Andover Innovation & Instructional Technology Update Week Of September 22-26 2014 - Google Sites & Classroom -1:1 Initiative

This past week I spent a number of appointments with teachers introducing them to the benefits of Google Classroom,Google Sites and web based google documents and calendars. As I introduce the interface of Google Classroom to teachers it is amazing how this platform will improve the communication and sharing of assignments between students and teachers. This video from Google helps explain this interface.

Helping to assist teachers in adopting Google sites has also been relatively seamless. Teachers quickly choose to create a site within their login then choose a template and start choosing their page names. This is by far one of these easiest tools to quickly get teachers on board with organizing their resources for the classroom.

In the photo on the left Spanish Teacher Tom Powers investigates transferring his classroom to Google Classroom. We had the opportunity to discuss the pro's and cons. Tom likes the ability to add assignments seamlessly but would like a better way to share his homework postings.

I worked with Health Teacher Jackie Salvensen to upload a number of her Word documents into Google Drive. The upload took longer than we expected so we made a follow up appointment to complete the process. Completing this process will enable her to back up her documents and also to share them more easily as links to others.

I was also able to have a follow up appointment with Adriana Gonzalez to help her add a homework calendar using Google to her Blogger Blog. Adriana has worked hard to get her blog up and running to share resources and documents.

Web Design Teacher Michael Messina shared with his students the The Creative Process In 10 Steps with his class. This is a video he introduced to help students be inspired as they embark on the concept development stage of their web design process.

Here is the link:

http://on.aol.com/video/episode-6--the-creative-process-in-10-acts-517965315

This past week brings together a number of components related to educational technology initiatives in the Andover Public Schools. Andover teachers are at a crossroads in which hopefully in a short number of months teachers in the 8th grades will have classrooms in which all students will have their own Macbook Air computer.

On Monday night(9/30) the parents of these students will have the opportunity to weigh in on their opinions and perspectives on this initiative. The planning and professional development strategies for teachers related to this goal are also a huge responsibility becuase we need to support the learning of the students as well as the teachers adaptation to having the consistent access to devices with their curriculum.

The Mac platform enables a high level of scalability for both the teachers and the learning curve for the students. It also makes the process of protecting the city’s network easier. In my opinion the district is ready for this shift. We are ready to embrace the wonderful new challenges to support teachers and embrace the new engaged learning environment this will create for students.

Andover Innovation & Instructional Technology Update Week Of September 8-12 2014 - Google Galore At Andover High School!!!!

The Andover Innovation Lab students have been busy pushing things forward and developing materials for students and teachers to adapt to the use of new technology. I began working with Eli Gukovsky on a script to help teachers sign out laptop carts using a form from their computers. Eli is using Google scripts which is a web based coding platform built into Google Docs which enables the documents to work together to move data for different uses. For more information I highly recommend this link from the Google team which explores the use of Google scripts more in depth.

Overview From Google I/O

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38H7WpsTD0M

Developer Quickstarts From Google

https://developers.google.com/apps-script/quickstart/docs

We have enabled students to post their blogs as authors this year which has streamlined the process of our collaborative blog. Students can now work on their blogs in docs and post as they please and wait for approval. This has enabled me to better manage the blogging part of our program and empowered the students with access.

Andrei Dumitrescu has begun the download the components of the Android Studio to his personal laptop. Android Studio is the Android Platforms web based development environment for mobile applications which updates automatically and supports the newest version of Android. I look forward to supporting Andrei as he begins work with this platform. We are also lucky to have other students who have experience working with the platform from last years help desk.

Adam Yee is translating his interest in Sports Statistics to a project in the Andover Innovation lab. it is great to see a student translate skills and interests from different areas into the application of technology. He is currently finding ways to present the that he is collecting and working on organizing it as a technology driven project.

We closed the week working on  video series on Turnitin software and also Google Groups. We completed both of these projects and look forward to seeing the students work on their own projects this week and move them forward in the development phases to choosing formative projects.

Dan Brennan Video Production Teacher at Andover high School has been greatly beneficial as a part of the Andover Innovation Team. He has helped better integrate the use of video tools into our videos and help us document the student learning and experiences with video.

Andover Innovation Tutorial Lead

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4OwVc1wS9scZkw1ZUJIOGJSVzQ/edit?usp=sharing

Teacher Development & Learning

The library has added an additional 3 carts of MacBooks for the Computer Science, Science and Writing Lab. These carts will be an invaluable resource for teachers being able to integrate technology into their classroom. It also solidifies the library as a learning hub for students.

I had the great opportunity of working with Diana Zawil on the creation of a blogger blog for her Spanish 2 courses. Diana had a great vision for what she wanted on her blog and just needed a little introduction to the Blogger platform to move forward. i was very impressed with her detail and choice of web 2.0 tools she integrates into her classroom. Here is a link to class blog which is fantastic!

http://profezawil.blogspot.com/p/homepage.html

Brian Shea integrated the use of Google Docs into his program with the National Honor Society. Brian created a form to share with all of the potential members of NHS to accept their application materials. He is also utilizing the features of Google Drive to receive video submissions from students. he is benefiting greatly from the efficiency that these tools have added to this process.

Jackie Salvensen worked on creating a working document to help organize her videos amongst teachers in the health dept. This web based document will enable with one clip to share the collected video links of her department. Her next step was beginning to upload her old Word Documents into Google Drive to Share.

Worked with Louise Cummings on calendars and collaboration in the Transitions classroom this week. She plans on integrating Google tools to share calendars as well as collect important information with Google Forms which will help organize her classroom. She is a huge fan of the collaboration ability Google provides with its tools. I expect that I will really see her classroom change as she moves forward.

We are really progressing with the use of technology and enhancing student and staff communication with the use of Google. Moving forward i can only see more of these tools being used as they truly simplify our worklflow in all that we do.

Google Apps Script

I’ve been having a lot of fun this year. I’m the only student who was at the help desk last year. The help desk is more organized this year, and I have non-project responsibilities now. Me and Will made a webcast for the teachers on how to use Google Forms. I also made a Google Form / Google App Script for the teachers to sign out the mac carts. Google App Scripts was easy to learn because it has the same syntax as Javascript (ECMAScript 5.0). It was fun making a small project for the school. There are many more people this time. Last time, I was the only student in the Lab, but now I’m joined with a lot of others. So that’s my first 2 weeks so far, I spent most of it on the script.

I still am not so sure what I want to make, though it'll probably be an RPN calculator made in several languages. An example RPN calculator:

Ari Blog Post Week 1

My name is Ari, and I am interested primarily in computers, books, and games. I joined the Help Desk because I like computers, and was hoping to learn more about them. I think a career in computer science sounds fun, and it is a field with many job openings and decent-to-good pay. I was also hoping to meet people with similar interests to me.

So, far I have looked up some Java tutorials (for later) and started on a screencast that will ideally help teachers use the Turn It In software.

Once I finish, I plan on going back to the Java tutorials and doing my best to learn to code. I haven’t yet decided on my personal project, but I’m eager to explore the possibilities.

When I was looking at the Turn It In software tutorials, I was thinking of ways to condense the information to make it easier to digest. To be fair, though, the user interface already had all the buttons clearly labeled and seemed very transparent. I hope my screencast will help teachers learn to use Turn It In, as I thought it was a cool program which will hopefully make digital assignments much easier to manage than paper assignments.

Today's Goals For The Andover Innovation Lab & Help Desk September 18th