It turns out that the consensus is that after school sessions and department sessions are what people want! So we sent out a google doc, with a list of sessions each week for the rest of this term. Here is the link. Staff can sign up to what they want as to where they judge their needs are most after doing this for over a year now.
Our first session was today and it seemed to go ok. I had 6 people interested in working on Google calendars and they were so keen that they got there before me !
We covered real basics like making an appointment and then moved on to sharing calendars with others, putting in information that can be seen by others and then we had a go at inviting each other to made up events.
What was popular next was making multiple calendars and then embedding them onto a Google site so that students can see the course planning on a calendar.
As I have been using my calendar A LOT and have loads of different ones for all sorts of things, I didn't think it best to show the start up basics on my own, so I made a dummy account today.
It is under the name of my dog, Bobby.
What is worrying me now is that when students are sharing their work with me they will accidentally share it with Bobby instead, as he is in the system as Bobby Ferguson. Never mind, as long as he does the marking!! So far Bobby has a gmail account, a calendar with appointments on ( apparently he does Social Studies ) and a Google site with his calendar embedded into it.
Next week he will be making a blog as that is our next topic.
The general feeling as they left today, was that they need to practice in order to get it firmly in their heads, but that is the same with all of the this Google stuff. If you don't use it regularly and do it, then the next time you try you have forgotten how to. It explains why I have to show the same people the same things over and over again.
This Pd session was powered by timtams supplied by management :D
I enjoyed reading your post Karen. Bobby is lucky. lol
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