Making the Most of Your Google Domain @ACTEM

This morning session was facilitated by Kern Kelley, who is a technology integrator with RSU19.  It sounds as though they are doing some very cool things with student portfolios, and with the GoogleApps in general.  Here are some highlights I took away from the session.

First of all, they have a student video team that creates short videos on all sorts of topics relating to technology and education.  The Tech Curve is their presentation and it looks as though Kern and the kids record the video, ask the questions, edit and produce the videos themselves.  David Ingmundson used to have a similar project many years ago and some might remember his work in this area.

It sounds as though RSU19 has some far-reaching, broad-horizon perspective about the work they do with kids, from early ages to graduation.  For instance, the school department obtains the virtual domain of each child’s name as they enter the school department.  So if your child went to RSU19, as soon as they enrolled, the domain in their name would be reserved for them…something like, www.deanemmerson.com or .net., or .whatever.  What they then do is create the student GoogleApps account (later, in the 4th or 5th grade) and push the digital work that the students create to their domain.  Why you might ask?  In order to be creating a digital portfolio throughout the students progression through school.  The virtual domain rights are turned over to the student when they graduate, along with their body of work.

One of the new efforts Kern is undertaking this year, is having students record their responses to just three questions.  What has been the best part of school?  What do you want to be when you grow up?  How do those two answers relate to one another?  The plan is to ask the students these three question twice each year, from Kindergarten to graduation.  Should prove interesting.

Some great examples of GoogleDocs being used in and out of the classroom…

Walk-throughs and Forms as Assessments
There is a Tech Curve video with a PE teacher at Nokomis in which the teacher demonstrates how they use Forms from GoogleDocs to assess student skills and proficiencies.  They select the student name from a drop down list, and then go down through a series of proficiencies, selecting the appropriate level of attainment from the multiple choice options.  When done, the teacher submits the form.  Afterward, the data can be looked at in the spreadsheet and manipulated, graphed, etc.  Watch the video here.

Electronic Submission

Another example is using GoogleDocs for students to submit their assignments electronically, and for the teacher to manage the submissions.  This would require a lot of up-front time to get it ready, but the benefits could be tremendous.  Each student creates a folder for each class that they are taking, and shares it with the teacher.  Then, as assignments come due, they make sure that they use the appropriate name for the assignment, and they save it to the folder.  The student then goes to a Hand-In Google Form, selects their name, the assignment from a drop-down list, includes the link to the document, and then submits the form.  The teach gets a notification and can then go to the spreadsheet behind the form to view the student submissions.  From the spreadsheet, the teacher can sort the list by student name, the name of the class, the period of the day, and/or the assignment name, and then just those submissions appear.  The teacher then opens them, makes changes, grades them, and whatever else needs to be done.  No more lugging piles of paper to and from school on the weekends!


Self-grading assessments
Another teacher example in the session was a Math teacher who uses the GoogleDocs ability to automatically grade assessments.  Not only did they set up the GoogleDoc to grade the tests, but they had students take a photo of their paper worksheets with their MacBooks and attach it in order to show that they really could do the work!

Okay, there are more resources and examples but this is already too long.  I’ll post more later as I have time to sift through my notes.