Today I had the honor of kicking off the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools i3 Tech Conference at Salem High School. i3 = Inspire, Innovate, Integrate and the conference hashtag is #PCCSi3
Plymouth-Canton Community Schools (PCCS) is in the early stages of a large technology transformation. A recent passing of a bond has allowed for many exciting 1:1 initiatives (both iPad and Chromebook) a migration to Google Apps for Education and upgrades to labs and new STEM labs. Now, 1:1 initiative may seem fairly routine in these days, however, if you’re not familiar with PCCS you need to know that the district is comprised of over 19,000 students, 1020 teachers, 606 support staff and 63 administrators…it is practically its own city!
I was asked to come to kick off the teacher led (yay!) PD days today and tomorrow. Now, as I told my friend Michelle – I can’t get up in front of a bunch of teachers who are being asked to use Google Apps & Chromebooks and present from my MacBook, I would look like a total j*****s! So, I ordered an Acer C720P Chromebook, it arrived Tuesday and I started delving into the world of Chrome. My dearest MAET students helped me out and pointed me towards some incredible resources (which are embedded in the Google :) presentations below.) These three in particular led me to extraordinarily helpful resources:
Google the Good Stuff (via Jason Kaiser)
Chrome Keyboard Shortcuts (via Sara Best)
Extensions, Add-Ons and Apps, Oh My! How to Utilize Google in Your Classroom (via Melissa Gorsegner)
I went all in and presented from Google Presentation. I’ve used it for low stakes things, but never for anything this important! I made great use of the free Snag-it plug-in for screenshots. It all worked wonderfully. In full disclosure, when I was working on the presentation I was mostly using my MacBook air, but, that’s the beauty of Google Apps right?
I’m not one to use much text on my slides, so, as standalone resources the slides below don’t make much sense – but there are embedded hyperlinks on each page that take you to the resources I was discussing. It was great presenting from the Chromebook and things were very smooth – no discernible difference, a presentation is a presentation! I’m really enjoying learning all the great things Chrome and the Chromebook can do, certainly pushing me out of complacency and reminding me that I have to do a better job at keeping up with all platforms.
BIG thanks to all of the PCCS Elementary teachers for coming today (some MAET students and alums!) Looking forward to kicking off the day for the secondary teachers tomorrow. Though I have the easy job, the sessions delivered by the teachers were phenomenal!
Elementary Group (Thursday):
Secondary Group (Friday):