My guess is that everyone else’s greatest challenge for leveraging technology to empower learning in their classroom is that they don’t have enough devices available at their school. Well that is not my problem. We have enough devices. My biggest challenge for leveraging technology is me. I am not as young and tech-savvy as the rest of you. I lag behind the other teachers at my school at incorporating technology into my lessons. Tech workshops strike fear into my heart under the best of conditions and after the WI-fi connectivity issues and my own information overload on Tuesday at NCCAT, I didn’t even want to do my online time log. But I guess yesterday I had a breakthrough. I spent almost all day looking at the software and apps mentioned at the NCCAT workshop…calmly! I have never in my life spent most of a day exploring new technology anxiety-free and actually “getting it”. I’m old school and my learning style isn’t to “just play with it” like younger people do. But I discovered I could watch videos and read directions and descriptions (I guess even teachers need differentiated learning) and understand it. I looked at 11 different types of software or apps and took notes on 7 of them. Now I’m thinking about asking my Principal if she would like me to share this info with the other teachers either during a meeting or as a handout or email. I think what gave me the push to overcome the challenge is the supportive atmosphere created by Craig, Lisa, the Duplin County teachers, and all the rest of you during our week at NCCAT coupled with the expectation that we would use more technology in our lessons and in our classrooms.
Now I have a question for all of you about online note-taking. When I read one of the blogposts on the Evernote site, I got the impression that you couldn’t have a team of students working on the same document at the same time – they each would have to email documents to each other. Do you have any thoughts on what is the best way for a group to take notes at the same time from different sources on a single master document which could be shared on different computers/devices after they leave school?
Anne,
If your students sign up for a Google account they could use Google Drive. All they need is an email address. I use this with the other teachers in my team at school. Google Drive has programs similar to Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point. It can be accessed by any device that connects to the internet, it doesn’t require backing anything up to a flash drive because it is saved online, you can make it private to only those you allow to participate, and it shows you ANY and EVERY change that was made and who did it. So as a teacher you can see who participated with what information and when they participated. It can be utilized at school or at home. I personally store ALL of my lesson plans and other files here. You can upload documents to this as well. Hope this helps.
Christy
Thanks, Christy. Sounds good.
If you do use google drive you might want to assign the students different times to work or warn them that only one can type at a time. We were so confused at one of last year’s common core days when the mouse was possessed. Just remember I’m right down the street if you need me.
Mandy, thanks for your reply. So students have to type one at a time on a shared document in Google Drive?
Oops, sorry about the misspelling, Mendy. The tablet autocorrected what I wrote.
I was going to suggest Google Docs also. It’s an easy way for all the students to share the document and work on it together and an easy way for you to assess their progress.
Thank you for openness, Anne. Both in sharing your personal challenge and for facing your fear head on! You are turning into a tech guru before our eyes.
Amneris