I got up early Saturday morning and braved the freezing cold and icy roads to attend the Google Apps for Education Summit in San Antonio.
The event started with an amazing keynote by Todd Nesloney (better known as Tech Ninja Todd), who shared some of the amazing experiences he's been able to give his students as a result of becoming a connected educator. Really inspirational stuff!
It was a hard decision choosing from all the great breakout sessions available, but I started with "Google in the Math & Science Classroom", where I really enjoyed getting to explore around with the online graphing tool Desmos. Seriously, check it out, and see why your graphing calculator is completely obsolete.
Next I went to "Creating AND Grading Student Quizzes" where I learned about Flubaroo, a plugin for Google Forms that grades quizzes and can even send the results to the students with just one click. Students can take the quiz on any device that allows them to submit the form.
After lunch I attended "Podcasting with Google Hangouts" where Todd Nesloney took us through the basics of GHOs and also shared us some advanced tricks. What a powerful tool for collaboration and I can't wait to take advantage of Google Hangouts more often!
This picture was from the final session I attended called "High School Students Create Children's Books" which featured Cole HS students sharing the creation of their World History projects with us. The girls presenting were nervous, but the energy was authentic and they all did a great job. I love having students present; it reminds me why I love the field of education. I'm sure that I always learn more from the students than they learn from me (and I'm just going to have to be okay with that)!