It's official! I'm a Google for Education, Certified Innovator #TOR16

It's official! I'm a Google for Education, Certified Innovator #TOR16

Bringing this here from my FaceBook account ...
Day 2 of #TOR16 #GoogleEI Innovator Academy

It was full steam ahead as Coaches were ready to guide us through a variety of Sprints & Sparks today! If ever given the opportunity to go on a Google tour… GO! It’s fun, colourful, dynamic & you meet more great people along the way.

Construction not Instruction projected across the screen as Afzal Shaikh discussed the legacy Seymour Papert has left behind and ahead of us. We are challenged to use #LittleBits and build a machine to communicate a message for others to piece together, within teams and collecting missing pieces from within the cohort.

This is followed by Wendy Gorton who revisits the Design Thinking model and Prototyping thus gently launching us into visually testing our idea. Steps of prototyping: Storyboard, Rapid prototyping, Get feedback, Integrate feedback and Iterate. Time was limited but precious. The room was abuzz with energy, an almost calm-before-the-storm when we would have the opportunity to later share & pitch our projects to each other.

Aaron Brindle in Public Affairs for Google Canada shared his 20% using google.ca/mymaps to map out communities from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada to Surui Territory, Brazil by creating a cultural map to share within the community.

Culturally responsive pedagogy was the focus shared by Sandra Chow emphasizing considerations from various perspectives to better understand impact of the project on others. Suggested resources to check out include The Missing Voice in Tech by Rafranz Davis, The Culture Map by Erin Meyer, geert-hofstede.com and Harvard Project Zero - Visible Thinking.

The Talent Myth: A relationship between talent and success debate is ongoing… well, let Sylvia Duckworth guide you in demystifying nature vs nurture. Sylvia’s The Iceberg Illusion: Success is an Iceberg sketchnote sums up what people see and don’t see when they encounter someone who is successful. A recommended read is Bounce by Matthew Syed which highlights 3 conditions necessary to achieve excellence or success:
-Intrinsic motivation
-Unusual circumstances
-Deliberate practice
A new book coming soon but for now definitely check out sketchnotes created by Sylvia on her flicker site: flicker.com/sylviaduckworth

Les McBeth sets us up to prep our prototype ready to display and receive feedback from #TOR16 educators:
-This is a repeatable process
-Keep focussed on your USER
-Innovation is an attitude
I have my collection of post-it notes ready to reflect upon over the next few weeks to further ‘zoom in & zoom out’ of my project.

Share and support each other, asking questions, connecting with our coaches and soon to be partnered mentors, Michelle Armstrong encourages all of us to continue to touch base in Hangouts and Google+. Save the date for the next #PubPD maplesyrupedu/pubpd twitter chat October 27th focussed on Student Leadership.

Becky Evans & Wendy Gorton engage us in whole group reflections prior to sharing our pitch: the essence of our project. A moving moment for many of us as several projects went thru several iterations (discovery-interpret-ideation-experimentation-evolution).

How else to better end the Google Innovator Academy then coming together in our teams, as we Graduate to the tune that best captures our team energy! One by one we were called upon the stage to receive our certificate! Yes, my name was announced correctly and yes, I am still smiling (cheeks are sore) because this endeavour, this journey is far from over… I can’t wait for what the next 12 months brings!!!

 

 

Make no mistake... I could never have reached this far without the support and encouragement from TDSB  Coaches & Digital Lead Learners Julie Millan, Andrew Schmitt, Kevin Bradbeer & Sandra Chow