Twitter & Skype - making the world a smaller place

Yesterday my class had a Skype snow date with my friend's children in Drayton Valley, Alberta, Canada.  They'd just had a huge amount of snow in a 24 hour period and all of my Canadian friends and family were posting pictures and statuses on Facebook about it.  I contacted my friend to see if she'd be able to share her kids playing in the snow with my students.  We sorted out the best time and were so happy that it actually worked!  There were a couple of false starts with Skype as there often is, but eventually we got to see her kids go through the whole process of getting dressed in snow pants, winter coats, mittens, boots, hats and scarves.  My students were surprised to realise that children in Canada have to go through that process every time they go outside - to go to school in the morning, to outside at morning tea and lunch, to go home after school - what a lot of work!

Then her children went outside and threw snow in the air, made snow angels, buried each other in the snow and got very red, rosy cheeks from the cold!  We even got to see their small white dog navigate his way through the snow.

When her children came back inside my class showed them how children in New Zealand get to go around in bare feet most of the day and how they wear school uniforms and hats.

It was fun for the children on both sides of the world to get to spend a few minutes together and learn from each other.

I put a screenshot of our Skype snow date on my twitter feed and hashtagged Skype.  Today I got a comment back from them!  I can't wait to tell my children that Skype actually tweeted us!

Sorting out Google

This week our school is moving over to Google Apps for Education.  Many teachers have already signed up, signed in and are well on their way.  For those who haven't, please shout out if you need help.

Here are a few tips for those who are navigating their way through this phase.

1.  If you have a current gmail account that you use for personal things (youtube, blogging, email) keep it and identify it somehow as personal (a family or hobby photo)

2.  If you have a current gmail account that you never, ever use, delete it!  Trust me, it will be easier in the long run and less confusing!

3.  When setting up your school google account make sure to do the Google Plus portion and set up your profile.  By doing this we will be able to use all of the features of Google in the future.

4.  Once you've got your profile built, you can view your profile anytime by clicking on your photo in the top right hand corner from any google page, and choosing 'view profile'.  This takes you to your home newsfeed page.

4.  Now you can begin adding to your circles.  If this is your only google account you may want to add friends to a 'Friends' circle, family to a 'Family' circle, etc.  You can 'create a new circle' by clicking on the blue link 'Create new circle' at the bottom of the circle's lists and type in 'Cockle Bay' and then another one for your team or whatever other groups you need.  One person can be in multiple groups.  By sorting your contacts into groups it will help you with sending emails, links, notices, sharing information, etc.

5.  If a staff member has more than one account, for example their personal and now their school account, I would suggest you add their school account to a 'CBS' list and their personal account to your 'Friends' list (or just remove their personal account).  This will help in each of us not getting too many emails, posts, notifications, etc and will help to keep our school and personal lives somewhat separate.

I think that's a good start for now..... the possibilities are endless and there is a lot to learn... don't despair, we will get there!

The first step

As our school embarks on a new journey using Google Apps for Education, I am excited by the possibilities for collaborative learning both for our staff and our students. The purpose of this blog will be to reflect on my own Professional Development and teaching practises involving eLearning, as well as provide PD, links and information to our staff as we walk this journey together.

Attending ULearn13 has been very inspirational in my own eLearning journey.  Here are links to posts I wrote on my personal blog after returning from ULearn13.

ULearn13 ILearnt13  A personal reflection on what I learnt from this conference

What to Use?  Oh, What to Use?  aka: Digestion  Processing a fraction of the tools I learnt about and how to implement them into my teaching

Twitter and Professional Development  Twitter is an amazing resource for professional development and linking like-minded people