Tag: Google Docs

You are all innovators

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I recently started a keynote talk with the message, “You are all innovators.” This was not some empty platitude to win over the audience, and the message remains sincere for you dear reader.

After becoming pretty jaded with the polemic and doom-laden openings of most education keynotes these days – I wanted to start on a more positive idea.

Teaching and the world of learning design is one of the most creative of pursuits we have. It certainly is one of the most challenging environments to work in.

Innovation can only be defined in context

One of the main reasons I believe teachers are all innovators is that we apply new ideas, big and small, in a continuous effort to improve the learning experience for students.

Sometimes those ideas take time to implement, but often they occur at the point of learning we share with our students.

When we think of innovation as ‘renewal’ (from the Latin root ‘innovare’) – any teacher will understand the constant questioning and reflection on “what more can we do?”, “how else can we explore these ideas?”, “how might we approach this in a more accessible way?” or “where can I continue to challenge these students?”.

This type of curiosity leads to creativity and taking action. That is innovation in my book.

What needs “renewal” and what doesn’t, is completely defined by context. What is new for one region, district, county, school, department or class, is not necessarily new for another.

There are still people reading my articles on ideas I implemented over 10 years ago and sharing how interesting and exciting they are. What I perceive as innovative is defined by the context I am in, the same is true for you.

Keeping Up with Joneses

This popular idiom refers to people’s tendency to compare their own social standing according to that of their neighbours. It originated from a comic strip that went by the same name, created by Arthur Momand in 1913.

Within the frame of innovation in education, we might consider how we are influenced by the work and progress of other schools. I also think within the echo chambers of education social networking FOMO is generated, a Fear Of Missing Out.

If my class of 30 students is different to the one down the corridor, and to the school across the road / border – perhaps comparisons to other innovation stories is limited in utility.

You can gain inspiration, but whether it is innovative or not, to what degree it is a story of renewal, depends on your context.

Writing in a shared Google Doc

I have had the chance to work with lots of different schools throughout the last fifteen years. One example of innovation that sticks out is the use of Google Docs.

The ability for multiple users to simultaneously work in the same digital space, renewed the process of writing and feedback in my classroom. I was one of the first classroom teachers in the world to be using the technology with my Year 5 class in 2005-2006.

(If you go far enough back in this blog’s archive you will find those posts.)

For my class of students that technology helped with the way we were writing – it was innovative for us in 2006. Using that idea is not innovative for me any more though, it is no longer about renewal.

Since then I have worked with organisations and schools who have never used Google Docs. For them the process still can be renewed. It is still innovative for them even 10+ years after it was for me.

It all depends on our context.

The key thing is not to get caught up chasing other people’s innovative projects. They might just not be applicable for you. Ask yourself is this idea “new” for us or “new” for the world?

Pay attention to the needs of your own context and the students in front of you.

Google Teacher Academy UK 2012: My Reflections and the Future

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Earlier this week the Google Teacher Academy ran for a second UK outing at the new London offices on St Giles High Street. It was a privilege once again to have the opportunity to help plan, organise and be part of the 2 days.

50 educators from around the world came together for some rapid professional learning and discussion and the chance to work alongside Google employees to help make change happen in their communities. These are a handful of my reflections about the 2 days and what the future may hold for the event.

2012 04 04 17.45.54

Google Engineers

One of the most unique features of the teacher academy is the access to and contribution by Google product managers and employees to the learning. During our 2 day event we had the chance to spend some time in the company of YouTube, Google Docs and Google+ product managers who joined us for hangouts. The Google Docs team were there in force and shared with us some incredible new features to this ever changing tool. Jeff Harris the product lead for Google Docs document, presentation, and drawing editors did some great demos and talked about the future developments of the tool. It is always exciting to have access to this type of group and have them share their expertise with us.

Google+ Potential

One thing that the GTA did for me was to put the potential of G+ back on the table, not because of any great demo or future road-map session, it was more to do with a group using it loads. There was lots of sharing to just the GTAUK group and so the circles came into their own, I think I will probably spend a bit more time figuring out how best to use it alongside Twitter.

Whoop!

I do enjoy a dose of “whooping” (I suspect you are pleased I didn’t add “cough” to that phrase) to raise the enthusiasm in the room. Don’t get me wrong I am not so keen on the use of the ‘whoop” in cinemas where it doesn’t have much place, but at the GTA the enthusiasm for the learning opportunities we can offer our classes was great. And when you unpick it, that is all it is, an enthusiastic public gesture of our delight for a potential future learning opportunity for our students. Jo Badge describes it as the GTA “philosophy” and in many ways it is important as it kept the energy up – you wonder what the event would be like without the wearing of our emotions on our sleeves. Huzzah!

Reflections from GTAUK participants

Reflections on google teacher academy UK 2012 #gtauk « DrBadgr by Jo Badge.

Learnbuzz reflections on the GTA from Steph Ladbrooke.

Google Teacher Academy: Reflection | Anseo.net from Simon Lewis.

Carry on Learning: GTAUK posts from Sheli Blackburn

The Future of the GTA in the UK

It has been about 5 or 6 years since I began to email Cristin Frodella from Google about bringing the GTA to the UK and it has been great to now see the second event conclude. However this leaves me somewhat pensive about the event over here, the model of organisation and how much more could be done. The bottom line is that I want more of this type of opportunity for UK teachers, not just a few places over the course of 2 years but more like 3 big, full blown academy events every year.

