GAFE Summit Temecula Reflection

I had a great weekend of learning at the GAFE Summit held at Temecula Valley High School. There is so much information to process that I don't know where to start. I thought it would be a good idea to write down what I learned before I forget it all. Here is what I took away from the sessions that I attended:

Collaboration not Chaos with  Dan Bennett

Dan had all sorts of great ideas about how to facilitate collaboration. I liked the ideas he gave for keeping the collaboration moving. Something as simple as setting shorter time limits can help. I have done this type of collaboration before, but it always seems to drag on. I will definitely be incorporating collaboration ideas like "The Amazing Race" and "Iron Chef" into my class.

Lingering question: Will some of my SPED kids have difficulties with the time limit?

Getting Started with Chromebooks with Jacob Dominguez

Jacob had some great tips about training students to use Chromebooks and how to set a routine in the classroom. My high school students still have problems putting the Chromebooks away correctly!  I am going to start our second semester with some "etiquette" lessons. I am going to share the Chromebook shortcut keys with all of my students. Some great apps/extensions to try: Incredible Start Pages, Go Guardian, Draftback

Lingering question: How can we implement Go Guardian or Hapara in our classes?



Empowering our Digital Citizens: Embracing Social Media in our Schools with Jason Markey

I love how Jason described creating a community at his school through social media. What I took away from this talk is that it is important to create a strong school identity. If there is a strong school identity, students are more likely to protect this "brand" online. Jason did warn that it is very easy for someone to use the school brand in the wrong way. While we tend to shy away from social media, it is a part of life now that we need to learn how to use. 

Lingering question: How can we go about creating this strong school identity when we are an independent study school?

20% Time using Google Classroom with Princess Choi

I loved Princess's enthusiasm for her topic! I have wanted to do 20% time with my students, but was afraid that it would just descend into chaos. Princess recommended some great resources and gave some good steps to follow to get 20% time started. We can all be goddesses!

Lingering question: Is it okay to focus the scope of what students are looking at during 20% time? If I were to do this with my Earth Science class, could I have them focus on something related to resources? Is that now just a research project? Need to do some research!

Make Learning Fun with Google Maps and Tour Builder with Ryan Archer

This was something that I have always wanted to learn how to do. Ryan gave great a great step by step tutorial about how to get started. I can think of a million different ways I can have my Earth Science and History students use this. I also liked the idea of tying it to a quiz in forms. It is too bad that it does not work as well in Chrome as it does in FireFox or Safari.

Lingering question: What lesson do I want to do first? Is this something that I can have my students do on their own outside the classroom?

Breakout Challenge with Ariana Flewelling

I was not sure what to expect when I signed up for this. I am not much of a gamer although I do like playing cooperative board games. I loved it! It definitely took me out of my linear thinking comfort zone. We had a very large group so things we very chaotic at times; however, we were able to solve the puzzle pretty quickly. A colleague of mine participated in another group and her experience was not as positive. In her group, there were some strong personalities that tended to control the flow of the game. She also was not as comfortable with the nonlinear flow of the game. We agreed that good student grouping was necessary to make sure that everyone has a voice. Ari gave some good tips about how to get the quieter students included in the game.

Lingering question: Would this be better with several small groups working together rather than one large group? What kind of games could be developed to fit specific curriculum? How do we help students that are more linear thinkers?

Feedback in the Cloud (Classroom + Doctopus + Goobric) with Jake Read


I started using Doctopus several years ago and loved it. However, when Google Classroom came out, I stopped using Doctopus and started using Classroom exclusively because at that point they did not play well together. I am pleasantly surprised at how well these apps/extensions work with each other now. Jake did a great job walking us through setting things up. It was surprisingly straight forward. I will definitely start using these tools together. On a side note, I still miss some of the features available in Doctopus (such as differentiation).


Lingering question: How stable is the interaction between these extensions and apps? I have been burned in the past with changes to Doctopus. How willing will my colleagues be to set this up?

Does DRIVE drive you nuts? with Rosalinda Jaimes

I love sessions like this because they always remind me of how much I have forgotten! Rosalinda walked us through some ways to find "lost" files. She explained how the view, sort, settings, and information options can be powerful tools in Drive.

Lingering question: Why do we not have the Offline option in our Settings options?