Lions, Tigers and Google!!! Oh MY!!!!!

A disclaimer: If you are not a Google fan, this blog might not be for you. 

Google, Google, Google!!! How I love thee. Why do I love Goolge? Well pull up a chair and let me tell you!!

     Google Classroom: Have you tried this out???? I love this and so do my students. It allows me to organize everything by class in neat, simple folders in my drive. Its ability to keep students (and myself) organized is AMAZING!!! Within one system I can accept assignments, provide feedback and return it to the student. I know some of you out there like Schoology or Edmodo and I was once one of you, but since our county has made a move to Google it only made sense to move here too!! Now is it perfect?? No, but give it some room to improve. It only came out in August! There are some features I would like to see added. For example, organizing my shared drive or allowing teachers to have a type with just a list of assignments. I continue to provide feedback and I will give them room to improve, but it's looking fabulous to me!!!

     Google Forms: So this might just be new to me but have you seen the SCRAMBLE option!!! I logged in this week to make an assessment and noticed the new option to scramble the questions. Helps eliminate cheating!! Also, there is an option to only allow one submission. I know before you could un-check the option to show a link to re-submit but we know students know how to just hit the back button to go back and re-submit. This eliminates that from happening!!! 

Hope this gets you excited about GOOGLE TOO!!!!

Andragogy

What is it? Upon walking into this session, I had NO idea what andragogy actually was. Sure, I had heard of pedagogy, but never andragogy in relation to teaching. At last my confusion and questions were answered. So what is it you ask....well its how adults learn. 

Why is this important? Like many people I get nervous when presenting to my peers. Put me in front of a class and I'm good to go; put me in front of a room full of teachers and here come the nerves. To me andragogy is important because it tells me how to address my peers. 

What did I learn? I learned to use my time wisely. As teachers there are a million and one things that we would like to do, so don't go into a presentation and waste their time. Keep it short and simple!! I also learned to read your audience. Learn what would drive them. And make sure to answer some basic questions: Why am I here? Why do I care? And What do I get out of this? So now I can take what I have learned and apply it to the many presentations I will do in the future.

The Fist

Ben Blooms Fist in a SMAR Glove

CHECK IT OUT!!!

    App Smashing is a relatively new area for me. While I have used apps in my class I have never paired multiple apps together to reach a goal. This article has helped relieve some of the stress. I now feel more confident in approaching app smashing. It was mentioned in the article that you should start with an end goal in mind. I normally start at the beginning, so this will be different for me. I do think that it will help with planning. I also like the mention that not everything is placed in neat little boxes, but that everything is equal. Most of the time we have the mindset that we have to do things a certain way or else; now I can look at everything on equal grounds. This article has given me the jumping start to try to emerge myself in the world of app smashing!