Thing 8: Collaborating, Connecting, Sharing

Wow!  So many things to pick from!

The first thing I noticed was Google Drive, which I am a HUGE fan of.  I have dropbox also, but I just seem to use google drive more.  It is a Godsend for a traveling teacher.  I love being able to access my stuff in any building, device, home, etc.  However, I had never tried working with the forms, so that was what I wanted to explore next.  How did I not know about this????  Super easy!  I wasn't sure about sending it to students, so I explored the help until I found how to embed the code of a form on my webpage.  So, I added a survey for students on their webpage for when we start our Inquiry unit.  ( http://www.catomeridian.org/webpages/scutri/index.cfm?subpage=32997 )  Love it!  Google will tally the responses instead of me typing it all out. I'm looking forward to using this more.

Next I played around with TodaysMeet...and then I found a science teacher who I knew would love it.  She did...and her first question was (of course) "Is it blocked?" because so many sites are blocked by the filter.  She had previously tried to use twitter for a online, real-time class discussion but it just didn't work quite right...we'll be trying this out on that class, and I think it will be a real improvement, and keep up with the class discussion! 

Finally, I decided to look at google calendar.  I know many libraries put their library and computer lab calendars online using google calendar, and I wanted to see how easy it would be for me to incorporate.  Believe it or not, I found a slideshare presentation on just that topic!  I love slideshare!
http://www.slideshare.net/msiefert/google-calendar-for-online-library-scheduling-12623190
I definitely think this will be something I work on over the summer and start next year.  I am in charge of scheduling the library, 2 computer labs, IPAD cart, and laptop cart, so I could really use a streamlined way of doing all that!  I only wish it was easier to change the times on it to class periods a little easier.  We'll have to see what the time commitment is to keeping this up to date. (ha ha, date....)