FINAL!!!

I did it!! It is the end of my first "teacher class" outside of college.  Wow! How differently you learn when you have your own class to go back and apply the information to. At the beginning of this class, I assessed myself on the ISTE-Teacher standards and stated that overall I was approaching proficient in most areas. Did I learn a lot if this class? YES! A LOT! Did my proficiency level change? No, because now I am aware of even more possibilities with technology for my classroom. Of course now I have a better understanding of the standards but  I am currently trying to process how I can take all of this information and effectively use it in my classroom. I still strongly feel that technology should not overwhelm my time in the room and if it complicates the task, then it is not the best resources.

Throughout the course, there were several times where I felt that the material was too advance for my Kindergarten students. I could always envision upper levels using these tools properly and efficiently but had a hard time grasping how my little ones could do it. First off, legally they cannot have a Google account so they would not be able to use Google Docs unless their parents have an account. Furthermore, I do not think we have the resources such as computers and server strength for our students.  This is why while completing several Google tasks, I asked myself how my students could use them realistically. Most of the time, I came up with that they would have to use Google at home. 

Even though I do not think Google is completely appropriate and independent for my students, I have concluded that it will be a great tool for myself to learn and grow. I still really hope that my school becomes a Google School because I think it will bring staff and the community together. Since this class started, there have been several times where I thought it would have been helpful to have Google in my everyday work world. For example, every month, we share our classroom calendars with the other teachers to make sure we are remembering all of the upcoming events. Wouldn't it be helpful to have a "Building Calendar" where we could post every upcoming event. This would help staff communication tremendously. 

Again, I truly learned a lot in this course that I never dreamed existed. Google is very FULL and I hope throughout the summer, I can go back and play with the different components. In my mind, this will help me organzine my thoughts and plan for my future.  This class has really inspired me to explore different options for my teaching approach and has motivated me to push through my goals and to truly use more technology. Thanks for a great class. I feel as if I am still processing everything because it was such a jammed packed topic. My next step is to go back and review the information several times.

Google Doc Suite

I was pleased to see that the Google Doc Suite was very similar to Microsoft Office because that is what I am familiar with and know how to use. With that said, there is still a lot that Google Docs Suite can do that Microsoft Office cannot. One thing that I really enjoy is that it automatically saves everything online. It seems awfully hard to loose a document. I can remember through my college years, where I have began a document and then some crazy thing happens, such as the power goes off, and POOF!... there goes my document with it.  I was pleased to see when I was working in all the different programs, that it constantly saves. I also like that it saves the information in the cloud versus my computer. I also have been one that has lost everything on my computer because it was damaged. When this information is saved in the cloud, your information and documents are mush safer.

Another aspect of Google Doc Suite that I really like is the amount of collaboration that you can have within your documents. I think every assignment that I posted, required collaboration between home and school. Obviously for Kindergartners, I had to be very strategic on how they were going to use these programs. I think I chose a great option by involving parents in all of this.

I also think if we ever do become a "Google School" I can see the collaboration aspect to be very helpful between staff members as well! I think this would be a great way for us to sign-up for things, get news out, take surveys on different issues at school, and organize data. Overall, this system helps us become more time efficient and improves collaboration and communication.

Module 7 Reflection

Ahhhh... the cloud. I think after reading and watching several videos in Module 7, I now truly understand what "the cloud" is. I am confident that now I can use and WILL use it! As a Mac owner, does everyone still use Google Drive over ICloud? I think, because I really do not know how to use my ICloud, that I will go ahead and stick to using Google Drive. Plus, there is so much I can do with Google Drive that I love! First off, so many times, I have not been able to send an email because my file was too large. If I store everything in the Cloud I won't even have to worry about this. Second, I love that I can access any document I save to this account and then able to view the document anywhere. No more worrying about flash drives or other devices to save items.

Again, why did I not know about this when I was in college!! With that said, I think I can really take advantage of Google Drive and it will be very useful when I create something at home but then can access it on my Google Drive at school. I think for now I will start using this tool for myself and then with hopes of my school turning into a "Google School," maybe then staff can collaborate on more different things. For example, something that we always do at my school that would be so much easier is sign-up sheets for various things.

My first steps with Google Drive will be getting it saved to my computer... which I must be confused about because when I go to my document drive, Save to Google Drive is not an option. I will have to go back and check that. And then, I think I want to organize all my documents at school and at home and share between the two. This past fall, I had the unfortunate event of loosing everything that was on my old laptop. Lesson learned, I will now save EVERYTHING to Google Drive. One question I do have, do you have to pay for storage after so much space?

