#gafesummit Oklahoma 2015

I decided to spend some time at lunch today thinking about the things I thought about a conference this past weekend at which I was with the 'cream of the crop' of educators here in Oklahoma. It was a valuable conference and worth every penny spent on attendance. The conference was a Google Apps for Education Summit (#gafesummit)

I was privileged to attend the pre-summit which began the process of preparing me to become a certified Google Education Trainer. This was some very valuable training and helped to further conceptualize how you can integrate SO many different apps/programs/sites with GAFE.

I think initially when I thought about attending the pre-summit, I thought it would be good for some 'on-the-side' consulting work as more and more districts/schools will be moving to GAFE in the coming years. However, after attending, I realize that I have more than I can handle to get my own faculty ready to meet the coming challenges of the Digital Education Environment.

I learned some new things, such as croak.it and some more innovative uses of socrative.com. The pre-summit was a great time of thinking about the challenges we face in education with our students and how to overcome those challenges.

If you aren't a teacher, you may not know the wide variety of access many of our students (don't) have. Some students have some access at home (desktop, wireless internet, etc.), some have smartphone access only, some have both, while there are some students who have no access to the interwebs at all. One of the primary questions I have (as a teacher) is: "How do I get each of my students equal access?" (at least while they are in my classroom) As an instructional designer, that question changes slightly. Rather, how do I get my faculty to (1.) allow their students to have on-demand access? (2.) How do I help those faculty create a culture of trust for technology use in their classrooms, especially when we aren't modeling that culture of trust? (3.) What are the pre-requisite issues I need to solve/change with my faculty in order to empower them to innovate in their classrooms? In other words, just because I am not married to ANYTHING I do in the classroom, my faculty may not be quite so willing, so how do I sell innovative practice to them?

Often, when I attend conferences, I may not learn a ton of new things (beyond the new webapp or add-on for browsers), but I am pushed into thinking about my faculty and how we can move their student engagement up a notch, how to deepen their understanding of difficult concepts (through on-demand remediation) and/or how to push their students to be learners who (1) enjoy learning (2) are motivated to learn (3) and are able to see the relevancy of what they are learning. This conference really did that for me.

I had an opportunity to meet some great folks and expand my PLN, both here in Oklahoma and throughout the US. I heard some great keynotes by Holly Clark, Mark Hammons, and Lise Galuga. We thought about the adjacent possible, moved toward future-ready, and decided that an elephant is best eaten one bite at a time. Overall, the weekend was a total success.

Thanks @edtechteam for a great learning experience, thanks @bmchs1 for hosting, and thanks to @BekahHightower for your hard work in coordinating the entire thing.

One more thing, I did present a couple of sessions, but my favorite was the new presentation I did about the great work we are doing here at Canadian Valley Technology Center using Google Scripts. I had a full session so I broadcasted/recorded on YouTube so others could attend virtually.

Using Scripts with Google Drive to Track Student/Teacher Progress

I've been at a conference for the last couple of days and had an opportunity to share some of the great things we are doing at Canadian Valley Technology Center, specifically in using scripts to create calendar events (like a bus request), automated progress reports, professional development transcripts, and teacher evaluations (coming soon).

Background:

The first script I ever used was one which would send the results of a form to someone other than the person submitting it. I found it online, changed the email address, and made it work. That looks pretty simple now, but it started me on a journey which has led me to my current place in learning programming.

Gist:

We have started using scripts (which are bound to Google spreadsheets, calendar, forms, etc.) to take the results of a form (set up as a way for instructors to enter their professional development for the semester), create a copy of a template, replace all information in <<>> with information from the form, move it into a shared folder (one shared with the teacher's supervisor), share the document with the teacher (view rights only), and email a link to the document to the teacher. 

This was the first project we used to integrate the automation power of Google Scripts. We have since created an automated transportation request (auto-creates) an event on the bus/van/etc. calendar. We have also moved to a Google Sheets gradebook (from an Excel template), with automated progress reports. 

