2014 miGoogle Conference

Yesterday I attended the 2014 Michigan Google Summit for Education for the second consecutive year, and it was a great day to see what other teachers are doing with Google products. The day started with Cyrus Mistry, a Chromebook Project Manager at Google, giving a really interesting keynote about many of the things Google is working on and doing for educators. There were a ton of sessions scheduled, and while I think I could have chosen better, I did pick up quite a few new tips and tricks for the work that I do as well as seeing some successful teachers tell about how they have successfully integrated Google's tools to work on cross-curricular projects with other teachers and groups of students. On top of the sessions, as usually happens, I ran into a few people I know and having discussions with them in the in between times was valuable as well. One tool of Google's that is brand new this year and right at the tip of everyone's tongue was Classroom. I was really excited to see Google roll this out over the summer, and I was really eager to play with it. A lot of teachers at the conference have been using it, and it sounds like they are still working on perfecting it. I was a little relieved that I hadn't dived right in so I can use it once a lot of the bugs are worked out. This will be one of my top priorities for next year, especially with my Intro to Computers and Algebra classes. Another priority will be shifting my Intro to Read/Write Web course over to Google Sites from Weebly. It's going to be a lot of work, but in the end it will be very worth it, and there will be a learning curve for students that I hope we can work through. All in all, I had a very productive and exciting day seeing what other teachers are doing and perfecting my use of Google in the classroom. It will definitely help as I get started in the Google Educator Program next week.