Google docs and spreadsheets

Well - yesterday at school I got a huge shock.


No longer will schools purchase Microsoft word, excel etc for their students to use because the students do not use these often enough to justify the expense. (To clarify, teachers would still have access, just not students)


Well at first I was mind boggled over what on earth we would use... however very quickly I was informed of these FREE online sites that provide you with similar attributes to Microsoft's software.


Google docs and spreadsheets - is the place to go. I have been playing around on it today and it is pretty good.


Good points:

• easy navigation
• works the same way just about as Microsoft Word - so I didn't have to learn anything new
• It is very simple - not too many gadgets to be confused with
• I can publish a document and make it available for anyone to see - and of course every time you edit it, you do not have to upload it again. It already makes the changes when you save. This is awesome for me as a teacher who uploads documents for students to access from our website, and then finds there is a mistake in the document. This time instead of opening, saving, and uploading again; I simply edited and saved. The document changes it self!! YAAAA (from a teacher who always grammar and spelling errors - despite the dictionary etc)
• You can access your documents from anywhere - and you do not have to worry about whether you are on a Mac of a Microsoft version of anything.
• You can save the documents as Microsoft word or Mac equivalent, and have them on your hard drive or email them etc
• Very easy spreadsheet navigation
• Good simple graph maker
• Can do formulas - not sure to what extent though - I haven't got too technical with it yet
• You can post your document to your blog (which I am hoping to achieve with this blog - yes successful after a few attempts)
• You can save your graph straight to your documents on you hard drive, which stops all the fluffing around with cutting and pasting into paint. Like this one...

• It has an autosave option
• Students can access school work from home without having to have a school intranet with passwords
• You can add collaborators so many people can work on a document.
• You can upload documents from your hard drive
  

Down sides

• Limited features (although, realistically for kids to use, I think it has most of what it needs)
• Limited amount of storage space (but it is free)
• not sure about exporting the document to an online storage facility - I have not looked into this yet. (this could overcome the storage space dilemma)
• Limited size restrictions to documents. Just make sure you limit the amount of pictures and what not (500K - with images counted as something else - sorry I am not technical enough yet to explain this, check out there FAQS, it is one of the top 5).
• Spreadsheet has limited graph functions - no lines of best fit, colour changes, changing the width of bars etc. As a Geographer, I would like my kids to be able to use these sorts of features
• Need to become a google member - this really is not a down side at all - they have got some awesome stuff now including Gmail and blogging, calendars.... gadgets for web pages etc

So postives outweigh the negatives I think.

I will still be using the software on my hard drive, unless I am wanting to put my word document on my website - then I will use google.

As for my students, I will get them to use this to do work on, I think I will do alot of it on this, especially when they are blogging - it might reduce the amount of errors????

See what you think! :)

I am ready, I am just waiting...

Now that I have learnt how to use this blog, it is appropriate that I should use it accordingly. I have just been reading a blog called "Moving at Speed" by Wesley Fryer. It is a great blog that has made me reflect once again, about engaging my students in this 21st century that we live in.

A recent post about "Don't hold your breath" really hit home. How many teachers are really embracing technology and what it can do for us and our students?

Now I would first like to take my hat off to primary school teachers – especially those who are the ones who have recently been teaching me how to improve my own teaching pedagogy. I am a secondary school teacher, and I think we have got a lot to learn. Too often, I think we hide behind the fact that we are bogged down with getting students ready for assessments and exams, we don’t have time to play around with “stuff.” I know I have done that's for sure.

Yes I agree, we shouldn’t just be playing around, but the future of our students is at stake here. They are the ones we are preparing for the future, and it is their future, not ours. (I am sure you have heard that before!!)

I have spent the holidays glued to my laptop, and enjoying every minute of it. Have I had a holiday – well if you could see the smile on my face as I rattle of the things I have been learning, then you would see that it has been a very fun, and exciting educational holiday sitting in the sunshine, kittens to my side, playing on the computer!!

