Summer Learning

It’s that time of year…summer weather has arrived, report cards have been written and both students and teachers are counting down the days to freedom. We’re all tired and ready for a break – the lazy days of summer stretch out in front of us and September seems a long ways away.

So, what I am going to say next might not be all that popular, but I am going to say it anyways. After you’ve had a bit of time to decompress but before September looms large, take some time to learn something new. Let the teacher become the student. We’re always telling kids they should be lifelong learners. Well…so should we!

What you choose to learn doesn’t really matter. I mean, sure it would be great if you chose to learn to code with Scratch or took the Google or Apple Educator tests. It would be awesome if you picked to learn an app you wanted to use next year or decided to dive deeper into something like DiscoveryEd. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t encourage digital exploration and learning, right?!

However, you could just as easily learn to windsurf, knit, bake bread or speak Spanish! What you learn isn’t important – it’s the process of learning that’s important. That feeling of nervous anticipation when you start something new, the frustration and challenge of failure and the eventual elation of success – those feelings are universal to all learners. Adults and children. Remembering what that feels like makes you a better teacher.

My own summer learning starts at the end of this week, when I head off to Chicago to attend ISTE, the biggest ed tech conference in North America, if not the world. I am uber-excited and somewhat nervous and I can’t wait to learn all kinds of new things I can share with you next year. And in case you are worried that all I do is work…I’m also going to learn how to sail my boat single-handedly and I’m going to try learning Russian.

Whatever you do this summer, have fun, relax, recharge, reconnect and learn.

Year End Clean Up

 

It’s that time of year when the days get long, “popsicles for dinner” seems like a reasonable option and both kids and teachers reach the countdown to summer stage. Most schools give teachers a “year end” list – you know, clean bulletin boards, return textbooks, sort through the lost and found. Digitally, there are a few things you and your students should do or know about at the end of the year, too! Hopefully the following tips help you and the kids finish the year off properly!

Math IXL

For those teachers who are using Math IXL, students will be able to continue to use their accounts during the summer. They’ll get rolled into their new classes sometime in September.

Discovery ED

For teachers who want to do some planning or exploring over the summer in Discovery ED, have at it! Your account will remain active throughout July and August!

Fresh Grade

For teachers who have been using this, you will have access to add or change things in your current students’ portfolios until around the second week of July. After that, your class will get archived. You can still access it but will be unable to change anything. For teachers, archived classes show up on the right, under your name. For parents and students, archived classes show up on the left under My Account. Note that archived work is read-only – there is no way to comment on it or change it.

Google Classroom

At the end of the year, it’s a good idea to clean and archive this year’s Google Classroom. Start by checking assignments you’ve given and make sure you’ve returned work to students.

After that, archive your classroom. I say archive rather than delete because there may be something on that classroom that you will want to re-access in a future year. Note: if you archive a class you can still copy and reuse old posts and assignments from it in a new class! Here’s a great video that explains it.

Once you’ve archived your classroom, go into your Google Drive and archive your Google Classroom file by creating another file called Archived Classrooms and adding it.

Your students can either unenroll from your class or archive it.

Google Drive

You might be one of those people who meticulously files things right after creating or receiving them. In which case, your files, docs, etc are likely already where they need to be! If, however, your Google drive looks as crazily populated as the streets of Hong Kong, take some time to organize and delete. Your September self will thank you!

For your students, encourage them to put all of their work from this year into a file called “Grade _, 2017/18”. That way, they can start September off with an organized Drive, ready for the new year’s work!

What About Grade 12s and Other Movers?

If you teach or “own” a Grade 12 student, if you have a student who is moving to a new district or if you yourself are taking a new position elsewhere, it’s important to know that your West Van GSuite account will be deactivated once you exit the West Vancouver Schools system.  Please make a point to transfer any files you want to take with you. 

The easiest way to do this is to use something called Google Takeout or Google Transfer, which we have now enabled for people within the SD45 G Suite for Education domain.

Google Takeout will create a zipped file with all of your Drive in it. You can then load this zipped file into an external hard drive, store it in a cloud service like Dropbox or move it to the hard drive of your computer.

