The GAFE train is running smoothly through the middle school
unlike the MBTA these days throughout the Boston area due to the incredible
amounts of snow. Poor Boston!
Photo Credit: Boston Globe - Matthew Lee
The GAFE train image displayed above was tweeted out by Sylvia Duckworth. As our district technology fellow and I were
brainstorming how to roll out Google Apps for Education we came across this image,
which inspired our direction and vision.
We wanted to test drive this train prior to implementing school-wide
professional development to ensure it was the right trip for us. We took a road trip to another Rhode Island middle school that uses Google
Classroom and Apps for Education.
Originally, the thinking was to provide break out sessions for the first
four stops on the GAFE train. After visiting Cole MS we learned so much more
about Drive that we needed to dedicate one entire professional development to it and differentiate it based on the various knowledge levels in the building.
Stops 101, 102, and 103 were developed, which all focused on Drive for
beginners to native users. Check out the
three stop descriptions on the Google form, http://goo.gl/forms/KlngBGrw7c, which was sent out for teachers
to sign up for one of the stops.
It was critical that the vision of GAFE be communicated so
that it encouraged teacher autonomy, aligned with moonshot
thinking, and made teaching and learning more efficient and effective. Google For Work’s video did just that so it
was presented before the train stop sessions.
Check it out here:
All aboard! Teachers
and Teacher Assistants exited the GAFE train at their stops. Throughout the
various sessions teachers were navigating through the most basic functions of
Drive with the support of a tutorial video used in Stop 101 to thinking about
ideas on how to incorporate it into their lessons at Stop 102. Stop 102 teachers were asked, how do you imagine
Google Apps for Education? Responses ranged from, “peer revision opportunities,
real time feedback during writing sessions to multiple students at the same
time, revising and creating assessments, and surveys/ formative assessment.” These are just some of the few opportunities
we explored, which is probably less than one percent of what GAFE can offer to
the classroom experience.
I am looking forward to where the GAFE train brings us in
March and hopefully the MBTA will be back to 100% business by then and flowers
will be popping out of the ground! I can
dream…