I have been working on my wiki sites so that my students can use these in class and in their own time. I suppose it has been like creating a web quest or an intranet that is public?? But the thing for me, is that my own learning, knowledge, understanding etc etc has increased dramatically over the last two weeks.

We do not get the newspaper, or watch the news, or listen to the radio, so I would have to admit to being a teacher who (until this week) would have been completely oblivious to what was happening in the world and New Zealand. However, with the integration of RSS feeds throughout my wiki pages on relevant topics, I now know at least what the headlines are!!! And I even read the ones that interest me.

I suppose the greatest thing about these holidays has been the time to just sit back and surf what is around. I have been checking out other teachers and education sites to see what they are up to and see how they are overcoming the challenges that I know that I am going to face. My Geography knowledge has increased ten-fold as i have built a wiki based just on Geography, and this can surely only benefit the kids; as I find out more, and find the places that they can learn the best from, then they are going to get more out of it as well.

I now have wikis for my classes with links to the web, RSS feeds, podcasts from other teachers, relevant videos, self made cartoons. I have a blog for the kids to comment on things and publish their work, and I have blogs for their class notes, so what am I waiting for…?

Well I am stuck between the expectation of using what I have learnt to improve my teaching practice and the fact that the technology simply does not exist in my classroom or the school for that matter.

I have my laptop, two data projectors to be shared between 6 classrooms, and one computer room that is almost fully booked. But I have got to a point where I don’t want to take the kids to the computer room, I "just" need a computer for each group so that they can work through the work at their own speed, collaborating together as they go, arguing, reflecting, justifying, teaching each other things and then clarifying from me as they need to. I hear you asking - why not use text books - well yes, that would be okay if they were actaully up todate!! Books cost money and they are out of date even before they went to print. When the kids use the web, we need to teach them to verify information, and identify the bias that is presented. They have to remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and then create!! This is by far more powerful than a text book, which gets taken for truth, despite the fact that it may tell you that Pluto is a planet. (This of course is from a Geography and Social Studies perspective. English - YES I STILL THINK WE SHOULD READ NOVELS and so on!!)

So I am ready, I am just waiting!! I wonder how long I will have to wait? just to provide a platform that makes sense and is what is expected!!!!

What's the answer?

Are we scared or are we safe?

A teachertube video by Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis.



Well, last year I would have said that we were being safe when it came to blocking sites that kids could communicate on and share their thoughts. But now I am begining to wonder.
The ideal is awesome and so good for our kids and their learning. They love interacting in real time with people from all over the place, and constantly pushing the boundaries. I find the more "technology" (and I mean this in the broadest sense of the word) I give them, the more they begin to problem solve and completely change what I would have thought they would do!

Isn't this what we want? Kids who problem solve? Can trouble shoot and brainstorm and come up with completely new and creative ways of going something?

The down side of all this is the fact that so many kids are not being taught how to use blogging and various other tools in a respectable manner. Just as we teach kids table manners and how to respect each other, we need to teach them the manners and protcols of online interactions. We don't expect kids to simply know how to respect other people and their differences, we teach them, show them, model it to them. Well, why would it be any different for online interactions?

We need to teach our kids our to interact on the internet in a respectable fashion that they would be proud of in the future. When I introduced classblogmeister to my senior students, one student asked if this was like BEBO in very excited tones!!!! I responded with hesitation, knowing the bullying and gang recruiting that happens on Bebo.

The same student has now posted some great blogs about Yr 12 Geography. While she knows that I am watching what they say and will not post anything that I consider inappropriate, I hope that by having this kind of experience, she will learn that blogging is not simply about posting what your favourite colour is and what you did in the weekend. While these are not to be looked down upon, I want my students to realise that they have a real voice that people can and should listen to, so why not really say what you think in an appropriate, and respectable manner.

Thanks Vicki for your video post. It seems everytime I search I come up with something from you. That is a great thing.

Last thoughts, I think I am still safe, but I am learning not to be scared!

Converted blogger!

I never thought that bloggin would be useful in a classroom context, let alone an educational one, however, an open mind and my students' blogs is changing this. My students are blogging and doing it really well. We use classblogmeister as it is safe for everyone.