Googlizing

Today was the first institute day at York. There were many meetings to which I had little context, but they were nonetheless helpful to get an idea of 'teacher life.' In the afternoon, we started working beginning of the year stuff, like syllabi, safety contracts, and other policies and procedures. York is a Google school, more and more each year. Leading the charge to Googlize is my cooperating teacher, Megan Ewald, among a few others. She gets me excited about using technology in the classroom. Today we dove into Google Sites and Forms as if we knew what we were doing. We didn't, but we figured it out, mostly. We created a Form for retake sign ups. Students go online, fill out the form, and submit it. This kicks it to a spreadsheet that all the chem teachers share that we can filter by teacher, period, or anything else we set, making retake organization completely paperless and instant. We can even set up the form with multiple pages so when the student says that Mrs. Ewald is their teacher, it kicks them to another page with her availability to schedule individual help. Pretty cool, if you ask me.