Tag Archives: Google Certified Trainer

About AI: a mini-series

Use this short link to access this launch page: bit.ly/kannAIabout

As the world of generative AI in education continues to rapidly unfold, it is becoming more and more clear that we must teach our students about AI, before we encourage them to use it in our classes.

To make it easier for teachers, we are creating a series of “About AI” mini-lessons. These mini-lessons can be used in your classroom as a Play & Pause format… you press the play button, we teach, and you and your class pause and/or rewind as you follow along.

Alternatively, you might find it useful to watch the video for the mini-lesson idea and then just replicate it in your own class, fitting it in when the time is right. Either way, we hope that you will take the time to teach your students (and yourself!) about AI.

Watch this quick series overview below and check out (or subscribe) to the YouTube playlist here.

Topics will include:

BONUS Episode: 10 Ways to be a Human AI Detector

More thoughts ABOUT AI. Check out this webinar with Cammie + ISTE + TakingITGlobal. (Canadian educators can complete a survey at this link (January 25th recording) for a free ISTE Membership (value of $95 USD).

Digital Portfolios 2.0 – The “Creation” Process

Digital Portfolios 2.0 is a series of blog posts describing the carefully crafted steps and scaffolds put in place to help a high school reinstate the use of Digital Portfolios. 

So how do you get every student in a high school to create a Google Site for their digital portfolio from a template and submit a link to their personalized site in 20 minutes or less? You definitely need a carefully structured and practiced plan!

The location. We set up “row markers” so that each advisory group knew exactly where to sit when they entered the gym. Having them sit in their advisory groups was a critical element. Advisory Teachers played a crucial role in helping answer questions and most importantly, provided the “exit ticket” check. We provided advisory teachers with paper copies of the template creation steps so that they could troubleshoot if someone fell behind. This paper copy could also go back to the classroom with them to help them guide any students who were absent.

The wifi. We had the school tech supervisor triple-check that all wifi capability was up to full capacity; there’s nothing like 150 Chromebooks in the gym all trying to access the internet at the same instant to foul up plans. Fortunately, the wifi was superb.

This is the slide deck that we used to lead students through the Digital Portfolio creation process: “Creation” presentation in Canva. It contained a little a small section on “Why Portfolios”, but instead of showing that section we had the school principal give the explanation. The rest of the slide deck has succinctly written instructions and screenshots with arrows to project on the screen as we talked students through the steps. As we know, both more ways that we can pass along instructions (visual, auditory, etc), the more likely that they will be effective.

A key to conducting this operation in 20 minutes was having a pre-made, customized Google Sites template, easily available. Read more about the carefully crafted Google Sites template. There are some improvements that I would make to the template for next time, but as a first attempt, it has worked well.

Carefully designed “link catcher” form. This is perhaps the most clever part. What good is a student portfolio if the adults can’t access it? Many students are prone to losing their portfolios or being unable to find it afterwards. Sharing it with their advisory teacher and then submitting both “edit” and “published”’links to a central dashboard has been a very important step in making sure there is a backup plan.

After many iterations, we came up with a Google Form with very specific instructions and images. Students were able to easily navigate to the Google Form by opening a new tab in their browser and then typing a convenient shortlink: bit.ly/ebhslinks. The form was not only a “published link” catcher but asked students to confirm by clicking, “yes”, that they had :

Google Form image helping students know how to find the “Published Home” link to submit
  • followed the specific site naming conventions
  • shared the site with their advisory teachers
  • changed the appropriate share settings
  • submitted both and edit and and “published” versions of their links

The “submission” message at the end of the form also served as the students’ exit ticket. They had to show their advisory teacher the form completion message before they could leave the gym and consider their portfolio created.

After 3 days of 150 students per 25-minute sitting, the vast majority of students had a personal, Google Site digital portfolio.

The next step: tracking students who missed the “blitz” and getting them set up with their Google Sites portfolio.

Read about the whole process.

Digital Portfolios 2.0 – Convincing the Adults

Digital Portfolios 2.0 is a series of blog posts describing the carefully crafted steps and scaffolds put in place to help a high school reinstate the use of Digital Portfolios. 

A key component of the 2.0 version of digital portfolios at EBHS was to convince the teachers that this grand endeavour was both intensely worthwhile and also manageable with already packed syllabi.

There were different types of teachers on staff and each needed a specific message.

  • The beginning of this school year marked the most new teachers on staff in over two decades. These new teachers needed to hear that this was a school expectation and that there were people (instructional coaches) who would help them figure out what to do. In all the newness of their jobs, this was just another new thing.
  • There were teachers on staff who had been strong supporters of Digital Portfolios 1.0. They had helped carefully craft the first iteration of digital portfolios at EBHS and were perhaps skeptical that a second attempt would only get a half-hearted promotion, just like the first time around.
  • There were also teachers on staff who had been opposed to or ambivalent toward the Digital Portfolio 1.0 era. Because they hadn’t been required to use digital portfolios with their students, they most certainly did not attempt to. I think that some of this group figured that they would play the same “opt-out” card this time.

To address and convince all of these parties, we concocted a presentation that would lead the crowd through considerations and discussions of WHY Digital Portfolios 2.0 was a worthwhile and necessary endeavour. (And, because it was August 2023, we couldn’t resist using Curipod, a newly released AI tool, to deliver an interactive presentation.)

