Hello Everyone and Welcome to 2015!
I hope that everyone had a relaxing and
rejuvenating holiday with family and friends.
If you made a New Year’s resolution to make technology a greater part of
your teaching repertoire this year, I have some suggestions for you.
Google Classroom App
Google Apps for education has
introduced a new Google Classroom app for Apple and android devices. Both students and educators can utilize the
app to complete and view assignments on the go.
Further, student can quickly snap a photo from the assignments page in
the app and attach it to an assignment.
This is fantastic for capturing an image of an experiment, completing a
photo scavenger hunt or even having a family member text them an image of
forgotten homework that they can hand in with the assignment. Students can also attach PDFs and webpages
from other apps to their assignments, simply click on share in the document,
etc. and Google Classroom will appear as one of the options. This opens up many opportunities for teachers
and students to reduce, if not eliminate extraneous papers. Google has also announced new features for
teachers in the Google Classroom desktop application. You are now able to archive classes at the
end of a semester or term, and view an assignments page so where teachers can
see all of the student’s assignments and mark them as being reviewed. I can’t wait to get started with these new
tools and options.
Ontario Google Summit – Kitchener, April 11and 12th
In April, the EdTech team is presenting the Ontario
Google Summit in Kitchener. This is an
amazing opportunity to learn an immense amount of information about Google Apps
for Education (GAFE) and how to utilize them in class and as teaching
tools. Although the price is rather
high, this two-day event includes breakfast and lunches, 8 interactive
sessions, two amazing keynote speakers and a ‘demoslam’. Having attended myself in previous years, I
can assure you that this event is extremely informative and will leave you
energized and ready to begin using Google Apps in your classroom.
Cybraryman website and resources
Jerry Blumengarten is also known as ‘Cybraryman’
and is the curator of the go-to website for educational websites and online
resources. His webpages are organized by
both grade level and/or subject area and offer links to webpages from around
the world for students, teachers and parents alike. He is a knowledgeable and supportive educator who always has many suggestions on where you can find
resources on a variety of topics. If you
wish to, or need to teach it, Cybraryman has a link to it.
Only 55
days to March Break!!
Cheers,
Stace
