GEG Communities

Issue No. 52 | Date: August 21, 2020

Local Success Stories from GEG

Welcome to our new GEG Mentors!

We are excited to share the news that the first 6 GEG mentors have been announced. I’m sure some are familiar faces and you would like to congratulate them on the recognition for their dedication to the GEG program!

GEG Mentors are GEG leaders, with at least 2 years experience (up to each regional Google POC’s discretion) , who specialize in specific areas of the GEG Program and lead and support GEG leaders and new GEGs regionally. Mentors offer support and coordination, a single point of contact and coaching. They also have experience in organizing a variety of events and supporting their GEG members.

Wiley Brazier

[North America] GEG Mentor for US - South Central

GEG Louisiana

Becky Colling

[North America] GEG Mentor US - West

GEG California (SoCal)

Georgina Dean

[EMEA] GEG Mentor for EMEA

GEG Amman

Stephanie Howell

[North America] GEG Mentor US - Midwest

GEG Ohio

Robin Larrabee

[North America] GEG Mentor US - South Atlantic

GEG South Florida

JD Mercado

[APAC] GEG Mentor Philippines

GEG Mandaluyong, Philippines

Welcome to the new GEGs

These new GEGs would welcome some followers so please help them out where you can:

Google’s The Anywhere School 2020 Pre and Post Event Party UK

As part of the global August Anywhere School event GEG UK hosted a pre and after party for the event in Google Meet. Around 30 educators joined for an opportunity to network as well as some fun and games. The 3 minute tech scavenger hunt had everyone hunting to find the oldest piece of tech in their house - World War 2 relics were the last thing we expected but a few brick phones turned up! There was also a virtual selfie booth as you can see below. After the show, the members met again to reflect and also shared ideas on a collaborative jamboard in response to the question, “What could you do with 5 people and £500 that would really make a difference in your school?”

GEG Montana

Montana now has a Google Education Group - GEG Montana! The GEG Montana leadership team is focusing on supporting educators, students, and families through professional development, collaboration, and sharing Google Educational tools. If you would like to join please send a request to https://groups.google.com/g/gegmontana and you may follow GEG Montana on Twitter @MontanaGeg. GEG Montana is preparing for their launch later this Fall so be sure to follow all the excitement!

Super busy GEG Gyeonggi

GEG Gyeonggi had contributed to virtually training 5,000 teachers in the Gyeonggi district, South Korea helping the district administrators with 13 training sessions live with YouTube live streaming from July 22 to August 7. This has been the very first trial for the Gyeonggi Office of Education to run official and mandatory teacher training sessions only online and the GEG Gyeonggi leaders and captains dedicated their time to running training sessions, technical support like setting up streaming, checking attendance for all 13 sessions and answering questions from the participants.

13 speakers including the superintendent of the Gyeonggi Office of Education covered the topics from AI to Student autonomy activities. The leader of the GEG Gyeonggi Judy Kim presented about Z Generation’s global competence with Media Literacy and Digital Literacy and introduced GSuite for Education in her session. 400 teachers signed up and 1,200 viewers have watched her session so far.

Here’s the link for the playlist of the training sessions https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXMHrniMaR4pZaHnOEAroKWOfUPYFkKCY

Global GEGs Got Talent

On Sat August 15 @GlobalGEG hosted Global GEG's Got Talent. This was designed as a bit of fun and a break from the norm of training and coaching and was an opportunity for Global members to see their favourite Global leaders out of their comfort zones for a change. Host Daren White asked Leaders to sign up and record their talent to be scrutinised by guest judges, Stephanie Rothstein, Stephanie Howell, Luis Pertuz and Abid Patel. With the contestants putting themselves out there, some judges were encouraging while others were expectedly harsh. We were expecting it from Abid Patel, but no-one expected Stephanie Howell to transform into Stephanie Cowell quite so easily! Contributors included Frederick Ballew, Amber Trout, Bonnie Chelette, Andy Lumley showcasing their musical talents as well as cooking abilities and kickboxing. The real standout though was 10 year old Silver Rothstein (daughter of Stephanie) performing and playing guitar for her original song. The event was a lot of fun and the winner was young superstar AJ Howell who stole the show and voters hearts at just 9 months old with his own original song. The event recording can be watched on demand here https://youtu.be/JeTV94A44sI

GEG Events

Bring your community together to collaborate

GEG On Air #23

The 23rd GEG On Air went live on August 12. André Gomes (GEG Olinda Leader and Google Certified Educator 1 and 2), Arthur Felipe (GEG Recife Leader), Dani Veronezi (GEG Brasília Leader and Google Innovator) and Verônica Melendez (GEG Santo André Leader) presented their projects, suggestions and tips to work on Active Learning with students including strategies using Google Tools, gamification and frameworks to support educators on engaging practices. You can watch the GEG On Air on demand here.

Auderlânia Dias (GEG Lavras de Mangabeira), Gisele Aquino Mendes (GEG Jacareí), Adriana Chagas (GEG Natal), Rejane Cassiano Meneses (GEG Contagem), Thiago Nunes (GEG Feira Nova), Camila Schwarzer (GEG Porto União), Vânia Flores (GEG Varginha) kindly consolidated the main information and links here.

Next GEG On Air will go live in August 26, 6pm (GMT-3) and will be focused on Learning Trails.

Thanks to everyone involved!

GEG Learn

Individual professional development opportunities

Use Applied Digital Skills with Google Classroom

New update - The lessons included in the Applied Digital Skills curriculum can be shared with your Google Classroom account. If you haven’t tried this it’s worth taking a look at.

Changes to Knocking in Google Meet

Two changes have been made to “knocking” (requesting to join a meeting) in Google Meet to reduce disruptions in education meetings.

First, if a meeting moderator rejects a knock twice from the same participant, the participant will be blocked from knocking again. This means the moderator won’t see any additional knocks from that user for the duration of the existing meeting.

Second, if the moderator ejects a participant, that participant will be unable to:

Rejoin the existing meeting (even if they are in-domain or on the calendar invite).
Knock to request rejoining the existing meeting.