Continuing Education

Every summer I try to squeeze as much professional development in as I can. This summer I have been focusing on increasing my technology skills and I think I am improving thanks to one Elizabeth Shepherd.  She suggested taking a Google class and I am so glad I did.

Google has a lot of resources for educators, including professional development trainings. I have never really tapped into their resources and now that I have I feel like a tech dork for not.

When you want to research a topic, what is the first thing you do? Most of us and most of our students would probably say "Google it!" It's true I Google almost everything, so decided that one class that might come in handy is improving my Google search skills.
I enrolled and just stated a web class on "power searching."

So far the class has been very good- fast paced, lots of interactive activities to test what I learn, and great and short videos. I have learned so much- did you know that by filtering Google image searches to color you can narrow down your results and if you filter by the color white it will bring up all of the charts/graphs?  Every video I think to myself, wow my kids need to watch this.
  If you are interested you have 4 more days to enroll in this free course. 

You may also search for other courses here and even access lesson plans, such as this one on evaluating credible resources:



Another workshop I discovered is the Digital Literacy Workshop.
Coming in August, online learning modules for teachers. 


I am most interested in the Fall workshop on "Digital Citizenship," which will be a self guided course that will help teachers learn how to teach students to be safe on the internet and to create a positive digital footprint. I didn't see a sign up yet, so now I just have to remember to check back.

Also, you may have heard that Google Docs is changing to Google Drive. Google Aps for Education has a new video on the change. If you enjoy Google Docs as much as I do check it out.

Well I am off to "class!"