Technology Nights with Parents

This past Spring, the library media specialist, Kathy Garneau and I held two different technology nights for parents. The two sessions that were held was a Google Drive night along with a Twitter night. In both sessions, we provided an afternoon session (10:30-12:00) and an evening session (6:00-7:30) so that we could accommodate as many parents as possible. We decided to hold two sessions per training because if there were teachers or students (who would volunteer to help) that had a free period during the training, they were able to attend as well.

Our school has really taken off with Google Drive this past school year. All of the teachers and students are utilizing Google Drive in one way or another. Because most of the students are Google Drive experts, we thought that we should get the parents involved and expose them to Google Drive. During our session, we set parents up with a Gmail account, walked through what Google Drive had to offer, but most importantly, offered hands-on assistance to all parents. I believe that the way to learn and take away is to actually dig in and experience it yourself. So our parents had their own device (and if they didn't, we provided them with one) and they were able to explore different applications within the Google platform that would be most applicable to them. Because I capture so many pictures throughout the school year, I also introduced how I would be sharing all of our school photos through Google Drive. The parents loved this new way of sharing photos! Below are some great photos of our Google Drive night.

Our Twitter night was also a complete success. Our school community has really taken off with the use of Twitter both socially and professionally. Twitter is a GREAT way for parents to see what's going on in the classroom right at that moment. Many of our teachers have a Twitter account and tweet about what's going on inside the classroom multiple times a day. Twitter is also a great way to connect with other teachers along with seeking out new opportunities to grow as a professional. Kathy and I wanted to expose our parents to Twitter because many parents have a Twitter account, but they don't really understand how to use the social media tool. Through this session, we discussed what each icon meant, what it means to use the @ and # symbols and again, most importantly, we let our parents "play" around in Twitter to truly understand how it worked. This summer, Kathy started a summer Tweet-a-long by using a specific hashtag and teachers, students and parents can Tweet using that particular hashtag. She poses a new question or topic each week to keep everyone involved using Twitter. Below are some pictures from our night!

Both of the technology nights for parents were a complete success. Because our parents learned so much from these two sessions, Kathy and I will be hosting some more events next Fall. Stay tuned to what we do next with our parents! 

Technology Apprentice Program (TAP)

Before the 2014-15 school came to a close, I was able to hold one more TAP meeting with my amazing student tech whizzes. I absolutely LOVE leading these meetings because the students are so overly excited to be there and they want to lead and learn new technological skills. To begin the meeting, I always allow the students to eat an after school snack before getting started. This way, I'm able to set up anything that's needed for them to begin their tasks. During this session, I had the oldest students (5th graders) close down our 8th grade laptops because they had already graduated. The 5th graders were to record the serial numbers off of each computer and shut it down. I had the 5th graders working together in a shared Google Doc between them, myself and the technology director when recording the serial numbers. While the 5th graders were doing that, the rest of us were working on our 1:1 music iPads. Our music teacher had requested multiple apps to be put on her iPads along with wanting them to be updated. My 1-4th grade students did such an amazing job completing this task. They were able to either redeem purchased apps or bring apps down from the cloud, organize the apps and then run a software update on each iPad.

It was sad to end our last TAP session of the school year, but I relayed some great news to my TAP team...we will be holding a TAP team for the 2015-16 school year. I cannot wait to dig deeper and do more technological tasks with my students. Each student on the TAP team is a true technology leader for our school. Look out for another TAP post in September to see what we do next! Below are some pictures that were from our last TAP meeting. Enjoy!

Twitter Chats

I recently participated in my first Twitter Chat. I began using Twitter professionally this past school year and absolutely LOVE it. Twitter is such a great social media and networking tool, especially for educators. I have learned so much about Twitter because of two extremely knowledgeable people, Sarah Barnett (@MrsSarahBarnett) and Kathy Garneau (@mrs_garneau). We try to implement Twitter as much as possible throughout our school and some teachers also participate in Twitter Chats. I have been working with the 2nd grade classroom and we have piloted the ePortfolio app entitled Seesaw. Because I was fairly new to this ePortfolio app, I noticed that the app was hosting a Twitter Chat and decided to participate. Because of the Twitter Chat, I was able to find out an abundant amount of information about this extremely useful app along with collaborating with other educators and asking questions along the way. I had so much fun participating in this particular Twitter Chat that it made me want to partake in more. Twitter Chats are so helpful, especially for groups that you are unfamiliar with, such as in my case. Below are some example snapshots of the Twitter Chat for Seesaw.