Course Highlights

Students spend about five hours a week on class materials and about 90 minutes at the weekend virtual meeting discussing the webtools classmates explored

Need help on a topic? Arrange free-of-charge 1:1 time with instructors.

At the course end, receive a certificate of achievement to validate accomplishments including all the topics in which you completed required work.

How Class Works

Students teach classmates how to use between one-four webtools (depends upon enrollment) at the weekend virtual meeting. Each takes about ten minutes and includes a summary, pros and cons, educational applications, step-by-step how-to details, and a sample. This may be presented as a screencast (or annotated screenshots) or video. Presenter posts an example of the webtool project and the screencast/ screenshots to a community board as a resource for classmates.

When students are not preparing a presentation, they comment on the posted ones of classmates and create their own projects using them.

The goal is to share your knowledge with others so we all leave this experience smarter, more informed, and more resilient.

Who Needs This

This course is designed for educators who:

• are serious about integrating tech into their class
• worry about integrating tech into their class
• want creative approaches to using tech
• want to go to the next step of tech-infusing their classroom and/or school

What Do You Need to Participate

• Internet connection
• Google account; various web-based tools (if any)
• Commitment of 5-10 hours per week for 4 weeks
• Risk-takers attitude, inquiry-driven mentality, passion to optimize learning

NOT Included:

• Software and webtool membership (if there are any)
• Assistance setting up hardware, network, infrastructure, servers, internet, headphones, microphones, phone connections, software.

I would like to close by saying how much I enjoyed this class. I truly learned so much. As a technology teacher I was not sure what to expect from this course. I found that much of what I currently do in the classroom has been validated. However and more importantly, I learned many new instruction and assessment strategies (along with some new tech tools) that I can now use and apply to improve the learning in my classroom. Thanks everyone!

Now I’m enrolled in this awesome class to take the learning to another level.  … I’m learning so much right out of the gate.  We have some amazing people in the class to collaborate with and share ideas. Everyone has a blog and we have been assigned to read them and get to know each other.  This builds our PLN – Professional Learning Network.  We are going to learn so much from each other.

This class has already taught me so much about: Google Drive, Google+, Google Hangouts, and much more.

As I look back on the five weeks of this class, I am amazed how my attitude towards the weekly projects has changed. The first week I felt overwhelmed and unsure of my abilities. Once I took each project one step at a time, I gained confidence. I loved that I had to take responsibility for my learning. The resources were there; I just had to find them. I definitely had to be an active participant. My week 1 project wouldn’t have got completed any other way.

I am amazed how comfortable I am using all the creative ways I can use both of these tools. As I talk about them with my colleagues, they assume that I have had much more experience with them than just five weeks. I know that I still have a lot to learn, but this is a start.

About the Mentors