BP_16Practical Experience Week 4(3)

My next idea using Google Docs was to use this with my students. I plan to implement Google Docs drawing with my struggling readers. I think this might be a great way to motivate them to write and share what they read.  I was thinking that each pair would be given a laptop to share (the team has 10 laptops on a cart, and I also have 6 laptops in my classroom). There are 8 students in my first class. So I would really only need 4 computers. I would project my computer on the screen. We would start by retelling the story we read to our shoulder partner. Then I would allow pairs to share out. Together, the class and I, would create an oral retelling of our story. Then we can transfer this oral retelling into a written retelling with pictures.  I can start by retelling the beginning of the story we have been working on. I can add words and pictures to my first part. Then students can add on to what I am saying. Together we can create a detailed retelling. I think this may really encourage my students to listen and understand what they read and what they hear. I am excited to see how the children respond to this experience. 

BP_15Practical Experience Week 4(2)

My next task in Google Docs is to work collaboratively with my 2nd grade team on creating a Presentation document to go along with our new math series. Six years ago 2 Second grade teachers and myself created a Keynote to go with each unit of study in math. We had to copy and paste, add and revise, and share over our school server due to size of the file. It was a huge pain. In the end we all had a nice instructional piece to go over each math unit. Of course, it is time to change math series and the Benchmarks and Standards have changed as well. So this year, after learning about Google Docs, I thought this will be prefect to use for our new math units. Instead of sharing over the server and copy and pasting and so forth, we can use Presentation to create our instructional piece. We can do this through Google Docs in real time. I am really excited to see how this piece will turn out!

The first step is to find the theme that we want to use.

The next step is to create the title and invite others to share and view.

Another great benefit about presentation in Google Docs is the ability to embed video. I think this will be an effective way to show math in ever day life. There are so many great math clips right there on YouTube.

 This is such a great way to synergize! 

BP_14Practical Experience Week 4(1)

For my practical experience project this week, I decided to continue my focus with Google Docs. I ran into a few snags while attempting to share this with my team, and I really want to understand it and get the kinks worked out. I really think this will be a valuable tool for myself as well as my team.

Our first glitch was the creation of the accounts. Some of our email account names at school have been shortened due to really long last names, so this made some of the emails I entered not work correctly. Due to this being a new experience with my team and an important process going on with our Professional Growth Plan, tensions were high. This may not have been the best time to try this new tool. I have to remind myself that not everyone will be as thrilled about technology as I am. They will love it when it makes their lives easier, but hate it when it doesn’t! I should have also been more prepared. I should have had each person attempt to log on prior to our meeting.

After that roadblock, my team was really excited to see how information transferred from the forms they submitted to the spreadsheet I created on Reading Remediation children in 2^nd grade. Some of my team members were worried that they may have put in the wrong information on a student, and then they were not able to get back to the document. I told them that as soon as the spreadsheet was complete, I was going to share it with them as viewers and editors. This way they can double check the information that is present for their students.They thought that was a really great way to share and edit information. Each person began to see the value of this tool. This has been a really great way to gather information without going crazy waiting for team members to give me the information and then having to input this information myself into a spreadsheet. This has saved me a great deal of time and energy, and I know that after careful explanation and tutorials, my teammates will love it as well. 

BP_13Practical Experience 3

My next adventure in Google Docs took me to spreadsheet and forms. The staff was asked to document our students for RTI (Response to Intervention). We were asked to complete a spreadsheet with student information. The problem is we are sent the spreadsheet in PDF only, so we can’t write over it, we have to print and then copy and then turn it in. Second grade also has another obstacle to overcome, that being we have a Reading Remediation class where the students are mine and others, “ours”. So for me to fill this out for 27+ children would be an overwhelming task due to not having knowledge of all the information, such as math and writing and so forth. So I recreated the spreadsheet and created a form to go with it, where each 2nd grade teacher can just fill out the form of “our” shared students and the information is put directly into my spreadsheet. I can then share this with the team, so they can edit as needed. This was a perfect solution to a major headache! Also, I recreated the spreadsheet and form for each teacher so they can add their own students as needed. This way there is no sending off to anyone. Once the information is in, the spreadsheet is done and can be edited as needed.

I absolutely love Google Docs. The possibilities are mind blowing!

BP_12Practical Experience 2

After thinking about how I can use GoogleDocs Documents with my team in my work place, I began to think about other ways to use this tool. Google Docs has many templates to help make your life easier. For example some different templates for you to choose from are family budget, albums, brainstorming templates, testing templates, and the list goes on and on.

There are also categories to choose from.

All these types of options make working with others a breeze. Whether I choose to collaborate at work on various tasks or to work with friends and family, I know that this tool will save time and create the perfect environment for me to collaborate.

BP_11PracticalExperience1

Google Docs is a great way to collaborate!  This month has been my first real experience with GoogleDocs, and I love it. I even created my one-minute video on this tool last week. However, I wanted to investigate this tool further, so I chose this feature to focus on for my practical experience project. Google Docs is a web-based tool that allows users to work together in real time so that the file you are working on is the same for everyone and ready to print/and or share with others at the conclusion of the work. Google Docs offers a variety of files to work with such as documents, spreadsheets, drawing, and presentations.

After working with my Full Sail team on a document, I found it to be so easy and so effective that I shared the idea with my principal. He thought this might be a great way to collaborate and synergize.

My first attempt at using Google Docs in my work place was to work with my 2nd grade team. Each year we are asked to create a Professional Growth Plan (PGP) where we choose a topic to focus on, set a goal to meet, determine how we will measure our goal, create a timeline of learning events, and then reflect upon our outcomes. The first meeting that occurs for this PGP is where we choose our topic, set our goal, determine how we will measure our goal, and create our timeline. This usually occurs in someone’s classroom where we all sit around our computers and talk about what we should write for our PGP that is an on-line form. One person usually writes it and then sends a copy to everyone so we all have the same wording. There is usually a lot of “What did you say?” “Can you repeat that?” and “Did everyone get that?” I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to try out Google Docs.

I created a Google account for each person on my team by using their school email address, creating a team password, and using my birthday (they are free to change the password and birthday whenever they choose). Now I can invite them to edit/view a document I create that will allow us to write our PGP together at the same time. We can then just copy and paste into the formal document, and we are all set. I am really excited to see this put into action on my team. I really think this has a great deal of possibilities.

BP_11OMMGoogleDocs