We are on about the 4th iteration of each of these as it has been a somewhat large learning curve for someone like me who had zero programming experience. I have done about 1/2 of the codecademy.com Javascript course which has enabled me to begin to conceptually understand Scripts within Google. 

But it takes so long!

Like every other kind of technology I have ever used in the classroom, yes, it takes a lot of time. However, all of the time you invest on the front side (development) you will get back probably two-fold on the backside. Time spent doing paperwork is reduced to nearly nothing. I remember the first school I worked at had a person who taught part time and the other part of her job was tracking professional development. This first script would have eliminated that entire part of her job. Not that I am in favor of people losing their jobs, but maybe that person could focus more on instruction? Or remediation? 

Next Steps:

If you are a Google District and you have someone who is willing to learn or already knows Javascript, I would highly recommend giving someone the autonomy to begin integrating something like this. There are scripts already written which people will/can share (I'm glad to share any I have done) and if you need help, some great resources are the Scripts documentation and stackoverflow.com. I do a lot of searching for help. 

If you would like to connect more about this topic, I'm happy to do so. You can connect through about.me/jbowie. If I can help you with anything, please let me know!

Google Summit

I registered for a Google Summit, which is happening in February, here in Oklahoma City. These events are held world-wide and one is coming to Oklahoma City??

Additionally, I submitted two different presentations. Here is the information for the first one and the second one. I have given the "Google Apps will Change Your Life" on many previous occasions, so I have many resources for that one. However, the "Use Google Scripts without being a Coding Expert" will be more of a challenge. I have only been using the program for about six months and am fairly new to programming. I will definitely learn something while I get ready for it, though. I usually do.

I will have to gather a significant number of resources for programming, such as stackoverflow.com, codecademy.com, and w3schools.com. I use those resources a lot when I am working on Javascript and they have helped me tremendously in the last several months.

I will also get to attend a bootcamp specifically for trainers of Google Apps. Here's what the website says about it:

Google Educator Trainer (GET) Train the Trainer (T3) Bootcamp serves two purposes: to raise awareness about how Google tools can be used in education to; ignite inquiry, promote collaboration, and allow for authentic publishing and sharing, (with students and among colleagues), and to prepare participants to pass the Google Educator Test and submit their certification application.

Become a Google Educator to be recognized for your mastery. Each session includes an interactive overview, top tips from the Google Educator Training Center, hands-on activities, and inspiring ideas for how to use Google for teaching, learning, and professional collaboration. The activities are flexible, designed to help new users quickly understand the "core magic" of each app - and to challenge veteran users by revealing features and innovative uses they never imagined. The experience is grounded in Google culture, complete with high-energy fast-paced demonstrations and challenging activities that can truly be called "hard fun." There is no better preparation for teaching and learning with Google Apps - or for passing the Google Educator tests.

So if you are reading this and need a trainer to consult with your district about integrating Google Apps for Education, consider contacting me and letting me work with you!

Onward with Google Scripts

As I continue to work toward a useable gradebook in Google Sheets, I am tweaking the scripts along with it. One of the things I want this gradebook to do is to create progress reports or report cards based on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th 9 weeks, with no coding from me. To facilitate that, I have created global variables for the entire cumulative gradebook sheet. Here is an example of the code for those global variables.

The numbers correspond to column numbers in the spreadsheet. For the global variables, there are about 125 lines of code. This includes the templates for the progress reports, i.e. 1st, 2nd, etc.

My favorite part of this script is the Custom Menu. I have created a function for each of the nine weeks progress reports. Then in the menu, I have submenus which allow you to run each of the functions (separate scripts). Here's what the menu looks like:

The customizability of this function means that as a coder (VERY novice), you can create functions in Google Docs which will allow "non-techie" users to feel comfortable using them. This gets me excited! As long as I am comfortable creating (or stealing) code for some function, I can do pretty much anything I want in Google Docs.

Celebrating Success Part 2

I'm working on some positive self-speak so that I continue the trend of feeling better about the things that I am able to accomplish. So here we go:

As I have mentioned before, I am working to integrate scripts into my use of Google Docs. Today, I am going to share my transportation form.

