Google Unconference Sessions

I just got back from a Google Apps in Education Summit at their headquarters and one of things I was most impressed with their corporate culture was their "unconference" formats.  They are meant to turn the traditional top-down information overload content delivery of normal presentations to a bottom-up, upside down, and side-to-side dynamic that sparks maximum interaction, innovation, and ideas among participants. To read about their different formats click here

Google Docs Storyboard Template

Try this Google Doc Template. (You will need a Google Doc's account)

Googlios: Google Sites + ePortfolios = 21st Century Teaching and Learning

For the direct link on dotsub click here

This 20 minute video was produced for the 4th Annual Inter/National Virtual (Synchronous /Asynchronous) K-12 Online Conference.

For this year's schedule see:

http://wiki.k12onlineconference.org/home/for-participants/2009-schedule

Abstract:

As blogs, wikis, and podcasts have become more mainstream, it is important that educators step back to see how we, as professionals, are best using these tools to serve our student's learning needs. If these modern technologies are going to be sustained in contemporary pedagogy, it is time that we "kick it up a notch" and be able to tie these tools to a higher theme and to learning theories. In other words, rather than using technology for technology's sake, we need to be supported by a new 21st-century foundation of learning theory. Through a screencast, webcam, and Power Point video, this presentation will offer a model on how one educator has come to understand and organize these tools to support a 21st-century constructivist and connectivist approach to "bridge the divide" in educating our digital natives. Using Google Sites as a main hub, this presentation will show how students can mash together and showcase a variety of other free Google services to organize their own Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and "build bridges" to form their Personal Learning Networks (PLNs). This presentation will shed light on a model that shows a relationship between emerging tools and learning theories, and between PLEs, PLNs, and ePortfolios.

Discussion:
3 Essential Questions:

1) What hasn't been working with our current approach to Web2.0 integration in education?
2) How could refocusing our education technology on student-centered assessment change our paradigm?
3) How are you using e-portfolios and Google Sites in your classrooms? Best practices, examples?


Let's continue the discussion asynchronously, you can: 

a) Make a comment by filling in the "post a comment" box at the bottom of this post.
b) Network and discuss on the K12 Ning Forum:
or
c) Contact the author privately

Notes:

Best way to view this video:  You can hit the full screen button on the right side or watch the video in one window and open up another resized window to explore the links while listening.

Below are the presentation notes and annotated bibliography of the links and resources listed in order in which they were mentioned:

Presenter Bio & Googlio
www.gAlexAmbrose.com

Main Website: Full of Resources

www.Googlios.com

What Why & How to Creative Commons

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-why-how-to-creative-commons.html

Digital Natives & Immigrants

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/12/digital-natives-immigrants.html

The World is Flat - Book Summary & Resources

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/05/world-is-flat.html

A Whole New Mind - Book Summary and Resources

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/06/whole-new-mind-book-summary-and.html

Right vs. Left Brain Hemispheres

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/02/right-vs-left-brain-hemispheres.html

Set up your free website in 5 minutes see "Google Sites: The Easiest Way to Start a Free Web Page"

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/02/google-sites-wiki-easiest-way-to-start.html

Googlio Getting Started

http://sites.google.com/site/googlioproject/home/getting-started

Connectivism Learning Theory

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/03/connectivism-learning-theory.html

What is a PLE?

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-is-ple.html

Bloom's Taxonomy Visualizations Cheat Sheet

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/03/blooms-taxonomy-visualizations-cheat.html

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

http://edvibes.blogspot.com/2009/01/blooms-digital-taxonomy.html

University Minnesota E-Portfolio Program

https://portfolio.umn.edu/

Dr. Helen Barrett

http://electronicportfolios.com/

100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School

100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School
http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2009/10/25/100-google-tricks-that-will-save-you-time-in-school/

Google Docs Spreadsheets and Forms for Business

My Experiences Teaching with Google Apps at the University of Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame's Teaching and Learning Kaneb Center has found a successful way to infuse technology with developing their TA's and faculty through the Teaching Well Using Technology Certification Program. As a Ph.D. candidate in Computing Technology in Education, the Kaneb Center serves as an encouraging model on how an institution can fuse cutting edge technology with teaching and learning.  The following is a final report on my experiences piloting Google Apps at Notre Dame for the Teaching Well Using Technology Certification Program.

