about classroom management, Google Drive organization, sharing student portfolios with parents, which got into a discussion about Google Classroom, which ended up being my next session.
Google Classroom could be an amazing tool. Part of it is a classroom social network like Edmodo, where a teacher can post an assignment, ask questions and link items relevant to the lesson at hand as well as remind students about when assignments are due. Part of it is a file organization system where you can track students who have turned in work, grade and comment on that work within the Google Drive and GAFE atmosphere, and grade that work. With a few more features, it could be an amazing piece of a paperless classroom. However, there are some flaws with the system. Our presenter, Angela Mecca, while very excited about the platform, couldn't answer some questions about it. With no parent piece and sort of a clunky interface and only limited customization for each class, there may be a few bugs to work out. Students have to use a google school domain account to sign in or you can add them from your contacts list. I got an early invite and have access to it, so I may try it out, but I'm torn between implementing Google Classroom or Edmodo. I know I have to choose just one, and I have two weeks to do it in. Yikes!
Lunch was again Panera and networking.
Session Three was the amazing Megan Rose Ellis, a local teacher who works in Palo Alto Unified School District. Her session was called "Using High Tech Tools to Create a Culture of Literary Nerds". I overheard a few in the Google Classroom talk about Ms. Ellis and how amazing a presenter she was, and I was not disappointed. The fact that Ms. Ellis started off with a John Green video about being a Harry Potter nerd and how being a nerd is awesome (Yay Nerdfighteria!) which made me instantly fall in love with her presentation! Because Nerds are awesome! Well, she also talked about getting students involved in reading, and creating a passion in reading and how she has her 7th grade students read 800 (!!!) pages a quarter. I struggled last year with getting my Juniors to read one book a month for a book report! So, her special blend of enthusiasm, book talks, GoodReads reviews and student book projects, like the book ladder and the "What food best represents your favorite book from this quarter" projects are amazing and something I would love to use in my classroom. (Darn those "no food in the classroom rules!) My favorite idea was using Goodreads as a tool for book reviews, mostly because students will write differently when they do a review on a book that is for a public audience vs. just a classroom vs. just a teacher. Megan Rose Ellis (so far) is my crown jewel of the GAFE summit.
My fourth session was just really not that great, and it had been a long day and the chairs were incredibly uncomfortable (was was noted several times in the #gafesummit twitter feed), so I wasn't that enthusiastic about the Google Sites presentation. While I am sure there were many good tips on starting a Google Site, I feel that the interface and the whole project is a big clunky. I will play around with it and figure out how to use it, but I left early mostly because the chairs were bothering me.
Which made me early for the demo slam! Such amazing tools, and I know I can't remember them all. Jim Sill's "How Gmail Saved my Job" (using the undo sending option and canned responses) was one of my favorite, but the Get Kahoot presentation had to be my favorite for style.
Despite a few technological glitches, I think the summit has gone amazingly well. I can't wait to see what today will bring.
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