GEG Communities
Newsletter
Issue No. 77 | Date: October 27, 2022
Local Success Stories from GEG
We would really love to expand our new section of Quick Google Tips, Tricks and Templates or in-depth product articles. So if you have a super cool idea or a template you would like to share with us all please submit these to the Newsletter articles Form bit.ly/GEGarticle.
Help us to help you promote your events and amazing work by tagging @GEGProgram on all tweets you make about events or feedback you get from members. We love to join in your celebrations.
GEG Events
Bring your community together to collaborate
GEG events page
Please continue to promote the wonderful work you are doing all over the world by adding your events to the events page.
Google Crowdsource Share your Script 2.0
The GEG Community across Asia-Pacific Connected during the GEG APAC Weekend ‘Staying Connected 6.0’ on July 15 -17 2022. The sessions were conducted online, in multiple languages.
“Crowdsource - Share Your Script-2.0” was presented in English Language and via YouTube Live. The APAC English Language event was hosted and inaugurated by Nathan Gildart, Google for Education Certified Trainer, GEG Community Leader, Google Certified Educator and Innovator.
R.Vinothkumar explained about Google’s missions, Crowdsource community, applications, uses and contributions and future updates. How to use products: Google Lens, Google Translator, Google Maps using voice recognition in multi-languages introduction in Google, contribution to crowd source app and the benefits. Additionally discussed was Machine learning, via the crowd source videos and how to train the public datasets models by using crowdsource contribution to the Internet world.
SHARE YOUR SCRIPT 2.0 CAMPAIGN
Share your Script 2.0 (31 Languages) To add handwritten text recognition capabilities to Google’s OCR system, enabling the system to recognise handwriting in addition to machine-printed text in certain languages. Your handwritten text contributions efforts to extend the language coverage and improve the quality of handwritten text recognition.
Find out more
YouTube Live Stream: https://youtu.be/eav2gRJ3UQw
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/gegasia/events/2022-july-online-event
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q0qCMzjftkJRfcBwLyx-yBDIoduMQdVLt4vXeosIajI
GEG Ahmedabad Celebrating 2nd Anniversary
GEG Ahmedabad turned 2 on 4th October 2022. It has been a rewarding journey with nearly 3000 members online and over 100 videos on the official YouTube Channel with more than 850 subscribers and 100 mentors delivering core knowledge and skills with the members of the GEG Community.
We had the celebrations on Saturday 8th October, with a virtual party, where most of the members, prominent educators, other GEG leaders participated and shared their feelings for GEG Ahmedabad.
GEG Ahmedabad had played a phenomenal role during the pandemic delivering weekly PD sessions for educators free of charge and enabling educators to work with remote teaching and learning. GEG Ahmedabad and the founder Dr. Vishal Varia also helped over 4 schools to start using Google for Education Workspace so that they could implement remote teaching and learning methodically in their schools
The meet was full of feelings and confessions from educators who benefited from the PD sessions of GEG Ahmedabad. Not only this we had presence of many GEG Leaders of India and abroad, who contributed their time and expertise with the fellow educators. The best part was knowing how the journey was so far by the leaders Dr. Vishal Varia, Deepti Vyas and Payal Rachhadia.
GEG Ahmedabad acknowledges the contributions made by so many during this journey so far. Thank you.
Be Internet Awesome With Interland
Today’s children are digital natives. They are born with devices in their hands and love to remain connected to the online world. Although parents and teachers make the utmost efforts to teach children real world ethics, they often downplay the inculcation of cyber safety and ethics. The lack of knowledge to navigate the digital world makes them vulnerable to cyber threats. The only way to mitigate the risk of cyber threats is to remain educated about them.
Google has come up with a wonderful gaming initiative – INTERLAND to apprise children of dos and don’ts to stay safe in the digital world. Interland is an online adventurous game that teaches players key lessons of digital safety. Anyone from age 8 to 80 years can play this game with ease. It has four challenging games Reality River, Mindful Mountain, Tower of Treasure, and Kind Kingdom which contain puzzles, quizzes and challenges related to online threats. Battling cyberbullies, hackers, and scammers help players understand the tips of being safe online and to use digital spaces ethically and responsibly. Earning badges and receiving surprises along the way keep players excited and engaged.
With a tagline, “Embark on a quest to become a fearless explorer of the online world” the game equips players with a driver's license to navigate the digital world safely and smartly.
#GoogleSlowChat - Importance of Coaches
What a great opportunity to discuss 'the importance of coaches' with this wonderful community!
Myself @darminifernand & @giftyfrancis4 were nervous at the beginning, but with so many of you sharing your experiences and discussing the topic, we were soon enjoying ourselves.
Our starter question 'Where do thoughts come?' became an interesting talking point and we found that sometimes the best thoughts come to us at bedtime or when we have a relaxed mind.
Question 1 brought some inspirational coaching stories to us and it was fantastic to see some of the coaches tagged in the replies 🙂.
Question 2 showed us that there were schools and organisations who reaped all the benefits of their Google coaches but also highlighted that there are still many schools that would flourish even more under the wings of a coach. Well we all know that Rome wasn't built in one day and we are only getting started - so watch this space.
