Teachers can empower learners by addressing individual strengths, needs, and interests. Tailoring learning experiences for each student is a big job, and Google’s suite of tools can help. During Personalize with Google, we take your knowledge of Google to a whole new level by introducing many new tools that help you and your students stay organized, become efficient, and maximize learning. Through Google Classroom, you experience hands-on learning by participating as a student. Furthermore, you create your own Google Classroom class, getting you ready for day one in the fall.
In Personalize with Google, teachers explore how to revamp curriculum to engage all learners and participants in ways that are meaningful to them. Experience Google Search, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, MyMaps, Sites, and many other components of Google’s free offerings. You’ll get plenty of time and guidance to prepare activities for your future students.
Not only will you learn how to make the most of Google’s online tools, but you will also walk away with a whole new approach to teaching and learning.
Note: This strand of Camp Plug and Play is intended for teachers of students in grades 4 through 12. Be sure you and your students have access to a G Suite for Education account before registering for this strand.
Facilitated by Nancy Pratt and Jill Felty
Objectives
- Design learning experiences that engage students and personalize learning.
- Generate collaborative media using Google products.
- Learn how to “mash up” Google applications in ways that support your curriculum content and pedagogy.
- Develop meaningful strategies to differentiate learning in the classroom.
- Critique Google products and develop strategies for organization.
Understanding the fundamentals of coding helps students become creative thinkers, problem solvers, communicators, and collaborators. When it comes to teaching coding and computational thinking, it’s hard to know where to start. In Coding for Kids, K-5 teachers develop the knowledge and skills to teach students graphical coding using free/low-cost tools including Code.org, ScratchJr, Scratch, CSFirst, micro:bit, and more. Not only will you be able to teach students but you’ll also see ways to integrate coding across the curriculum.
Although the free tools work on iPads, laptops, and Chromebooks that you probably already have in your classroom, you’ll also see a variety of coding games, toys, robots, and kits.
Whether students are using digital tools or tangible gadgets, it’s important to encourage them to tinker, take risks, be creative, and learn from failures — that’s exactly what teachers will do in Coding for Kids.
Note: This strand of Camp Plug and Play is intended for teachers of kindergarten through fifth grade.
Facilitated by Jon Samuelson and Jennifer Lane
Objectives
- Learn the fundamentals of computational thinking and pair coding.
- Create, remix, and edit graphical coding projects.
- Utilize basic block coding skills with the BBC Micro:bit to understand coding and the connection to the physical environment.
- Craft and identify lessons that integrate coding into your existing curriculums.
- Explore the maker mindset and design thinking to complete open-ended tasks.
Online media has become a part of our everyday lives. Teachers can engage their students, relay important information, display and promote learning, and much more by creating media content. Video has become the go-to way students and adults learn today. Instructional how-to videos are a large segment of YouTube content and can teach viewers how to do anything, be it changing a car tire or repairing the cooling system of a commercial airliner. In Making Media, participants will become the producer, director, and editor as they learn to create engaging videos for their students. The ultimate goal is to have students create their own content as a way to demonstrate understanding.
Participants will learn about the rules of photography and videography. They will put their knowledge to use as they create several different types of media projects that will be shared within the strand class and the entire group at Camp Plug and Play. Plan to grasp and implement strategies like the rule of thirds, shot framing, focus, patterns, depth, storyboards, and more.
Participants will also explore photo editing on mobile devices for perfecting the quick shots they take with phones and tablets. Participants will choose to focus on iMovie for iOS and MacBooks or dive into the YouTube Video Editor for Chromebooks.
Facilitated by Joel Wisser and Michael Bailey
Objectives
- Learn basic and advanced features of digital photography and videography.
- Edit and create photos and videos, in order to entertain, inform, educate, and advocate to an authentic audience.
- Engage in effective photography and filming techniques on mobile devices and video equipment.
