GAFE NZ Summit - North Island

What a great few days I had at the 'Gafe Summit' in the North Island. This summit was all about Google in Education and the magic it provides to us as educators and to our students.

It was a brilliant mix of inspiring thinking, shifting the norm of teaching practice, new technologies and opportunities and motivational talks, chats and presentations.

It was more than flipping the class it was about flipping the teacher.

Okay so this blog could go forever so here is a few GEMS, AhHa moments that I got from the two days.

Very necessary: 

1. Google Apps in Education
2. www.synergyse.com - This is PD for staff at the click of a button - MAGIC
3. http://whatsnew.googleapps.com/update-feed - Google Updates, you must sign up
4. http://edutraining.googleapps.com/apps-edu-admin/chapter-2 - How to implement Google Apps 
5. HAPARA - A must for schools if you have a domain in your school

Some interesting resources:

1. MOOC's - Massive Open Online Courses
2. http://youtu.be/lZqX6ocwHWU - all about Google Add-ons
3. SAMR Model - Ted Talk
4.  Steal Like an Artist - Book by Austin Kleon is a guide to creativity in the digital age

Just Cool Stuff:

1. WeVideo - Google app for video editing
2. Backupify - back up all your Google Drives, emails etc
3. Lucidchart - very cool 'Mind Map'
4. Easybib - Google Add-on
5. Table of Contents - Google Add-on
6. Easy Header and Footer - Google Add-on
7. Audio Tool - Google App for online music production Studio
8. Pixton - Google app for cartoon creation
9. http://www.colourlovers.com - a good site to give colour backgrounds for your Google Sites

Quotes and Sayings that I liked:

1. "Ensure you implement Google Apps in meaningful ways in your school to increase efficiency, collaboration and engagement"  - Tim Lee
2. "Is this the real world?" - Youngboy on a YouTube Video
3. "Students need output when being Creative" - Jim Still
4. Learning is a social process and Google plays a strong part with collaberation - Rob Clark

So much more but that will do for starters.....

Welcome to my e-learning journey.

I have been to some rewarding conferences, workshops and school visits in regards to ICT, BYOD, Google, e-learning and the concept or 21st Century Education or Education 2.0. They were rewarding and reassured me that educationist we are on the right road, heading in the right direction.......however no one really can pinpoint the destination only that it will be a transformation in educational practice and that it will be exciting and something we should not fear or hold back from.

Here’s an interesting video from Enabling e-Learning: Leadership, where Dr David Parsons (Associate Professor, Massey University) talks about the term ‘e-learning’ and elaborates on defining this more like, ‘blended learning opportunities’ where e-learning tools are integrated in authentic ways.

 This blog will be a reflection journal me. To start this blog I thought that I needed to think about:

1. Where we want to be in our teaching pedagogy
2. What we need to get there
3. Why we need to 

I will add pages where I feel there is a real need for it to stay at the forefront of our thinking

Where to Start.......

Below is the SAMAR rubric to help teachers reflect on their teaching when implementing I.C.T into their classrooms. We have pushed this out to help staff understand where they sit. Here is a great webpage that backs this up so well - Samr as a framework to move forward.

We however need to dig a little more with this; this can wait till a later post......