This school year, I utilized a suite of free Google Apps in our Military Science & Leadership 101 and 102 courses to serve the following functions:

Google Sites (wiki) hosted our course in an open platform that served as the main hub and learning management system to mash up other services.  See http://sites.google.com/site/militaryscienceandleadership for the course home page. Internally ,we also used Google Sites as a collaborative wiki space to work on a group project; see

http://sites.google.com/site/militaryscienceandleadership/Home/spring-2009/branch-ebook

Google Docs Presentations was used to publish and share instructor and student open courseware "PowerPoint" lectures and presentations.  Additionally, it opened up a backchannel chat discussion during class. See http://sites.google.com/site/militaryscienceandleadership/Home/fall-2008/fall-08-lectures for an example.

Google Blogger was used by the students as a blogging platform to reflect on the course reading and extend class discussions beyond the classroom.  See the blog assignment and list of our example blogs at http://sites.google.com/site/militaryscienceandleadership/Home/spring-2009/blogrol 

Google Calendar was used to indicate lecture and assignment schedule.

Google Groups was used as FAQ/Help discussion forum for students to aid one another in using these technologies.

Google Docs Forms were used for surveys and polling.

Using Google Docs Forms I was able to create web-based surveys that allowed me to collect data for my action research to answer the following technology integration research questions:

1)      If I opened up our class and hosted our course publicly on a Google Sites Wiki, would my students and outsiders find it useful as a reference during and after the course?

2)      If I uploaded my PowerPoint Lectures on Google Docs and embedded them in my course wiki would it change the learning interactions inside and outside of class?

3)      Could weekly journal blog posts be used as a tool to hold students accountable for the reading, keep up with the required reading, and prepare them for class discussion?

4)      Could public, collaborative, and meaningful wiki projects serve as an effective replacement for written papers?

To see the results of the quantitative and qualitative responses to all the survey questions click here and here. Below I have reported some of the major highlights.

How useful did you find the Military Science and Leadership Course Google Site for our class? (1 Not Useful – 5 Very Useful)

Responses=12

Average =3.9

Would your return to the course site after the course is over?

Responses=12

10/12 participants said yes

2/12 participants said no

How useful was Google Docs? (1 Not Useful – 5 Very Useful)

Responses=12

Average =4.3

How beneficial was it to have access to all power point lectures published and shared on the Google Site? (1 Not beneficial – 5 Very beneficial)

Responses=12

All 12/12 participants responded with 5

Did you prefer blogging to reading quizzes as a way to hold you accountable for and keep up with the reading?

Responses=14

13/15 prefer blogging

2/15 prefer quizzes

Did the weekly blogging help you reflect and apply the book?

(1 Not Helpful – 5 Very Helpful)

Responses=15

Average =3.92

Did blogging help prepare you for class discussion?

(1 Not Helpful – 5 Very Helpful)

Responses=15

Average =4

Should we continue to do blogs?

Responses=15

All  15/15 participants responded with yes

Would you rather write a paper or do the wiki project?

Responses=15

14/15 participants prefer the wiki

1/15 participants prefer a paper

Should we continue the wiki project?

Responses=15

14/15 participants said yes

1/15 participants said no

In the last 8 months since the course site was created there have been over 1,300 hits. The survey and visitor traffic data from Google Analytics data showed that students were visiting the website at least one time a week.  This data supports my interruption of blended learning theory and the benefits of a  “third space” for teaching learning that lies between face-to-face classrooms and fully online education.

