Gafe - Summit Keynote: A world of possibilities - Chris Betcher

Session description & resources:

Our school started using Google Apps because they opened up a world of possibilities for us.

School made very little change until the computer arrived.
Personal computer 1975 initilly concieved.

People began to look at how the computer could change education.
1990's the Internet changed the world - visionary educators looked at how his could change learning.

How much has the world changed since we were at school:

Since 1990:
GPS, iPod, Web app, hashtag, Wifi, fhablet, YouTube, Online shopping, Chromebook, WWW, Facebook, Twitter.

We are now at the point - 20 years on, none of the kids we are teaching can remember a life without these things. These things are normal and ordinary. 

What's the point of all this technology?
Should be like oxygen - essential, not even thinking about it. It is just there!
It removes friction - UBER, NETFLIX: they just remove the hassle or distance or lack of a car or spareroom. It is all about making connections. 

 - demise of record stores, film processing, video rental...

Remember schools?
We have people who want to learn.
We have things to learn on offer.
Do the students still need a school to get what they need?

KHAN Academy, TED ED, MIT - if I am a motivated learner then I can learn anything I want.
As a school how do we get past our success and look to the future of making it better and moving with the huge change. We need to remain relevant to our population base - the people who think technology is normal.

Pushing students to excellence is nothing to do with technology.
Difficulty to make a movie  = 3
Difficulty to make a good movie = 9
The difference is analysis of the scene, sound, connections and thinking about the effect.  The difference is non-technical. It is not about the technology.

Verbs - as teachers we get the kids to describe, explain, evaluate, create, invent.....
Nouns - Google Doc, iMovie, iPad, iMovie...... We get hung up on the Noun tools when our job is to focus on the verbs.  The nouns are just the tool not the learning. 
Compare - you could use photoshop, PicCollage, YouTube, Google Sheets. The ppoint is not what we use but have we actually compared?
As a teacher keep focussing on the Nouns - the actual teaching.

Why go Google Apps:
Support learning
Simplicity
Possible certification
Collaboration
Self sufficiency
Choice
Inceased storage space
Reducing costs
The Web is the future

In the classroom:
Learn to search
Teach the skill, detective, answer questions, satisify curiosity, use voice search

Mystery sculpture:
Mystery city:
They have to use the information from the image then refine the search. Visit the site on Google Maps. These are multi-step searches. They need to be a detective and search for all the clues. Then you get the 'non=googlable' answer.

Graphing:
How many blocks in the box and the numbers of colours.
Groups add data on a collaborative spreadsheet.
Then sork on extracting the information.

Google Slides:
Each group shares their learing and in one session the whole things is completed rather than trying to collate a Power Point as it si not collaborative.

Google Maps or Earth:
Add pins to the map. Insert information and images to the pins.

Adjectives:
Kids select their own adjective, find the dictionary defintion, find and attribute the image. Attach a map of where the image was taken. Add student explanation of why the image fits the word. Send them out as a resource to the iPads so the kids had a rich resource for their writing.

For us to grab the next challenge of learning then we have to let go of some of the thngs of the past. 

When something changes then we have to un-learn the old laws and re-learn the new ones if we want to survive.