I am pleased with the progress and results of the Google Apps Education implementation for the Wired classes.  There has been a lot of lessons learned on the scope of use in the classroom — and time for reflection, changes, and improvements will come after semester ends.  Four classes were set up on the Google Apps domain, with student email addresses and access to Google Docs, Google Sites, and all the Wired resources on the Virtual Campus site.  You are welcome to view the final product on the Wired Classroom site.  Just send an email for the password: MyraG (at) shsfalcons (dot) com.

Students have been using Google Docs for reflections, sharing work with project teams, and sharing work with their teacher.  They have produced presentations for career exploration projects and group/individual Google sites for their exploration of Digital Citizenship topics.  I’ll share a sampling of those projects at the end of the semester.  The final project will be to pull all their work together on an eFolio — they will use a Google Site to feature their work from Wired, and other classes in 2008-09, on the online document.  Their reflections for the semester, career presentation, and a link to their Digital Citizenship project will be linked or embedded in their eFolio.  They will be able to personalize their site (hopefully using all the tools they learned in their digital safety research) to make it their own and, optimally, use as a repository for their best work during high school.

Google Apps Education was piloted with the 9th-grade Wired classes, but we are planning on opening up the framework to any teacher wishing to use the collaborative environment.  But, oh, there is still so much to learn and all kinds of applications yet to be discovered.  Anyone have any time to loan?

I look forward to CyberCamp 2009 (is that on the calendar?).  The time to work, network and learn with other CyberCampers, and the mentoring from Bud and Jerry was so valuable.

In a sense, today is the REAL first day of CyberCamp – the first day when posting or sharing isn’t in some way mandated by someone else.  I hope folks will continue to sharing their work and learning here, in this space.  I look forward to reading more from you, CyberCampers, from learning from you as you continue to learn.

I’m grateful for all of your hard work so far, and I know there’s plenty more to do.  I’m eager to see your projects happen, and to participate as I can in them.  To paraphrase Garrison Keillor’s catchphrase for his daily Writer’s Almanac podcast, I hope you’re well, doing good work, and that you keep in touch.

How fortunate we are to have colleagues like these.

But, CyberCampers, as we all know, a good conversation requires some good planning.  So I’m asking – how would you like to spend that time with our guests?  Focusing on the “middle” of the planning process, as you’re geting closer with yoru proposals?  Thinking through involvong students in your projects?  Asking questions about obscure factoids from the book (No?  Didn’t think so.)

In the comments, talk a bit about what you’d like to get out of the time and what questions you have for our guests.  They’ll be checking in with this post and your comments to help guide our conversation – so the folks who respond will get to drive tomorrow, metaphorically speaking. (Also – this might be the place to thank the authors for this handy text!)

If you’re not a CyberCamper, we’d love to hear from you, too – and you’re welcome to join us in Elluminate.  Here’s the link for the conversation space, which has been graciously loaned to us by Steve Hargadon.  Thanks, Steve!

I want to build on my moodle sites, I want to figure out a website that my newspaper students can interact with, and I want to download the new Coldplay CD.  But I am pretty proud of myself for importing my bookmarks from the Citrix explorer to my computer explorer without asking for help.

But am I getting a good grade?

gah…

here is a fun time waster I discovered today… it helps control the crazy

haiku

EdTechTalk – A fine group of webcasters, teachers, learners and interested others who get together regularly to discuss all sorts of things related to education and technology.  While there are an awful lot of excellent shows on the network, I particularly recommend EdTechWeekly and Teachers Teaching Teachers – but all are in my podcast aggregator and I listen and participate as I can.You should try to catch a show live – complete with chat room backchanneling.  Quite a learning experience.

Teacher Librarian Ning – A community of Teacher Librarians.  I know that several CyberCampers are already members of this community.

Build Your Own – This isn’t a specific place, but more a way of thinking and learning.  I use my Google Reader and Twitter accounts to build a collection of the people, blogs, and other content that I learn from regularly.  Here’s an example of what your aggregator or reader might look like – it’s a collection of educational blogs.

In the comments for this post, talk a little bit about what you notice in these different communities, as well as share any online learning communities that you think are valuable.