Google Transfer should be used if you want to move your school district Google “stuff” over to a personal Google account. Three things to keep in mind when you do this:

• Storage in your school GSuite account is unlimited. That is not the case with a personal Google account, so make sure you are only transferring things you really want to keep!
• The privacy settings on a personal Google account are quite different from a GSuite for Education account. Make sure you are aware of that.
• Also, all sharing permissions are “broken” when you transfer so anything you had shared with other people they will no longer have access to (unless they made a copy for themselves). Here is a video that shows the process.

Hopefully this post will help you and your students clean up your digital closets and get  ready to enjoy summer!

What I Learned From Star Wars

It’s report card time and, as usual, I’m finding ways to procrastinate. Luckily, Showcase channel has been running a Star Wars marathon for the last few days, so as I sat and collated report information over the weekend, I got my fill of favourite characters, places and stories. And that got me to thinking. Star Wars had been a large part of my life – how has it influenced me? Since this is an ed-tech blog, here are 7 things Star Wars has taught me about life and educational technology!

Have A Mentor, Be A Mentor

This, of course, is important in all walks of life. Like Luke when he goes to Dagobah to find Yoda, we can all use someone to challenge us, support us and guide us to our true potential. My ed-tech mentors have ranged from my UBC profs to people in my PLN to students of mine. People who push my thinking and question my ideas help me grow and become the Jedi I want to be. I’m still looking to connect with Yoda, so if you have an inside track, let me know!

Just as important as having a mentor is being a mentor. No matter how little you think you know, there is always someone who knows less and would benefit from your guidance! As Yoda so wisely says, “Pass on what you have learned.”

You Can Be A Princess and A Warrior

Princess Leia showed a young me that girls could be girly and tough, too. It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten. As a female ed-tech teacher I am aware that it is now my turn to be a role model and to show young girls that women CAN code, build and run robots and know just as much about computers as boys can (maybe more!) Don’t let your gender dictate what you can or can’t do!

 

You Don’t Have To Be Fluent

At one point, C-3PO informs us that he is “fluent in 6 million forms of communication.” Teachers often fear that they need to be fluent in a given technology in order to use it. But guess what? 6 million forms of communication didn’t always help C-3PO and you don’t have to be fluent. You just have to be willing to give it a try! Start somewhere! I teach coding to kids and I can assure you, I am not yet fluent in any coding languages! But I do know how to learn and where to look when I get stuck. Which brings me to the next one….

Have A Flexible Point of View

Obi-Wan cautions Luke that “many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” Change your perspective or point of view and the “truth” can change. As educators, we call this “having a growth mind-set.” Don’t think “I’m too old to learn new technology” – instead, think “this looks interesting, I’m going to give it a try!” Which leads to…

You’re Capable of Amazing Things!

This idea weaves itself through all the Star Wars movies and many of the characters. Who thought a crop-dusting farm boy could destroy the Death Star or a that a scavenger from dusty Jakku could use mind tricks on a Stormtrooper? When Luke doubts himself and fails to pull his X-wing out of the swamp in Dagobah, Yoda does the job easily and Luke is incredulous. Yoda then tells Luke, “That’s why you couldn’t do it. You didn’t even believe it was possible.”

Over and over, Star Wars tells us that we can do amazing things if we just believe in ourselves and try. Not sure if you can use green-screen technology with kindies or teach middle schoolers to create a proper digital bibliography? Of course you can – believe me…I’ve done it!

Failure Leads to Strength

Obi-Wan tells Darth Vader, “Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Through Star Wars we learn that falling down and getting back up again is okay – it leads to strength. And it leads to knowledge. I am constantly stumbling when it comes to using technology in the classroom! And each time I stumble I learn a little more and I get a little better at what I am trying to do.

And Finally…Know When to Let The Wookie Win!

I will never forget trying for hours to get something to look right on Google Docs. I felt so frustrated but I was determined to make it work. Finally, in a moment of desperation, I tried the same thing on Google Slides and it worked perfectly. As R2-D2 learns in “A New Hope”, sometimes it’s just better to “let the Wookie win.” Know when to give in.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my light-hearted, somewhat tongue-in-cheek mash-up of Star Wars and educational technology! Next week’s blog will be all about wrapping the year up digitally!