I had the pleasure of attending the Gafe Summit in Christchurch over the holidays. This was a great opportunity for me to extend my IT skills and learn some new things that I could incorporate into my classroom programme.
Some of the speakers were inspiring and I liked how some of them were still teaching and that they ju had a passion for extending the children's computer skills and other things. I think when you go to events like this you can get overwhelmed by all the ideas however it is important to walk away with a couple good ideas that you can use in the class straight away. It definitely happened at this Summit as I wish to get the children to do more on the Chrome books by accessing their google accounts. I know how tricky it is to teach them everything so Screencastying seems like a good idea so that I don't have to be everywhere at once so I plan to use this. I have been taught about google forms before but to see it a bit more in action in an example in maths was great and I have already used it in maths for my top group. The bonus to this was I was able to read the results of the test very quickly and easily.
Some of the things which may not seem big but make my life easier were important. Things like learning about finding the rights to use pictures, taking screen shots and adding to this and mercury reader were just a few of the ways to help my classroom programme.
It was a great experience but it does me think about how quickly technology is moving. In just my time I have gone from hand writing my lessons to now writing them collaboratively on the computer. The google suite sure makes it easier to work in the environment I am now working in I couldn't imagine doing it with written plans.
I too enjoyed the GAFE and learning heaps of ways to make our lives easier in the google suite. It was awesome that our team went and so could share the experience and help put it into action in the hub.
ReplyDeleteGreat reflection Nicola. It is always a bonus to take something away from a course and start using it straight away. It looks as though you had plenty of 'takeaways' from the GAFE summit. It is also an advantage that with our whole team going, we can share our new learning with each other!
ReplyDeleteReally glad to hear that you found this PD helpful. I read a post lately that talked about two questions to ask yourself after a PD session. What did you learn today? and How will your students know and benefit? It is great to see you are asking those questions and working on implementing the things that you are learning. Great job.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link to the post http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/tag/professional-development.