Have you ever wondered what takes place at a GEG launch in South Africa?

                                             

This is a cross post of the post I wrote for the SchoolNet blog  recently.

After becoming a Google Certified Teacher in New York in 2012 I take great interest in anything related to Google. I love the way the GEG groups are spreading throughout South Africa. Currently I am a GEG trrainer fro SchoolNet and I try and attend all the Cape Town Google events. Have you ever wondered what happens at a Google Educator Group (GEG) launch in South Africa? Well they are all different but I would like to take you through tghe latest exciting launch that happened in Cape Town recently - namely the Cape Town West Coast GEG which was launched at Parklands College in Cape Town.

What is a GEG group?
"Google Educator Groups (GEGs) are communities of educators who learn, share, and inspire each other to meet the needs of their students through technology solutions, both in the classroom and beyond." http://www.google.com/landing/geg/about/

Back to the GEG West Coast launch. The GEG leader who took the initiative for the launch was Tiaan Lotter from Parklands College.

The launch itself  was run by three super-enthusiastic GEG leaders in the Table View Area namely Tiaan Lotter, Lindsey Durell and Arthur Preston -  and what an inspiring, fun-filled and exciting event it proved to be - in true Google style!  The 60+ teachers who attended LOVED it.

 

Highlights of the afternoon
When we arrived at the brightly decorated venue we were welcomed by the GEG leaders and we chose a group to join based on our choice of colour of sunglasses.

The Elkanah House group

Tiaan introduce the GEG and the concept of GEGs plus future plans for the GEG. We then heard three SUPERB presentations. Arthur Preston spoke on ‘Úsing Google Tools in the Classroom’ and he shared his presentation with the group.

Google Tools In The Primary School from Arthur Preston

Lindsey Durell gave an excellent presentation on ‘Using Google Tools in the High School’.

Lindsay's presentation can be viewed at http://goo.gl/hXvMQp 

...and Anthony Peters gave a really good presentation on how he uses digital tools and Google tools in his lessons.



Highlights of the afternoon 
Another highlight of the three hour launch was getting into teams to discuss real world solutions to problems and how to tackle them in the classroom across the curriculum using Google Apps. Each team was given a different problem to tackle and plan and then followed the report back. Great ideas emerged from this.

 
The event closed with the energetic GEG team highlighting some of their proposed events in 2015. All the attendees were requested to fill in a form if they required training in 2015… and of course, there was a group photo! 



So, in a nutshell, what generally happens at a launch?

• Sharing great ideas
• Meeting new technology friends
• New ideas for the classroom
• Belonging to a group that can learn together and have fun meet-ups
• A glimpse into some of the exciting changes that are happening in teaching
• A place to ask ‘those' questions. 
• Learning how to collaborate with others

Why Should You Join a GEG?
"Learn. Share. Inspire. Empower. These four words represent the essence of GEGs. Educators will build relationships with other educators and gain the necessary skills to use open technology to deliver the best possible education to their students."

Join the GEG South Africa community (http://goo.gl/glkhTU) and become part of the excitement in South Africa. See if there is a GEG group in your area and join up (the groups are listed in the GEG South Arica community).

The winning Doodle from the Doodle4Google South Africa of my Dreams competition

It was very exciting when Google in South Africa launched their 'Doodle for Google South Africa of my dreams' competition. I immediately got all the classes at the little school that I volunteer at to enter and uploaded 120 entries. Alas, none of them were winners but I was very excited about the competition as a whole. The website with all the details can be found at:
http://www.google.co.za/doodle4google/ 

Google.co.za recently announced the winning Doodle in the Doodle4Google South Africa of my dreams contest. The Doodle was created by Katya Ludick, who won a R100,000 technology award for her school, Hoerskool Noordheuwel at the Doodle4GoogleSA Awards in Johannesburg.



Katya’s Doodle was displayed on the Google.co.za page on 3rd December. Her caption for her Doodle was ‘SA Flag is proudly represented in the Google letters. The reflection symbolises 20 years of freedom. In my South African dream there is no more poaching. We must fight for those that cant speak. Conservation is our future.’

The 20 finalist Doodles can be seen at http://goo.gl/MUxITo.  Look at this lovely, short video that Google created from the 20 finalists’ videos.

GVC #14 Working away on our recycling project

We are starting to collaborate with the other teams in our global project on Recycling now. We have been studying recycling and brainstorming the topic with our students.  We have decided on the headings for our Google site.  The students are learning so many things: We are also hoping to have a Skype session before the holidays.  These are the things we have been looking at:

• How to cite information
• Copyright issues
• All about recycling
• Recycling games
• Sites for finding free images
• How to work in a team
• How to divide up the work in a project
• How to collaborate and communicate

This project has really opened our eyes to the value of International communication and collaboration.

Our school has a long six week holiday now while the other schools in Taiwan and the USA,  don't, so I guess when we get back we'll see quite an advancement on our Google site.