In this introductory course on military science and leadership, my objective was to introduce future Army officers to the challenges and competencies of personal leadership.  My teaching philosophy guided me in striving to make 21st-century critical thinking "chess players" (not checker pieces) out of my students.  By using the suite of Google Apps tools, I was able to meet this goal.  Instead of administering pop reading quizzes or having students showing up to class unprepared, blogging helped my students keep up with the reading, forced them to reflect, and therefore they came to class prepared to discuss the concepts explained in the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Instead of giving multiple choice exams and written papers, Google Sites wiki capabilities allowed me to give students authentic and collaborative projects that classmates and outsiders could use as a meaningful resource and reference.  Lastly, instead of having a teacher-centered, one-way, "death by PowerPoint" lecture, Google Docs Presentation allowed me to create a live backchannel, to publish the slides,and to allow students to download, create and share their own presentations.  In addition, by giving students access to my lecture slides before, during, and after class, this freed up valuable class time, allowing us to spend more face to face interactions on group projects, student presentations, deeper discussion, and application exercises.   Furthermore, this experience of using Google Docs Presentation, in particular, lead to a research paper, PowerPoint 2.0: A Heuristic Model for Usability and Blended Design, that explored the new educational dynamics created by these Web 2.0 technologies. I presented these findings at the 2009 Midwest Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference.

In sum, by blending different types of learning tools, resources, and activities at different places and times through the different ways students interact with each other, the technologies created new opportunities for teaching and learning interactions.

About the Author: Alex Ambrose is an Adjunct Professor of Military Science in the Army ROTC department and a Ph.D. Candidate at Nova Southeastern's Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences Computing Technology in Education program.  For more information and to contact him, visit http://sites.google.com/site/galexambrose/

Power Point 2.0: Teaching & Learning with Google Docs

This talk was presented at the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 2009 Conference

To read the research paper behind the talk click here

To di scuss this talk asynchronously in a Google message board thread click here

To contact the author click here

Video: Google Docs in Plain English

Google Docs in Plain English

Basically Google Docs is Microsoft Office suite on line. Instead of software that is downloaded and runs on your computer you have webware that is run inside your web browser from any computer. Also gDocs allows you to access your documents from anywhere and to collaborate with others on a live document rather than sending different version attachments back and forth. You can also publish, embed, and email to share your files. Oh and it is also free, all you need to do is sign up for a google account.

Free Web-based Microsoft Office Suite Alternatives and Education

Web2.0 has brought us free office suites webapps (short for web-applications, which run inside your internet browser window). This new free webware (software run on the web not on your computer) have the potential to threaten the giant MS Office Suite as more and more switch to using the free services online rather than shelling out the hundreds of dollars to purchase the new commercial software. This is especially relevant in the education sector. The two online office suites I use for myself and my students are:

1. Googledocs formerly Writely until Google bought them out. It’s a suite that has a free replace for Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint (update and now Forms!). Googledocs has made me a more productive teacher, I love and swear by it I use it everyday to write and share my lesson planning from home and school, it doesn't matter what computer I am on I always have access. Googledocs is free and requires no downloads, you just need to register for a Google account. Only problem is, they do not support apple’s default internet browser Safri. One way to get around this is by installing Firefox onto your mac.

Must see for a great 2 min explanation

Video: Google Docs in Plain English

2. Zoho Office Suite is another great alternative, see this Wikipedia link for a great explanation. It has a much bigger suite with everything that Google Docs has and then some. I decided to use Zoho for my class because I didn’t want to have to worry about the mac compatibility and downloading Firefox on all the laptop carts.

UPDATE:

3. In fear of getting bumped out and left behind, Microsoft recently released Microsoft Office Live Workspace. Although I still prefer Google Docs, one nice feature of MS Live Workspaces, is that you can keep all your advanced word processing features like track changes which comes in handy with peer edits.

Related Posts

What are WebApps, Webware, Widgets, Web-based, and Webdesks

Read Zoho Suite vs Google Docs to see a great comparison between the two.