Etiquette and Mystery Skype

During a TeachMeet NJ conference I attended this summer, I was lucky enough to attend a Mystery Skype session. The connection was with Paula Naugle @plnaugle, a 4th grade teacher, from Louisiana.   She participated in a professional development workshop for teachers at TeachMeet NJ and demonstrated how the Mystery Skype lesson is implemented.   I was intrigued to see how much the students were engaged with this activity.

I typed a document on Mystery Skype Information.  During my documentation, I decided to create a presentation on Video Call Etiquette for students to follow.

In addition, I am happy to say that I will be assisting with the implementation of a Mystery Skype connection in my school in October.   A 6th grade Social Studies class in my school will be making a connection to another middle school class in Iowa.

I will ensure the technology components of this lesson works successfully by testing the equipment (webcam, microphone, audio, projector), making a test connection with the other teacher, (without the students),  introduce video calls and  proper etiquette during, and introduce the student roles and responsibilities.

Please refer to the document and presentation.  I am happy to share these documents with you.  I hope you find them helpful.

Professional Development for Google Apps for Education Pilot

At the end of August, I completed professional development for the teachers who will be piloting GAFE.  It was a two day session for 3 hours.  I am happy to say that it was very productive.

The first day, I introduced the domain to them.  They logged on to the domain and we explored many apps, such  an Calendar, Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Forms and Presentations.  We also explored many apps that were installed in the domain such as:  LucidChart and Voicethread.  The second day, the teachers were able to set up their classroom by creating groups, classroom folders, (using gClassFolders script), and create a form to gather a class roster.  

While I was preparing for these sessions, I created documentation for the teachers.  If necessary, please refer to these user guides for detail documentation:

• Google Calendar User Guide
• Gmail User Guide
• Google Drive User Guide
• Google Docs User Guide
• Google Sheets User Guide
• Google Forms by Eric Curtis
• Google Drawings User Guide

Since the school year has begun, I have been meeting with the pilot teachers once a week to help them prepare and better understand the domain and all it offers.  

These mini-sessions or meetings have been productive, especially explaining the gClassFolder script and the folder tree structure it creates for the teacher and the students.  I am able to focus more on a specific tasks, explain and model it to the teachers so they have a better understanding of the concept.  

Also, I am allowing the teachers to experience hands-on mini exercises by having them create an assignment or rubric, and hand it out to the class, which includes my test student.  They are able to understand the flow of a paperless classroom by putting the assignment in the appropriate folder.  They are also able to see how a student will hand in the assignment for grading.

Although there are many ways to complete this, the pilot teachers and I are trying to make this process very simple and productive at the same time.  I am finding the gClassFolder script to be very helpful.