Finally!!!

I choose Google Chrome as my elective exam to complete my certification. In order not to leave anything to chance, I carefully reviewed the basics and advanced lessons. It was really awesome to both remind myself of some of the things I knew and to also learn even more. The following are some new knowledge from chrome lessons:

Google Chrome Omnibox is more than just a search bar. It can be used as a dictionary, world clock and many more. You can even add more custom searches to it.

You can bookmark multiple pages and put them in a folder. This certainly makes reading and researching so convenient and you can quickly continue where you left off.

I had fun changing my chrome browser into different themes. Pretty cool stuff.

This test was actually the easiest for me. The only one I got 90%. The best was saved for last.

I am very happy to have gone through with Google educator certification. These exams made me very nervous but I learned so much about Google Apps and am ready to share my knowledge with anybody who is interested in Google.

Click HERE to view my results.

G.......mail Test!!!

Gmail certification test proved to be very challenging for me. I reviewed the advanced features today and practiced all the step-by-step exercises. Then I decided to take the exam. I was very surprised to see lots of questions that frankly I thought I didn't read from the lessons. At least I didn't remember them from the lessons. I answered them mostly from my experience of using Gmail. I used up almost ALL the 90 minutes allotted for the test and fortunately I passed. 

My two cents to whomever is going in for this test: don't assume it's easy. Review ALL the lessons and practice the exercises. You would be glad you did!!!

Progress on Google Calendar

Like I mentioned earlier, we use Google Calendar a lot to schedule different events at school. Faculty meetings, parents and teacher meetings, school activities and many more. This week as I was digging deeper into Google Calendar, I realized that there are even more we can do with it in my school.

Among the new things that I learned about is, the use of calendar to make lesson plans. This is so useful especially when a teacher is absent, the sub can jump right in and follow the lesson plan with ease. Also excellent for keeping records. I am encouraging the teachers in my school to create this type of calendar and make more use of it.

Another exciting new knowledge about calendar is using it as appointment slots. We use pick-a-time to schedule appointments but Google calendar can also do the same. The only down side is that you have to have a Google account in order to book appointment so we might only use it among our students who already have school Google account and continue with pick-a-time for parents.

I took my Google Calendar test and passed. Tough but very rewarding.

Stay tuned!!!

Progress on Google Site

These last two weeks has been all about Google Sites. I totally immersed myself in studying the various features and uses of Google Sites. Read through all the basics and advanced lessons at the Google for Education training center and actually set up a personal site. I also took the Google Site test and passed.

One big lesson learned these past two weeks of training myself on sites is that "practice makes perfect". I found that the more I play with the site advanced features, adding each one of them to my site and practicing how to use them, the more I master them and get more confident in using them. I am sure that there are still more to learn and am excited to keep updating my knowledge on sites. Here are some of the features that most excite me:

• Embedding media, calendar, maps and inserting videos in sites.
• Using all the different page types ( web, announcements, file cabinet and list )
• Managing the sidebar and horizontal navigation menu.
• Creating the page-level permissions in my site.
• Linking my site and my blog journal.
• Knowing that I can make copies of the site I create using my school domain.

I am looking forward to helping the teachers that I work with, create their own sites. Am sure like myself, they will be excited to learn how easy it is to set up a Google site and use it in making a more engaging classroom for the students.

Next week I will go into Google Calendar. We use calendar a lot at school to schedule different events and I am going to dig dipper into the various ways calendar can be used even more effectively.

Stay tuned!!!

Final Presentation Progress

In preparing my final project, I have decided to use Google Site to document my learning. Blogger and Google Site both offer valuable tools for keeping record of learning progress and ePortfolio, but Google Site will give me more convenience and variety of options in showing evidence of my work.

Project Goals

I have set the followings goals for myself as I work towards my final project, and hope to achieve them by the end of this course:

1. Become a Google Certified Educator.  To achieve this goal, I will review the lessons available at the Google for Education Preparation Courses and take all the required exams. The success of this goal can be measured by the result of these exams and the Certification by Google.

2. Organize training materials that will help in educating the teachers that I work with about Online Collaboration. To achieve this goal, I will arrange and document my learning on Google tools. The success of this goal can be measured by the availability of adequate resources that teachers can access and use in making a more engaging classroom. 

Try try try again!!!

I started working towards getting my Google Educator Certification. Took the drive test and flunked it, getting 78% while the pass mark is 80%. I tried again and passed with 85%. 

Today I went ahead with Google Sites exam and nailed it at 88%. This is getting really nice.

I guess there is truth in the saying that "if at first you don't succeed, try try try again". 

It seems that I will cruise through the rest of them. Fingers still crossed!!!

Google Sites and Blogs

Google Sites and Blogs are increasing becoming similar depending on how they are set up. Sites can be formatted to look like a blog and blogs can also be formatted like a site. This blog is a good example of how a blog can look like a website.

Students can use both to share learning materials and updates about class activities to the community. But for the followings tasks I would prefer the use of Sites:

• Digital Portfolios showcasing personal learning
• Group projects where students create their own pages and share it with others
• Class announcements 

Blogs would be better on the following tasks:

• Encourage peer critique by allowing students to post comments and feedback on each others blog.
• To cover a wide variety of articles.
• Keep parents updated about their kids learning