Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Tech Sherpa Show 10-23

The Tech Sherpas this week are Jacob and Jared and they answer a couple questions from last week:

  • How to use the concatenate function to join spreadsheet data columns together.
  • How to take full names collected into a single column, split them and re-sort them by just the last name.
  • An easy way to create an image map using Google Drawing and Sites.

Next week we'll be covering self-correcting quizzes and more!

Please join us, Tuesday 3:00 EST at www.techsherpas.org

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The TechSherpas.org

The second week of the TechSherpa.org Show covered how to collect and manage data using Google Forms and how to easily filter that data. Here's the example spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArHW-N_bWSEDdG9ScVpiWXZkNmRFMzZnUmRtSU03c0E#gid=0
We also discussed Google Cloud Print, Chrome Remote Desktop and 3D Printing.


The show has certainly been a work in progress and we hope to continue to improve how we are getting information out there. We've now included show notes for each week with the questions and links from that weeks show. You can find the show notes here: bit.ly/techsherpanotes



Monday, October 15, 2012

"Technology is Trust"



The Maine state ACTEM conference is always one of the highlights of autumn. I get to re-connect with old friends, learn from new ones and overall have a great time.

This year I had the privilege of watching one of my students present on his own. His session was, Students as Tech Support and he had about 40 educators from around the state join him to discuss the benefits of having students provide technical support to teachers and the school.



I was particularly glad that the audience took him seriously. I've been in situations before where the adults in the room couldn't bring themselves to challenge the students presenters or ask them hard questions, but this crowd was invested in learning from him. They wanted to know specifics of how they could implement something similar.

One questioner was Ed Brazee who wanted to know how students supported each other as well as working with their teachers. I think one of the most notable exchanges came from Markus Ford who asked Kris, "What about those students who use this as an opportunity to abuse the situation?" (I'm paraphrasing) Kris responded with something that I think encompasses a lot of how I feel about technology in education, "You have to trust the kids."  I know there are times when that trust will be broken, and you deal with those situations accordingly, but if you start from a place of mistrust - you're going to get what you give. If the assumption is that we're all going to work on this together, students and teachers, than it's ultimately a matter of trust.




Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Tech Sherpas.org


Description
Looking for help on Google Apps or other technology topics? 

Kern Kelley's High School students will answer your questions in a Hangout On Air. 
To ask your question about using Google Tools in the classroom, complete the form below or join the
Live Video Hangout on Tuesday, 3:00 EST.

For more information, visit www.techsherpas.org 



Wednesday, October 03, 2012

N.Y. Google Teacher Academy




We had a fantastic time at the Google Teacher Academy in New York today! I was fortunate enough to bring three students to present, participate and generally help out.



The kids spoke to an amazing group of educators from around the world about some of the tools we use in every day. They covered the way we manage digital portfolios and one of the students shared a form they created in a Demo Slam, the Mileage Tracker Template allows teachers to track their mileage and auto calculates the distances using the Maps API.



It was a great day and don't forget, they're taking applications for the next GTA in Mountain View, California in December :)

(Go Team Swan!)