The paperless teacher: Google for Educatıon as learning infrastructure for the classroom

By Said Kassem Hamideh, MPS World Languages Teacher at Washington HS of IT

http://goo.gl/forms/DRSNWxpLqU

Google for Education is not just a collection of bells and whistles to enhance learning.

It’s a platform that brings apps, products, conversations and files together to serve the daily needs of students and teachers.

So why go paperless?

Why should you invest lots of time fixing what isn’t broken?

1. Because learning is iterative. Technology can provide a better historical record of teacher-student interactions. Leads to “thick description” student and educator effectiveness portfolios.

2. Because a digital infrastructure makes better sense out of our increased digital learning footprint (uploading a kahoot .xls example).

3. Because our school district licenses Google for Education products, and buys lots of Chromebooks that are underused.

4. Because our students are paperless and mobile natives, and our classroom can adapt to that.

4. Our Students: many are smartphone natives, most are paperless

Literally

The dynamics of paper in a high poverty High School

● Follow the paper trail to the garbage. A good number of worksheets are lost almost immediately. In fact, the distribution, submission, collection, grading and returning of papers actually creates at least 5 separate opportunities for paper documents to get lost through the cracks.

● Paper worksheets, multiple choice quizzes and some “exit slips” can be mental exits as well. Give students more complex, alternative project-based assignments that can’t be shaken off as easily. A good system for putting together conversations, interactions and evidence files is imperative for making project-based learning successful.

Let’s imagine all the pitfalls of creating a student-led physical filing system in our high school.

1. Students misplace their evidence, or someone else’s

2. Folders are rotated out of alphabetical order

3. Information is easily copied, vandalized or stolen -- sometimes for giggles!

4. Student led systems actually require constant teacher maintenance to ensure integrity of filing system throughout year

Let’s talk about smartphones in the classroom

You hate them.

Students are ignoring you and posting selfies instead.

There is hope… (?)

M-Learning is ushering in the connected classroom of the future ● If mobile-based learning is to actually disrupt student screen-time habits, then it

should mimic some of the psychological dynamics of personal mobile use. Digital-based learning should be just as sticky, addictive, persistent, and ubiquitous -- embedded into daily student life.

● Our wifi connected Chromebooks, more than PC laptops, can be used like giant smartphones for those students who can’t afford capable smartphones with generous data plans. Plus the Chromebooks connect to our awesome new wifi network.

● Until we figure out how to truly invade their smartphones with learning opportunities, our best bet is the Chromebook -- which is less toy-like.

Smartphones: whether you love them or hate them

...if you’re going to work with them......it helps to have infrastructure in place to collect whatever data students are going to feed into the mobile app

Our Chromebook

friendly school vs. Schools that

Only have a Computer Lab

We have 7 chromebook carts and counting!

● Computer labs are shared, making daily access for everyone nearly impossible

● Chromebooks in the class make the daily use of tech use more embedded/casual. Going to a lab once or twice a week feels more like a field trip. Students more likely to blow it off.

● Chromebooks are portable/light, equipped with cam and mic. Chromebooks save instruction time with very quick boot-up process.

Your MPS ID is all you need to get started

Things you can do by logging into Google services with your MPS id:

● log into drive.google.com and get unlimited space

● access templates useful to educators● Google Play Store for Educators

(MPS IT dept needs to give our school access)

Students don’t need to create an account.

● Quick student setup because most already know their MPS ids

Google products sync with the MPS network

No need to print out any Google Doc!

Many docs are powered by Google Sheets or Google Forms, which will collect and organize

student work for you

Many apps, thanks to a developer ecosystem, feed straight into your Google Educator account

Google Classroom and Infinite Campus

Simply not compatible!

Google Classroom gives you the ability to return submitted evidence to students with your feedback and a score, however, beware: this does not replace Infinite Campus in any way

If you do things right, you’ll have tons of data on every student.

Use Google Forms to create a mobile-friendly Class Behavior Log

Or start filling your educator effectiveness portfolios with evidence as you teach

An audio file for a Spanish-language interview goes straight from my Android watch to the student’s portfolio in Google Drive

Homework:

Please email me (gretzisa@milwaukee.k12.wi.us) one non-digital learning activity that you are getting a little tired of. During the next session, we will take a closer look and see how we could re-interpret the exercise using Google for Education in conjunction with other technologies.

Part 2 of this session will help creative teachers and students experience academic standards in a more engaging and interactive way.