We created a transportation form which is used by instructors. The instructor fills out the form, which emails their supervisor as soon as they submit. The email contains a link for their supervisor which takes them to the spreadsheet containing the responses from the form.

That spreadsheet contains a custom menu for administrators. The admin clicks on the row containing the request and selects "approve" from the custom menu. That, in turn, emails the campus supervisor AND creates an event on the calendar. The coolest part is that if the instructor chooses a bus, it makes the event on the bus calendar. If they need a van, it creates it on the van calendar. Additionally, if they need a van, it emails the person who coordinates the vans. However, she only gets emails if a van is needed.

I am quite excited about the way I could customize this form to do some very specific things. It took me quite a few days to get it just the way I wanted, but now it works quite well.

Presenting

Today I spent all day in a training. I'm going to be a sysadmin on our new Student Information System. They were training Business and Industry people today from our district. That means that while the training wasn't specific to me, I got to hear a lot of how the campus is set up, the type of questions I will likely be getting, and think about tables, databases, and reports. Sounds like fun, right? I know, it isn't fun to everyone, but it sure is to me! 

I was multitasking, meaning listening and working on some other things at the same time. I got two proposals entered to present at the Google Apps for Education Summit, which is happening in Oklahoma City in February 2015. I'm pretty excited about it since these summits usually happen in much more exotic locations, like Singapore, South Korea, India, Thailand, & the UK, just to name a few.

As a part of that summit, I'll be attending a pre-conference workshop which will allow me to begin the journey of becoming a Google Apps for Education Trainer. At this moment, there are no Google Certified Trainers in Oklahoma. I expect that this will change after this summit, but right now if you wanted Google training, you'd have to know someone or call someone from Texas to come up. I've done a little Google Apps training when I was still a teacher, but I wasn't certified by Google. I've learned so much in the interim. 

More learning. More certifications. More ability to help and serve others. Those are my goals.

Celebrating Success #1 - Progress Reports

I've not ever been very good at celebrating my successes. In fact, it has only been recently that I have allowed myself to acknowledge any sort of success in my professional or academic life. I've only ever considered my immediate family in terms of success and that has not been very long that I have done that either! 

I consider today a very successful day at work. Not that it was spectacular in terms of productivity (although I did get some things done), but today was the culmination of a couple of weeks of working on a project. The project was one in which I created a progress report workflow and tested it out on the automotive service program. 

When I say I created a progress report, I mean I took what my Student Services Director created and made it into something that would be automatically created from a spreadsheet in GoogleSheets. If you aren't familiar with GoogleSheets, you can check out Google's Getting Started with Sheets here. 

Anyway, over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on learning Javascript over at Codecademy so I can leverage Google Scripts (within Google Apps for Education, aka Google Drive, Calendar, etc.) 

When I say leverage, I mean automate. The project I've been working on is one in which faculty enter grades into a spreadsheet (among other things - employability ratings, attendance, etc.) and then the script populates a template document and creates a progress report for the student. Here's an example: 

Image credit: Jody Bowie
Identifying information removed

Bear in mind this was created automatically. I like to think of it as my internet minions doing my work. Granted, could have typed up these 53 progress reports, but this is just a test. We have far more than 53 students. Once the teachers learn to use the spreadsheet, progress reports then become easy. It's a matter of clicking on the administration menu (which is created by the script) and selecting the function you want to run. Or these could run on a specific date. The triggers for scripts are customizable. 

This is a brief overview, hopefully at some point I'll have the opportunity to present on this in the future. I've been working on this project, but also on a transportation form which auto-crates calendar events on specific calendars, a professional development form which creates a yearly transcript for instructors, and a daily work log in which student enter what they have done for the day and the teacher goes in and enters a rating on several factors - the script then moves that grade to the students' own spreadsheet. Imagine putting the daily grade form and this progress report together. Basically you have a gradebook which will can create documents for individual students. Scripts can also send email (like the results of a test or even send the progress report to a parent's email). The possibilities aren't endless, but I sure haven't plumbed their depths yet. 

Hopefully, I'll be posting more successes as I learn more, but I'm sure glad today for this one!