GCE Level 2 Blog - Van Harten

 I have not used Google Scholar at all so far and I learned a lot about it. I will not be using it in my classroom due to the age of my students but I think it will be helpful in my professional learning. Another thing I learned about in this unit was Your Plan, Your Planet. I did not know that this existed and I plan on looking at it more to see if I can add it into my curriculum. I had never thought about doing a parent meeting live with YouTubeLive. I think it is a great idea and could keep things more clear and concise as well. Then without the constant question and answer part, it would take half the time. They could ask questions in the comments and people could see the responses later if they didn't want to take the time. I am also pretty disappointed because Google Earth and Google Maps are both blocked for student use at my school so the only way that I could use them is by projecting from my computer. This year when we rolled out 1 to 1 devices for secondary students You ...

 In Units 6 and 7 I learned about some features that I didn't know about that I will need to do more research on. I am not fluent in adding videos and YouTube Creator Studio and it is really neat some of the options that they have. I also learned some great lesson ideas that I will be taking forward with me. I was really excited about the idea of a Choose Your Own Adventure Slide Deck. I have used interactive notebooks with Slides before for research and presenting information but this is another fun way to use it. I think I may use this with my 5th Graders this year. I am going to head to the library to check out some books to give them ideas for it. 

 In Unit 5 I learned more about Sheets and ways that I can better organize data. I also was reminded of using conditional formatting, which I have used before but I haven't in a while. I also was reminded of good ways to formatively assess my students. I am actually very excited to learn about the Pivot Table. Last week I helped the SPED Teacher create a Google Form to track accommodations that were used by teachers for students. I did not know how I was going to organize the data efficiently before learning about the Pivot Table. Now I am going to create a Pivot Table and sort by each student and then the sheet will tell me which accommodations were used on which date for each student. It will really be a lifesaver!

 In Units 3 and 4 I learned more about ways that I can utilize Google Calendar to make appointments. I also learned about better ways to connect with guardians (most of which I already use). Finally, I learned more about a few different extensions that I had not used before. One of the biggest takeaways is that this might be a better way to schedule Student-Led Conferences than what we are currently using (Signupgenius). I like that it automatically puts things on the Google Calendar which is what I use for all of my school and personal scheduling.  I also am really enjoying the extension Grammarly, I had heard about it before, but had not tried it. So far in this blog post it has helped me three times. :)

 A. I have learned some new ideas for Flipped Learning and Blended Learning. I am excited to do more with a hyperdoc. B. I think that this will be great for my 4th Grade National Park Research. I currently put links in my Google Classroom, however, with a hyperdoc it will all be in one place where the students can write notes directly on the doc. I think it will help with not having to move between multiple tabs and platforms. 

       Hello, my name is Amy Van Harten and I teach K-8 Technology at Creative Technologies Academy. I have been teaching for 19 years. I started at a GVSU Charter School (Knapp) for 10 years and this is my 9th year at CTA. I also am the Testing Coordinator for my school. I love learning new things to teach my students. One of the best parts of my job is that it is not static. Every year I learn something new to teach my students. I am also trained by Code.org and my middle schoolers learn CS Discoveries.      Level 1 Certification taught me ways to streamline what I already knew in Google. Through Lissa's organization of Google Classroom I changed how I have been doing it and so far my students really appreciate it. With my 5th Graders we are becoming "experts" at different applications that are in Google Drive. It is a nice way to get them more comfortable with applications that they aren't using as much.     I really enjoyed the L1 Cohort ...