Once I figured out the logistics of Google Drive, I began to think about what I wanted to tell the two MAC students in my group. I decided to first go over what Google Drive is and why it is helpful, and what the heck this mystical "cloud" thing is. Then I would describe in detail how to create documents, presentations, etc. After this I wanted to describe how to share items with others and how the permissions worked. Next, I wanted to describe how to upload documents from one's computer or other device. Finally, I wanted to talk about how this website could help teachers and students in school. This helped me get a good sense of how I wanted to organize my handout as well. I thought it would be good to put everything on the handout in the same order that I was going to talk about it. However, formatting issues prevented me from doing this (I think the images messed things up), so I was forced to change the order up a bit. I don't think this really detracted from the presentation though because the information was still the same. Also, when creating my handout I tried to make it as aesthetically pleasing as possible because I know that I am more likely to look at a handout that is colorful and fun.
I actually practiced going over everything I wanted to say in my presentation once the night before and it ended up being about 25-30 minutes, which was perfect. I think going over this definitely helped me remember what I wanted to talk about and be cautious of how much time I should allot to each section. During my actual presentation I stuck to the order that I had set up for myself and I think it went pretty well. When I was demonstrating the sharing function my email was taking forever to load, so that was a minor set back. While we waited I just described what would happen once I received the email, but thinking about it now, allowing the other two students to ask questions might have been a better use of time. As I talked about the benefits of Google Drive in the classroom, I realized that I was just speaking and wasn't really illustrating my points. Maybe if I had created a form beforehand to show how teachers could create surveys for students or created a spreadsheet to show how teachers could track grades, the other students would have been able to visualize the benefits better. For some reason I didn't expect to receive any questions (what was I thinking?), but when I did I tried to answer them to the best of my ability. Usually these questions were just to clarify on steps that I had demonstrated, so I did not have any problem answering them.
I also enjoyed the other students' presentations about Blendspace and Endnote. I thought they did a wonderful job explaining how to use these websites and how they related to the classroom. I really liked Blendspace and it is something that I would definitely like to incorporate into my own classroom in the future.
Below is my handout:
Of course April, not surprising to see your thorough and informative handout for the presentation. I also did Google Drive and I love it to death, and would advocate it to death. You said you weren't too well versed in it before doing the presentation and starting the program, do you love it even more now? I like your ideas for how you could have utilized it more in your presentation, and I think things like surveys and such can be utilized in the class as well.
ReplyDeleteI love Google Drive. I'm not very technologically savvy, but it is making me life so much easier. I can't wait to use it more to help me organize my life and keep my sanity in this program. With all of the assignments that we have to do, I'm sure that it will become one of my best friends.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent response, April. I was glad to read about your process in such detail...it was precisely what we were hoping to see.
ReplyDelete