It doesn’t seem that much to ask for UK teachers, who are, in my opinion, one of the most innovative and inspiring communities of teachers in the world. This is what I am pushing for and will do what I can to help make it happen.

74 Interesting Ways to Use Google Forms in the Classroom

Crowdsourcing, Google Docs, Interesting WaysPublished on22 Comments on 74 Interesting Ways to Use Google Forms in the Classroom

The Interesting Ways series of resources continue to grow as the community add ideas from the classroom. Below is one of the most popular with over 70 ideas shared by teachers for using Google Forms in a range of different ways.

Make sure that you explore nearly 40 other crowdsourced resource like the one above – you can see the full series of resources on the Interesting Ways page

Introducing Google Docs To Your Class: Interesting ways to use Docs in the Classroom 3 of 3

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This is the third and final part in a short series I am reposting from the Official Google Docs blog which I wrote back in 2008. I introduce people to the concept of sharing ideas in the form of the Interesting Ways resources – both learning about the tool itself and sharing good practice about it!
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The mornings are becoming darker and the leaves are changing colour here in England, the Autumn school term is in full swing. We have been using Google Docs (as part of Apps Education Edition) with a new year group for 8 weeks and we are putting into action some of the many things we learned from last year’s implementation.

Whilst in the previous two posts I have explored many of the broader themes that must underpin the way sharing online docs should be approached in the classroom, I am now knee deep in the practicalities of using Google Docs with our classes. This post will hopefully give you some practical ways to use the tool in the classroom, some inspiration as to where to start and some usage tips that will help it all run smoothly.

Over the last year I have begun two presentations that share practical tips in the use of Google Earth and the Interactive Whiteboard in the classroom. I have set the presentations up so that anyone with a practical tip can become a collaborator by sharing editing rights with them. In this way the presentation expands with the advice and tips from real users and from a much wider audience of educators.

All you need to do is send me your email and I will be able to add you as a collaborator to the presentation, so you can add just 1 or even 10 tips for the use of Google Docs in the classroom. (See details at the end of the presentation)

The first five are my own tips, in no particular order, to get the presentation started. It is currently called “[Insert #] interesting ways (and tips) to use Google Docs in the Classroom” – but I hope that you can find time to add your own and share your advice with Google Docs users so that the name changes! Or perhaps you would prefer to just use the presentation as part of your staff training – it is all licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0.

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The Interesting Ways resources have come a long way since 2008 – and this one is up to 34 ideas! I hope that you have enjoyed the short series of posts about using Google Docs and managed to take something that you can apply in the clasroom when you are working with collaborative online tools.

Introducing Google Docs To Your Class: It’s about communication, not the tool! 2 of 3

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This is the second in a series of 3 posts I wrote for the Official Google Docs Blog – in this one I share some common challenges teachers face when students begin working together on collaborative projects.

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2668173081 b62efb9df5Communication is important, not the tool

The success of our own class projects was not influenced by how well the children could use Google Docs. After all, it is not really about the tool — it’s about the group’s ability to work together as a team. My class found this difficult throughout the year. I did not expect that just because we were using technology that the outcome would be any different. In fact even though each child was engaged with a role within the group and a task to complete, the technology exacerbated the lack of communication. The groups were plodding on with their own tasks and when it buffeted with someone else’s they would get upset. They may be working in the same online space, but that does not automatically indicate they are collaborating well.

With this in mind we raised the profile of the sense of communication within the groups and discussed with the children their teething problems and how we can best resolve them. With every resolution I drew it back to the idea of better communication. The class had a fuller understanding from these discussions of what they were doing when working together in Google Docs and some of the ways that their own communication was causing problems. To reinforce this in future sessions I would regularly stop the class to talk about an excellent example I had overheard from an individual or a group. One such example was when the children in one group lowered their laptop screens so that they could discuss the progress of their work so far. I raised it with the wider group ,we briefly discussed why it was such a good move, and through this we then saw the majority of the groups adopting this strategy.

How student personalities and familiarity with technology affect group work

You know what it is like: you try and balance a team and consider the characters that you put together in a group, but within moments they are falling out! I suppose using Google Docs does not make the task any easier. Out of the 5 groups in my class, 2 worked very well together, 1 was OK and the other 2 had lots of problems and struggled. On reflection, the groups that worked least well together were made up of perhaps 2 or 3 strong personalities that would naturally like to take a lead and this caused conflicts and problems as it has in other activities. When the children have their own laptops and a clear contribution to make within a document, that is appropriately structured, in my experience it can help a group work together.

I had children in my class that were very capable at using technology and were motivated and enthused at its use in our lessons but who often struggled with their literacy or maths, they were more confident when collaborating with Google Docs because of their own personal comfort with technology in the classroom. They pushed themselves forward to take a lead and be more involved when in a more traditional paper-based activity they may not have done. Similarly, the flip side of this is children who are very confident and capable in literacy who perhaps have less confidence when using technology. Even though composing groups within your class to collaborate is similar for any activity, it is important to consider the type of characters who grows in confidence when embedding technology in their learning.

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