Module 6 Reflection

Module 5 Reflection

Wow!! This was just the tool I was looking for! I have toyed around with several websites to help me create a classroom website and I think Google will do the job! With that said, I know there is still a lot for me to learn and I do feel overwhelmed right now! I would really like to dive into how to say, "make it look cuter" and more trendy. :) I follow different teacher idols and my blog still does not even come close to how theirs is. Oh it is the little things in life... I also want to really dissect Google Sites more so that when I do use it in my own classroom, it will be very FAST and EASY! Sorry, but us busy teachers/busy lifers, do not have time to spend hours and hours trying to figure all of this out. Hopefully with some practice, blogging and website design will be easy. 

My hope is to create a website for my Kinder parents to use as a way to stay better connected with my classroom. I would love to post pictures, references, resources, and other useful tips and tricks along with important items and dates for families to keep up on. I think this would be a great way for families to stay connected with me over the summer too! I would hope that I could post fun ideas and activities so students would not get "summer brain" as badly. On the SMAR model, I think this would help students achieve the modification level. As far as me for technology, having a website really connects my classroom to the outside world. 

Questions... not really at this time. I need to go back and review the information about custom searches. That part I must have missed?

Also, I hope we will not just keep plowing through and really work on perfecting our sites. I would love to learn more!

Here is a link to my site! Mrs. K's Google Ways

Module 4: Gmail, Calendar, Task

Another great module this week! This module makes me very eager to encourage our administration to become a Google school. It will be my goal to share with them the many possibilities that Google holds because I really think this could help our school-wide communication with each other and with our community. In this module, I learned that Gmail certainly is a "full" component with many possibilities. In Gmail, I really like how there are labels! This will really help me organize information. In Calendar, I really like how you can link events to it and are able to invite people. I think this would be a great way to communicate with families.

Those of you who use Google in your school, are the parents open to all of this technology? I wonder if parents would check their email regularly so this system could be effective.

I also want to know if this calendar will sync to Apple products? For my personal use, I always use Apple because I love how all of my devices will sync to each other. But since we do not have Macs at school it would be so nice to make everything sync.

Module 3: Google+ and Blogger

I look back and Module 3 and again, it just astonishes me that there is so much more to Google than Google search. I have to laugh because during the introduction part of this class, I labeled and thought of myself as a mediocre Google user.  As we get into things, it is very apparent that there is so much more to Google than what meets the eye on the initial google.com home screen. I had no idea what Google+ was before this module and I found the information very helpful but a little overwhelming. There is a lot of great “stuff” crammed into one tool. I almost look at it like this… Google+ seems to be Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn all in one spot. I am not sure if I like that yet because I am so used to the separate websites and in my brain that is how everything is organized. I think I need to take small steps and explore each piece before putting it all together.

With over 10,000 pins, you can easily say I am a Pinterest fanatic and so as I as going through the module, the “Community” portion of Google+ really sang to me! I think this tool will be great for collaboration with other teachers. I have already joined several communities such as “Kindergarten Korner” and “Technology in Education” and have already seen several useful posts.  Does anyone know if we can save these posts/ somehow? That is one aspect of Pinterst that I love because I can always pin items and save it to use later. For example, today I saw cute nursery rhyme videos and would like to save them for later use but have no idea how to do so??

Even though I think Google+ will be great for me, I do question how my Kindergarten students can use this. I think this tool is too complicated and obviously they cannot even have a gmail account until they are 13. So for now, I think I will stick to just using Google+ for myself and will focus on finding great ideas on the site to then share with my students.

With that said, I did see a post today that really did inspire me to do more with integrating technology into my classroom. A teacher had asked if any experts on dinosaurs would mind Skyping in with their class. I thought that would be a great way to hit a high SMAR level and would be so fun! I would be interested to see if he get’s anyone to respond and is successful with his post. What a great opportunity that would be! My students would love to bring the outside world to them! Of course, this would transform the students learning and in my opinion, they would be at the modification level of the SMAR model. 

As far as Blogger, this is a tool that I am a little more familiar with. When I was in college, one of our assignments was to create a blog on children’s literacy. Even though I do not use this blog, I still go back and explore the blogs that I had followed and saved to my Reading List. Some of the blogs out there are amazing and WOW some people put a lot of time and effort into them! I always seem to pick up great ideas and I love how a lot of the content that they share is either linked to their Teachers Pay Teachers store or you are able to download the resources right there.

Again, I am not totally sure how I can use Blogger with my Kindergarten students. Maybe this can be an easier way for me to communicate what we are doing with families? At the beginning of the year, I struggled with finding a safe, private, and easy way to share all the wonderful pictures I take throughout the year with my Kinder families. I settled with using Shutterfly, which does have a classroom website component.  I do enjoy because it is very easy for me to take a picture on my phone and then have it uploaded to our classroom website. Not sure if Blogger can do the same things or give me the same benefits. Opinions? Thoughts?

Overall, I think I have concluded that these tools shared this past week are going to really help me as an educator grow and stay open to new ideas. I believe education is always changing and evolving and we owe it to each other to always share our findings and to collaborate.