Wednesday, March 6, 2013

C4T #2

GTA and Googleplex? What's That?

Googleplex

For this C4T assignment, I looked at Eric Langhorst’s blog, Speaking of History…….. On December 9, 2012, Langhorst posted 2012 Google Teacher Academy - At the Googleplex Mountain View. This blog post was written while he was flying home to Kansas City from the 2012 Google Teacher Academy (GTA) in Mountain View. Eric discusses his experience at Googleplex. Through the weekend, he learned about tools, the Google culture and the GTA network. He discovered many new tools to use in his personal time and in his classroom. He also got to experience a piece of the Google culture. He says, “The campus is colorful, playful, visually appealing, accommodating the staff and quite honestly might be one of the most amazing places to work on the planet. We saw people riding bikes to get from one building to another part of the campus. People bringing their dogs to work and walking them on the grounds at lunch. Office buildings with bowling alleys, rooms for massages, heated Japanese toilets in the restrooms, tech help stations and every possible feature to help people focus on their job and being creative. It would truly be a great environment in which to work.” Lastly, he talks about the GTA network. Not only did he learn a lot of information, he also got to know a lot of people. They can keep in touch through the social media. He can continue great conversations with people from across the country. As he traveled home, he mentions multiple times how excited he is to get back to teaching and how his time at the GTA will make him a better teacher. I had never heard about the GTA or the Googleplex, and I started my comment with this. His post was extremely interesting. I also told him how incredible Googleplex sounds. Maybe one day I will be able to attend a GTA! Then, I thanked him for his post and left my twitter name and class blog address.


Snow Days

When I went back two weeks later, his newest post looked very interesting. Forget the snow, I'm presenting today anyway! was about a snow day. Eric Langhorst was supposed to present at the 2013 KCPT Education Conference in Kentucky. The event was cancelled because of a snow storm. Instead, he created a 50 minute video to make his presentation anyway. The presentation is about great sites and apps for teachers. The sites and apps he talks about are all located at this site. The video was very interesting and useful. I plan to explore and use many of them in my future classroom. I started my comment by saying I was currently a student at the University of South Alabama and taking an educational technology course! Some of the sites he mentioned in his presentation I have already been interoduced to through this course. I really enjoyed learning even more resources I can and will one day use in my own classroom. In fact, I used one of the sites When Send to send myself an email in a few months to remind me of this post and awesome sites. Again, I thanked him for his post and left my twitter name and class blog address.

I learned a lot from Eric Langhorst’s blog posts, especially the second one. Many of these sites I definitely see myself using in my own classroom one day. I think this would be a great addition to EDM310 in the future semesters!

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