Google Apps for Education Southern Summit

I’m excited about being a part of this. I hope you can join us!

We invite you to join us for the first annual Google Apps for Education Southern Summit in Atlanta, Georgia on September 22 and 23, 2012. This high intensity two day event focuses on deploying, integrating and using Google Apps for Education to promote student learning in K-12 and higher education. The program features Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, practicing administrators, solution providers, Google engineers, and representatives from the Google Apps for Education team.

Sessions include two keynote presentations, plus two full days of informative breakouts, cutting-edge demonstrations, and hands-on workshops led by experienced and knowledgeable professional developers.

  • Deployment & Management of Google Apps
  • Google Apps Scripts
  • Google Apps for Education Certification
  • Chromebooks in Education
  • YouTube for Schools
  • Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Calendar, Gmail power tips, and… even more!

The Google Apps for Education Southern Summit will be in Atlanta, near the area’s most popular attractions.

Register now to take advantage of the early bird rates.

@YouTube Turns 7 and Celebrates with a Super Cool Video! (2 mins.)

Today, Monday, May 21, YouTube celebrates its 7th birthday. Can you believe that its been seven years since the first YouTube video was shared with the world? Does anyone remember what we did before we had online video?

To commemorate the occasion, YouTube has published a video with some of the crazy statistics and incredible things that have occurred during the company’s existence. Says the video summary accompanying the birthday video, “Thanks for the amazing things you watch, create, and share!” (Source)

How many of the classic clips included within the following video reflection do you recognize?

 

 

Class Activity: Take a Virtual Trip through Google’s Servers

Here’s a quick activity that you can do in your classroom to explore the topic of sustainable energy. It comes to us from Google.

Introduction

Ever wondered what happens when you send an email? How does an email travel from your computer to your friend’s smartphone across the country or around the world?

Take a journey with Gmail and find out. In this short video you will follow an email on its journey to see what happens once you send a message. Along the way, you will learn about some of Google’s efforts to minimize its impact on the environment.

 

Exploration

Take a journey through Google’s data centers by following an email along its path. Along the way, explore Google’s data centers with videos, photos and more. It all begins when you click send. Click on the image below to begin the online module.


Google Green

Google claims it is creating a better web that’s better for the environment. Google states, “We’re greening our company by using resources efficiently and supporting renewable power. That means when you use Google products, you’re being better to the environment…At Google, we’ve worked hard to minimize the environmental impact of our services. In fact, to provide you with Google products for a month, our servers use less energy per user than leaving a light on for 3 hours. If you add in our renewable energy and offsets, our footprint is zero. And we continue to find new ways to reduce our impact even further.”

Learn more about about Google Green here.

Educational Connections

Science – environment, sustainable energy, renewable energy, green

Geography – locate the nearest Google data center using Google Maps

Math – calculations regarding distance, time, rate

Language arts – write a sample email, follow the writing process to edit and re-write your email

 

School-Wide Implementation of Evernote

Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your everyday life using your computer, phone, tablet and the web. Evernote is a great tool for teachers and students to capture notes, save research, collaborate on projects, snap photos of whiteboards, record audio and more. Everything you add to your account is automatically synced and made available on all the computers, phones and tablets you use.

The Montclair Kimberly Academy, a K-12 school in Montclair NJ, has deployed Evernote to all student laptops. Here’s their story.

Learn more in this interview as Bill Stites, Director of Technology at the Montclair Kimberley Academy, describes the school’s Evernote deployment.

Evernote Premium For Schools offers all the features, services and benefits, bundled together for your school at a discounted rate. Perfect for groups of teachers, classrooms, whole schools or entire districts. Evernote Premium For Schools is available at a 50% discount off of individually purchased premium accounts.

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Favorite Theo. LeSieg (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) Story

(Repost from 01/08/2009)

I recently mentioned that while building My Google Library I decided to identify my very favorite Dr. Seuss story. It didn’t take me long to narrow the list down to Too Many Daves (from The Sneetches and Other Stories) and Wacky Wednesday. Wacky WednesdayBoth of these stories grabbed my imagination as a child and hold fun memories. While agonizing over which of these tales I treasured the most (I’m exaggerating a bit.) I was thrilled to realize that Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) had actually authored Wacky Wednesday under the pseudonym Theo. LeSieg. This realization spared me the dilemma of choosing which of these two beloved stories was my favorite Dr. Seuss tale. I admit it’s a technicality but it works in my favor, so I’ll take it (hahaha).

I’ve included Wacky Wednesday in my library because… well, because it’s wacky. It’s all about a boy’s zany adventures on a far-from-normal Wednesday. My friends and I would sit in the library trying to find all the wacky details in the illustrations. We were exposed to figurative language, creativity, word play, imagination, and so much more without even realizing it. Perhaps the best thing I can say about Wacky Wednesday is that I’ve read it over and over – and isn’t that the greatest testament of a good book?

I’m Digging the Google Docs Redesign

I’ve been working a lot with Google’s many, many services the past several weeks in conjunction with various professional development workshops that I have/will be facilitating. In doing so, I’ve become a big fan of their products. I’ve especially been struck by their tools’ ease of use, deep integration among tools and services, and Google’s commitment to openness. I’m going to be saving a lot of money on software in the future as I migrate away from some of the expensive software giants that I’ve used for a long time and in lieu of Google’s free and similar/superior offerings.

In the past few days I’ve noticed that the new Google toolbar (the dark box across the top) has pretty much gone live across all the Google services I use. Google has never been known for their graphic design prowess, but I’d say the update is an improvement. I especially dig the redesign of the Google Docs interface.

Google Friend Connect

I encourage you to join our professional learning network (PLN) via Google Friend Connect so that we can all engage in more active and collaborative ways. I hope you’ll join our educational community (click on the button below) and let’s have fun learning together. Please feel free to invite other educators, preservice teachers, homeschool families, and anyone with an interest in education and technology, too.



Educational Technology: Current Trends and Future Directions

Future-TechnologyThis is my slide deck for my keynote presentation at today’s Tennessee Administrator’s Technology Academy. The following serves as an outline of some of the topics that will be highlighted and demonstrated.

  • Standards, 21st Century Learning, and Higher-Order Thinking Skills
  • Classroom Examples
  • Web 2.0 Tools and Services
  • Benefits and Barriers
  • “Telecollaboration”
  • Audio and Video
  • Mash-Ups
  • Mobile Learning
  • Interactivity
  • State of Innovation
  • A Personal Experience
  • Conclusions and Discussion

 

 

 

Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom

My buddy, Tom Barrett, developed the below presentation. It is full of strategies and tips for effectively integrating interactive whiteboards (IWBs) with teaching and learning.