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Roseville 2016 #gafesummit takeaways

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gaferoseville16Can’t think of a better way to spend a weekend than attending my 3rd #gafesummit (Google Apps for Education Summit) at beautiful Roseville High School. So many great presenters sharing awesome ideas to extend teaching and learning via Google tools. My takeaways are many. Not just resources and implementation ideas but also engaging, entertaining, and embracing presentation styles, such as:

  • Roni Habib convincing us that interacting with our students in the opening minutes of class is time well spent (even if you have to imagine that you don’t look silly/stupid/ridiculous, but, instead, “sexy”).
  • Sergio Villegas and Lise Guluga modeling and promoting the power of story in teaching.
  • Jeff Heil’s humor-infused, interactive presentation for bringing teachers on board with Chromebooks, apps, and extensions.

But, of course, in addition to fantastic presenters, the resources and strategies they shared were amazing.  Below are a few of my favorites:

  • EDpuzzle – OK, I’d looked at EDpuzzle before, but didn’t fully appreciate its depth and breadth until Roni Habib walked us through ways he uses EDpuzzle in his high school classes, starting with pulling from the videos already posted to the site under Best Lesson Examples. So why make your own (very possibly boring) videos, when you can engage, challenge, and track students as they make their way through great videos such as Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two?!
  • Beyond Search: Books, Ngrams, Newspapers, Trends, and Correlate – This was my first time to hear Lise Galuga. Love how she taps into Google tools in ways that invite students to think deeply about data returned via all the tools listed in her session title. Google Books Ngrams was a new tool for me. Pretty amazing how Ngrams can chart a string of words from books as far back as the 1500s. Checkout this sample chart with Einstein, Sherlock Holmes, and Frankenstein. “Ngrams = Wordle over time.” Lise clearly looks beyond the tools to see how they can be used to “teach above the line” (SAMR model) and promote critical thinking.
  • Hyperdocs & Multimedia Textsets – Left Will Kimbley’s session with a great quote: “Learning should not stop because of a calendar (due date); it’s about mastery learning” and some awesome samples of hyperdocs, along with great tips for creating hyperdocs.
  • Certifiably Google – Enjoyed having another opportunity to learn from Lise Galuga. Based on a number of requests from schools in my district, I’ve been toying with the idea of leading Google Certified Educator trainings at individual sites (which would likely require more time than I could commit to, given the size of my district) vs. replicating Lise’s session and simply providing teachers with a one-hour overview workshop. Loved how this session was highly informative, but more of an interactive conversation than a formal presentation. I’m going with Lise’s model:-).

And, oh my, the closing keynote session…Not only was Lise Galuga’s Op Pachyderm: Eating the Elephant one Bite at a Time a beautifully crafted piece, with many quotable reflections and reminders (e.g., “Become masters of pedagogy, not tools”) … but I also won the Samsung Tab 4!

rosevillehighThank you Google. Thank you EdTechTeam. Thank you Samsung. Thank you Roseville High School Start to finish, another fabulous Roseville #gafesummit:-)

 

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