Google+Docs+Professional+Development

On July 12th, I met with the PENNCREST technology department for our initial meeting to discuss and outline the work we would be doing for our 90 hour internship. The technology department contains a district instructional technology supervisor, two network supervisors, and a technology services supervisors. We planned almost all of our 90 hours that we are to complete as well as the times and locations. We concluded the meeting with a time and location to begin our work. I planned and prepared for presenting a technology related in-service program that was given to all secretaries that work for the district. This was my first assignment as an intern. On July 14th, the 19 secretaries from all schools in the district had a technology development day and I worked with the director and another intern to help the secretaries set up their own Mac server Wikispaces. After the wiki training, I conducted a Google Docs and Forms training. I covered in detail the basics of Google Docs and Google Forms and showed the collaborative capabilities and advantages of using Google Docs and Forms for secretaries. Some of the details that were covered were logging into their account, managing their Google Docs homepage, creating new documents, sharing and collaborative capabilities, features of the documents, creating a Google Form, monitoring data, etc. This training lasted 4 hours. The audience of the training had a variety of competency levels. The focus was to get them to utilize the technological tools for problem solving based on their strengths and needs for the tool. The plan that I developed for their implementation was to gain immediate access during the training and to be ongoing support for them. The resources that I created were used in conjunction with the training and were distributed both digitally and physically.

I have presented many times at different conferences across the state and locally to groups of teachers, administrators, professional staff, etc. on multiple educational technology resources. On August 3rd, I co-presented with two of my CFF teachers I work with on different projects we accomplished throughout the year using Google Docs and Wikispaces. On August 3rd, I co-presented 4, one hour sessions and on August 4th, I presented by myself 2 one hours sessions on Google Docs in literacy. The presentation audience consisted of professional staff from all of northwestern Pennsylvania. The audience ranged from teachers and support staff to administrators and directors of instructional technology. In addition to all of the presentations, each day was opened with a keynote speaker and concluded with another speaker and open discussion on the day's sessions. All of the time during the session I helped others create and access their Google and Wikispaces accounts as well as discussed how the resources could be used in an educational setting. The August 3rd presentation consisted of my working with 2 of my most veteran 21st century style teachers. I presented 2 one hour sessions with a math teacher showcasing and presenting how he has turned all of his classes digital using Wikispaces and Google Docs. We covered the basics on creating a Wikispace, how to edit, how to embed widgets, how to upload files and pictures, etc. as well as the benefits of Google Docs in the classroom. The main focus was implementing the web 2.0 tools into lessons as student projects and teacher created resources. A very beneficial resource that I created was the packet on everything that a Wikispace can do. Each person in attendance had the option of either taking a hard copy of the packet or to leave their email address and I emailed it to them as a PDF file. In addition to the packet, I used the software Camtasia to record both audio and my screen starting from creating a Wikispace to the most advanced features. The recording is housed on the website screencast.com and I also emailed each person the link to that recording. The creation of this media, both physical and audio/visual was a big hit. Each participant walked away with a brief showcase of what the tools can do as well as resources to utilize or pass onto others. The second presentation was with a veteran English teacher. We presented 2 one hour sessions on how to capitalize on the web 2.0 tools that are out there to make graduation projects an ease. I work cooperatively with her each year to have each student create their proposal for their graduation project in Google Docs. The presentation hit on the great features that Google Docs and Wikispaces bring to a project of such magnitude. The presentation focused on the ins and outs of Google Docs. I created the same resource for Google Docs as I did for Wikispaces and all participants walked away with an understanding of Google Docs and how to utilize this tool for graduation projects. We also briefly showcased our school's graduation project Wikispace and how this can be a priceless resource for students tackling this task. Throughout the afternoon hours of August 4th, I worked with a small team of teachers who were aiming to make their graduation projects include as many digital components as possible. We created their school a Wikispace, uploaded files and images, embedded multiple widgets, etc. We also discussed the possibility of each student doing all of their word processing in Google Docs and embedding those documents into a digital portfolio created as a graduation project. This time was more of a team training and not on a larger scale. I helped this school and their team create a resource and outline a strategy to implement digital portfolios into their graduation projects.

This is the resource packet that I created.



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These are the Screencasts that I created walking the users through how to use Google Docs.

Accessing and Managing Google Docs media type="custom" key="7183169"

Google Presentation media type="custom" key="7183131"

Google Spreadsheet media type="custom" key="7183133"

Google Docs and Sharing media type="custom" key="7183141"