Google Educator Certification - Docs and Drive (Session 6)

We're now up to Lesson 8 of the Docs and Drive Level 2 training. This is a huge lesson, so it is probably best to cover it in a number of sessions.

Today we will look at the first section Sharing, Privacy, Printing, and Publishing.

We will continue to take notes on our collaborative document, and don't forget to share classroom ideas.

Google Educator Certification - Docs and Drive (Session 4)

Today we will be looking at Lesson 5 and Lesson 7 of the Docs and Drive Level 2 training. Lesson 5 deals with Slides, the presentation tool, and Lesson 7 looks at the Google Drawing tool. We'll leave lesson 6 until next week, as it deals with Forms, and I think it would be best to dedicate an entire session to this.

We will continue to take notes on our collaborative document, and don't forget to share classroom ideas.

Now that we will soon be on holidays, I'd suggest that you should take the time to complete your Google Basics Exam, and get your certificate. I heard some good advice from the Google Education Podcast - When completing your Google exams, using Google is not cheating.

Google Educator Certification - Docs and Drive (Session 5)

Today we will be looking at Lesson 6 of the Docs and Drive Level 2 training. This lesson deals with Google Forms. A Google form is an information collection tool. The information is collected in a Google sheet, which makes it a sinch to analyse.

We will continue to take notes on our collaborative document, and don't forget to share classroom ideas.

Locking down Facebook

Being an education professional mean maintaining a professional profile, and many education institutions believe that your public image impacts upon that professional profile. Social networking sites have become a big part of your public image, and, if you don't manage them properly then they could have a significant impact upon your professional profile.

This short video explains the current privacy setting on Facebook.

Tips: Resetting your student's passwords

At our College, students have a number of different passwords, and, inevitably, they will forget them from time to time. Fortunately, as a teacher, you have the ability to reset two of these.

When you do rest them, remind students their passwords will need at least:

• 8 characters
• An uppercase letter
• A lowercase letter
• A number
• A symbol (like * $ . ! etc)

myBCE Account

Student's myBCE is provided by Brisbane Catholic Education and is used by students to access their email. The video below show you how to reset this password.

Google Apps for Education

The College provides students with a Google Apps for Education account. This account is used for students to access their Google Drive and other Google services. The video below show you how to reset these passwords.

Google Educator Certification - Docs and Drive (Session 3)

Today with our Google session we will be looking at Lesson 4 of the Docs and Drive Level 2 training.

This lesson introduced Google Sheets, which is the Google Apps spreadsheet tool. Since the lesson assumes a little understanding of spreadsheets, first we might look at what spreadsheets are.

We will continue to take notes on our collaborative document, and don't forget to share classroom ideas.

Google Educator Certification - Docs and Drive (Session 2)

Today is day two on Level 2 training for the Google Educator Certification. Last week we got through lessons one and two, so today we will start with lesson 3.

Don't forget that we have our collaborative note taking document. There is also a collaborative document to share any classroom ideas that you think of during the sessions.

Google Educator Certification - Docs and Drive (Session 1)

Today we start on the Level 2 training for the Google Educator Certification. Each course is fairly long, and very comprehensive, so I am uncertain as to how long this will take. 

We are going to start with the Docs and Drive course. To assist in the training I have created a document for collaborative note taking. There is also a collaborative document to share any classroom ideas that you think of during the sessions.

Finally, following on from our two sessions on Google Basics you might want to take the Basics Exam. Upon completion your certificate will be emailed to your account. Therefore, you might want to log into your personal account to take the exam.

Google Educator Certification Training (session 2)

Welcome to the second session of the Google Educator Certification training. For those who were not here last week, the plan is for these to be support sessions where we, a a group, work towards becoming Google Educators. The idea is for use to work through the training offered at the Google for Education site.

Initially we are working through the basics videos on six Google tools. Last week, we covered Docs and Drive, Search, and Sites.

This week we will look at:

• Calendar
• Chrome
• Gmail

Don't forget, that as we work through these tools, we're trying to keep a record of ideas for their classroom application using this document, and links to all websites we discus will be kept on the Tuesday Arvo Sessions Diigo group. There is a permanent link to both of these resources in the blog sidebar.

Google Educator Certification Training

This is the first session of the Google Educator Certification training. These sessions are designed so, as a group, we can support each other as we work to become Google Educators. We will be working through the training provided by Google on their Google for Education site.

The first couple of sessions will be used to familiarise ourselves with various Google tools, and to discuss their us in the classroom.

Today we will focus on the Basics Tutorials for:

• Docs and Drive
• Search
• Sites

To keep a record of these discussions, and to assist fellow staff members who could not attend the training, we'll fill out this document.

In addition, any links that we have discussed during these sessions will be available at the Tuesday Arvo Sessions Diigo group.

Edvertisement: Diigo

Using Diigo in Class

There are so many classroom applications for Diigo, mostly because it has so many features and these features can be used to create a myriad of classroom experiences.

Bookmarking

The core feature of Diigo is it's ability to bookmark websites and centralise these in the cloud. This means that your bookmarks are available from any device with Internet access.  Put simply, Diigo is the best way to gather and organise your online resources. All the sites you have bookmarked are added to your Diigo Account, along with a description and any tags you add. The description and tags are used for searching in your account.

This video shows you basics of using Diigo.

To see an example of using Diigo in class, check out my Lesson: Researching Sacred Stories post.

Annotating

Diigo goes beyond merely bookmarking a site. Diigo, also enables you to highlight web pages, and comment on them. These highlights and comments are also collated into you account where you can view them. This way you can view all the notes you have collected from each website.

Groups

Groups are a powerful organising and collaboration tool. Groups can be private or public to allow for many users to collaboratively build a library of online resources. There are different levels of collaboration, allowing you to decide the level of participation for different group members.

Lists

Lists are Diigo's tool for displaying your bookmarks. You can send bookmarks to a list that you can then share to different platforms. Lists are only only for display purposes, but are a simple way to embed an up-datable sources of bookmarks.

Educators Account

Diigo also offers a free educator account. This account gives you access to a teacher console where you can create accounts for your students and allocated them to groups.

Mobile Apps

Finally Diigo has apps for both Android and iOS. This means that you, or students can use Diigo's features on your phones or tablets.

Getting Started

To get started with Diigo, go to the website an create an account. You can use Google, Facebook, Twitter or Yahoo accounts, or create an account using your email address. Once you have created your account, then it is time to start bookmarking.

The easiest way to bookmark in Diigo is to install either Diigolet, or the Diigo Extension in your browser. The tools can be found here. There is a tool available for every browser.

Introduction to Google Apps

Links

Google Apps Resources

Planning Sheet

Introductory Video Tutorials

Lesson: Creating Netiquette Rules

Details

Subject: Information Technology Systems
Grade: 11
Tools: YouTube, AnswerGarden, Google Docs, tricider
Focus Question: What is appropriate on-line?

The Lesson

The lesson started watching Beaker's Ballard on YouTube.

We then used AnswerGarden to garner students' experience about inappropriate behaviour on the web.

The concept of Netiquette was introduced by introduce by Will (he's a high school junior) via Youtube. This was expanded on by "The Core Rules of Netiquette" provided by Albion.

The class was then challenged to collaboratively summarise this into a "Netiquette 10 Commandments". Originally this was done using typewith.me, but now I would choose to create a Google Document.

Finally, the video "How to Follow Proper Netiquette Rules" showed the students how generalised 'commandments' can be distilled down to very specific rules. The students were then asked to create specific rules and post them to tricider.

Follow up

For homework students were asked to check over the rules that had been posted on tricider, and vote on them.