Teaching web 2.0 applications is hard. In the grant that Dean Groom and Jo Kay helped me write, there was a component on providing staff development in the area of web applications. We finally received the seven sweet computers from the grant money, so I was able to finally get started with this part of what I said I would do with the grant money. I held my first small workshop with several teachers at the middle school where I teach yesterday and staying on track was difficult. My goal was to get the teachers started on Google Docs and the first thing we had to do was set up a Google Account. I wanted it to be as hands on as possible, so I had computers ready to go for everyone. Some of the teachers didn’t want to sit at a computer and just wanted to soak in the presentation. I think I made the mistake of thinking EVERYONE LEARNS LIKE ME when I assumed they would all want to be at a computer working along with me.
This guy helped me write the grant...the one that's not a dog
I was able to get several of the attendees to a place where they created and shared a Google Document and I think they enjoyed a couple of the examples I provided of how Google Docs are used in the classroom. I don’t know if they will continue utilizing the application, but I hope they have a better understanding of the read/write web. I also hope some of them come back to my session on wiki’s next week. I plan to be more focused and have a better plan in the next 15-minute workshop I teach. I actually found that I enjoyed teaching teachers…I hope some of them felt the same way.
I used a cool new application called Prezi I found at a workshop I attended a few weeks ago. They offer free education accounts to teachers and I embedded my Prezi below if you wanted to take a look at it.