- Utilize a variety of apps and copyright friendly resources to create and enhance digital media.
- Apply mobile media creation skills in an academic and content-based context.
Google offers incredibly useful tools for teachers and students. Spend time growing your skills with Chrome, Google Search, Google Drive, Google Classroom, Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, Tasks, Keep, Sites, Google Earth, Calendar, and YouTube. In addition to becoming proficient with the tools, you learn how to apply them in the classroom with practical and creative ideas that can give your teaching a boost.
Each day of Get Google Certified features practical topics that prepare you for the Google Certified Educator Level 1 exam. More importantly, the topics feature real life applications based on facilitators’ and participants’ classroom examples and resources from a variety of grade levels and subject areas. Topics include, but are certainly not limited to, captivating your class with video, insights into digital citizenship and copyright, effective slide design, and productivity solutions.
You have the option of taking the performance-based Google Certified Educator Level 1 exam during camp. The exam is 180 minutes and requires you to pay $10 by credit card. If you pass the exam, you get a digital badge, certificate, and proof that you understand and can apply the fundamentals of G Suite for Education tools. Even if you choose not to take the certification test, you’ll leave with the fundamental knowledge and skills to integrate Google’s tools into your practice.
Facilitated by Paul West and Dr. Alice Christie
Objectives
- Explore ways to facilitate and inspire learning and creativity.
- Identify best practices for YouTube in the classroom.
- Determine effective methods of collecting and using data.
- Learn important things to ensure that students have a positive online experience.
- Learn to increase productivity by using a wide range of Google tools.
Digital lesson design has the potential to transform instruction. Students can actively explore, engage, collaborate, and create, instead of being passive consumers. HyperDocs are a way to change classroom dynamics by empowering students to fully participate in the learning process.
“HyperDoc” is a term educators use to describe interactive Google Docs, Google Slides, or Google Drawings that transform instructional media and learning activities into a digital package. HyperDocs can be the ultimate change agent in the classroom when they are built with strong instructional design. They have the potential to shift instruction to be student-centric, which meets the needs of all learners, while also improving classroom workflow.
In Making HyperDocs, you will see how and why you should use HyperDocs in the classroom. By experiencing HyperDocs from the student perspective, you will grasp how you can make them work for your own students in any content area. Teachers will leave understanding how they can customize and create lessons and units that can be personalized to meet the needs of a broad range of learners. Most importantly, campers will learn how to set up a classroom and teach using a HyperDoc.
Participants will learn how to incorporate innovative tools, media, and design during HyperDoc Design School. In campfire sessions, participants will have the opportunity to personalize their experience and dive into a variety of tools and strategies to plug into a HyperDoc for student comprehension, collaboration, and creation including the Google Apps for Education Suite and various media making and formative assessment “ed tech” tools. Additionally, you will be introduced to other creative uses for HyperDocs, including for novel studies and interactive notebooks.
Strand members will dive into an online community of HyperDoc creators—a community that freely shares their documents for others to copy and modify. Learners will see that making a HyperDoc taps into their true creative side, as they design worthwhile experiences that students will love.
Note: Making HyperDocs is appropriate for teachers who work with students in second grade and higher.
Facilitated by Lisa Guardino and Jennifer Wolfe
Objectives
- Define “HyperDoc” and explain the theory and pedagogy behind digital lesson design.
- Explore HyperDoc examples and different packaging options. Discover templates, evaluate solid lesson design, and begin creating.
- Curate and package visually engaging content using Google apps. Embed digital and non-digital tools that allow for collaboration and creation. Examine classroom procedures, workflows, and instructional strategies and understand various ways to teach using a HyperDoc effectively.
- Learn to elevate the design and delivery of HyperDocs by reflecting on the four Cs and SAMR to ensure that HyperDocs are transforming instruction and meeting the needs of all learners.
- Learn to share HyperDocs with the Teachers Give Teachers community and find others that will support and collaborate alongside you.