In our time together with staff, we also had them go through the same process of creating a Google Site from a template and then submitting the link to their portfolio via a Google Form. This exercise had two important purposes.

1. We knew that we would need teachers to help supervise the student Google Site creation process en masse in the gymnasium. We also knew this would be much more effective if the teachers knew the process because they had been through it themselves. This did indeed turn out to be true.

2. We needed to test the process and iterate as necessary. Did the Google Site template have any glitches? Were the instructions in the Google Form clear enough? Did we miss any important steps in the Google Form? At the end of the process, would we have the links and data that we needed? It turns out that the Google Form needed a few tweaks. It led to using “response validation” in the student version of the form which helped that process work so smoothly.

At the end of our time with staff, it seemed that many were at least partially convinced that this was a worthwhile endeavour and that there would be Instructional Coaches to support the process.

The next step: Creating Google Sites Digital Portfolios for over 500 students in 25-minute time blocks.

Tips for Google Level 1&2 Exam -No Practical Questions!

If you have previously done some Google for Educator training, but just never got around to taking the test…. do it now! If you “trained” before September 2021 in particular, you will still be adequately prepared to take the test with only minimal review – that’s how much easier it now is.

The Google Certified Educator Level 1 and 2 exams drastically changed on September 1, 2021 – the scenario based questions were removed and the exam now consists of 35 multiple choice/drag and drop questions. These are the most recent materials (Fall 2022) supplied to Google Trainers by Google for Education to in turn share with those who wish to achieve their “Google Educator” certification.

Why you should take one of these exams NOW!

  • The Level 1 and 2 Exams, without the previous hands-on practical section, are considerably more simple.
    • In my estimation, if the previous version of the Level 1 and 2 exams were a 5/5 for rigor, I would now rate them a 2/5 for comparative rigor. Note that this is a fully unofficial, personal gauge.
  • You still have 3 hours to take the exam. Previously, many candidates used most of that time. Since the new exam format, I do not know of anyone who has taken more than an hour to complete the exam.
  • The Google for Education “Teacher Center” website offers free and effective training courses for both the Fundamental (Level 1) and Advanced (Level 2) courses. This is a great way to do the training, or a refresher, at your own time and own pace.
    • The quizzes at the end of each module offer VERY effective preparation for the exams.

Some skills to review

New Year, Old Year: Musings

Ahh…the New Year… New goals and reflections… I’ve been in a few PLN spaces recently where participants were encouraged to share their “ONE WORD” for 2020. The word that will inspire you, guide you, motivate you, and lead you through 2020…

Full confession: for as long as the one-word trend has been trending, I have never been able to tie myself to a word or even have a sniff at a word that might fit.

So while this initially makes me want to hide out in the back of the class, like the unprepared student, I instead need to acknowledge that I’ve had a pretty intense year of growth and learning. And what better place than a blog that I’ve been slogging with since 2012 to reflect on the year, despite the absence of ONE WORD.

Perhaps the most significant benefit of writing a blog is to be able to retrace one’s own thinking and growth. I always smile a bit and nod as I look or read through past titles, whether that includes accomplishing that which once seemed daunting or being excited about an opportunity that never did materialize. At any rate, this archival purpose of a blog is strong – it continues to push me to write, even when I know that very few people read any of my words.

I’m reminded of this growth, as last year at this very time, I was fretting over the quite intensive application process to become a Google Certified Trainer. Last early January, I was in the stages of re-doing and re-doing my 3-minute introduction video for the Google Certified Trainer application – that was probably the most challenging part of the GCT process.

Happily, by mid-February 2019, I had successfully achieved my Google Certified Trainer Credentials. Since then, I have done over 30 Google-related trainings, presented at another Google Summit and I believe that I’ve successfully completed the re-certification process required of all Google Trainers for 2020.

While I would consider my Google Certified Trainer certification to be my most significant Edtech achievement, 2019 was a year of digging deeper into several of my favourite technologies so that I had the skills and credibility to help others:

  • I became a FlipGrid Level 3 #GridGuide. This is a small but helpful community and I love getting the inside scoop on some of the Flipgrid rollouts. Here is part of my application requirements: Flipgrid Fieldnotes
  • I became a Seesaw Ambassador. This allows me access to some extra training materials which have been very useful as I’ve helped train dozens of teachers in our district about Seesaw this year
  • I became a Breakout EDU Certified Trainer. Although I’ve brought Breakout experiences to over 100 classrooms across our district this year, I also love to help teachers use Breakout on their own.
  • I became a Wakelet Ambassador. I’m getting lots of learning opportunities as we are running our district Instructional Coach Newsletter through Wakelet this year.
  • I became a Kahoot Gold certified educator
  • I became a Certified Microsoft Innovative Educator (In all honesty, a pretty weak credential, but my goal is to balance out my Google in 2020 by becoming a MIE Expert)

And I’ve learned in so many other ways: I’ve read dozens of books, watched dozens of webinars, listened to dozens of hours of podcasts, taken on-line courses through ISTE and Harvard, attended High Tech High in San Diego, and led a few book studies. I was finally bold enough to launch a PD Bingo initiative for our school district so that I can encourage my colleagues to learn with and from each other.

So, it seems that I did all right in 2019 without my ONE WORD. Here’s hoping that I continue to thrive in 2020, wordless!