Purpose and Background
An Initial Brewing
Google Apps
Digital Citizenship
Reflections
My students have been very quick to pick up on Gmail and Google Chat. It has been a joy to see them learning how to sort through and filter their e-mail. The students feel comfortable e-mailing me for forgotten documents or due dates. One student in particular sent me Google Chat message over the holiday asking for a tutorial on how to screen record on a Mac. This type of communication allows me to tailor lessons and resources more carefully to my students and allows them to practice online communication skills with someone they know and trust.
Making tutorial videos is a task that I enjoy doing. Currently I am using Camtasia 2 and learning how to make my videos look more professional. When my videos are ready, I upload them onto my Vimeo account and send a note out to the class. If we are in the IT lab I will go over it first with the whole class and answer any questions. They can then watch the Vimeo videos if they need refreshers. This allows me to focus on students who need extra assistance or allows me to push the students who grasp it easily. Instead of answering the same questions over and over again I tell them to watch the tutorial. That said my tutorials thus far have not been fancy. One major change for next year is that I would make sure that each tutorial only focusses on one skill or aspect of Gmail or Google Docs. Several of my videos included multiple concepts, which confused some students.
Screen Record Mac from Brendan Lea on Vimeo.
SAMR Model
A major component of the evaluation of the big project is student demonstration of online collaboration using Google Apps and the creation of a multimedia informational campaign. Looking at the SAMR model I believe this meets redefinition as both the means of communication and creation of the final product would not be possible without the technology available today. |