Question 3 looked at the differences between a trainer & a coach. We found that both roles carried similarities but that a coach may work with you long-term and draw on your experiences, whereas a trainer may focus on teaching you new skills.
Question 4 was very popular and we had floods of tweeters share what they believed the 'must have' qualities of a coach were. Here are a few but if you think of any more, do let us know. Perseverance, patience, knowledge, communication, empathetic, motivational and the ability to follow things up.
Our final question wanted your opinion to see who benefited the most from the support of a coach, the students or the teachers. If your answers is both, then your thinking path aligned with that of all our participants from that evening.
The #GoogleSlowChat we found was a perfectly paced way for people to participate in discussion and share their thoughts and experiences. As it is a slow chat you can still use the hashtag to find the questions and get involved. It's never too late.
Everyone is welcome, join us next time and get involved.
Best wishes from Dharmini & Gifty
GEG Leadership
Leading your GEGs
Spotlight on a GEG leader : Mimma Sayuti Mat Khalid
This month’s spotlight is all about Mimma Sayuti Mat Khalid the leader of GEGPetalingJaya. You can follow her on Twitter @mimmasayuti
I am an educator with 28 years of experience in teaching Educational Technology and Teaching English as a Second Language, I am now the Head of Digital Learning Unit in one of the oldest Teacher Training Institute in Malaysia, I am also honoured officially by Malaysia Ministry of Education as Excellent Lecturer/Educator of MOE specialising in Information and Communication Technology.
‘Googlewise’, I am a Google Certified Innovator and Google Certified Trainer. This year, together with my students, we are conducting training as Google Applied Digital Skills Ambassadors. Since 2015 I have been the Google super admin of my institution and beginning 2019, I have been assisting the management of the server under Google Workspace for Education for all 27 Teacher Training Institutes in Malaysia. Currently, the digital content created by these teacher training institutes are using Google Sites for dissemination of Digital Learning Objects (DLO) for the pre-service and in-service teachers.
How did you initially get involved in your local GEG?
I was one of the first group of leaders of GEG in Malaysia in 2015. My institution has been using Google Applications for teaching and learning since 2014.
What is the most memorable GEG moment either online or in person?
The most memorable moment was when the leaders of GEG Malaysia collaborated in organising the GEG APAC Connect 4.0 webinar in July 2021. The total number of teachers and educators involved was 23 thousand, It took us nearly a week to distribute the certificates!
What is your favourite thing about being a GEG leader?
To be among the network of like-minded people who practice and share effective approach, strategies of using digital technologies for teaching and learning. Most importantly, GEG Communities are always encouraging each other, and are always open to new ideas and challenges, wherever they are. That’s the spirit of Googley Families!
What do you feel you have personally gained from your involvement?
I am always in the know and not only am I able to improve myself personally, but also I am able to contribute to society.
What have you learnt in the last month.
My best learning event is exploring Google Arts and Culture from my fellow Leader of GEG Nagoya! It is part of internationalising classroom practices amongst pre-service Visual Arts teachers in my institute, resulting in a project that is opened to global collaborations.
Tell me about an event that you have coming up that excites you
As a continuity of exploring the learning affordances of Google Arts and Culture, I am in the middle of creating virtual spaces for global collaboration that involve galleries for teaching and learning through the use of Google Workspace for Education. It is actually a project that started in June 2022 for a group of pre-service teachers who specialize in art education. Do contact me on Twitter if you are interested!
Before you go, do you have any advice for anyone thinking of becoming a GEG leader?
Keep on exploring the opportunities and ‘privilege’ of a leader to give more to the society, because one is the change agent that can help others to be ready for their future. Once you get to know this wonderful group of people, you will be learning things that can be beyond your expectations!
Please follow @GEGPetalingJaya
GEG Learn
Individual professional development opportunities
Subscribe to Google for Education for EDU in 90
We’re back with more news! Join Melissa on the latest episode of EDU in 90 to hear about back to school tips, a new chromebook event, and more.
Don’t miss an episode! See the full EDU in 90 series playlist at https://g.co/EDUin90
LEARN MORE
Back to School Tips: https://bit.ly/3UPnPv9
Chromebook Event: https://bit.ly/3BQQpDu
Read Along: https://bit.ly/3C1ebwK
Save the date
GEG Slow Chat November 21st
If you want to schedule some responses if you can't make the date here are the questions:
Q1 Would you rather teach online forever or teach in person with no technology at all?
Q2 Why is it important to include SEL in our day-to-day routines at school?
Q3 How can we build community and promote a positive learning culture in the classroom?
Q4 For students to own their learning journey, we need to help them reflect on this process. How can we empower children to set and establish goals?
Q5 SEL in the classroom: share your best practices with the community
Latest Google updates
You can now reply directly to any message in new spaces and some existing spaces. This creates a separate in-line thread where smaller groups of people can continue a conversation on a specific topic.
You can find and navigate to the threads you’re following or where you’re specifically mentioned with a new thread panel on the right side of the conversation. Visual indicators, such as a badge for the number of replies, direct@ mentions, and when a message is deleted within a thread, will help you stay on top of the latest activity in any given thread.
You can now split table cells into a desired number of rows and columns in Google Docs. For example, you can create subheading cells by splitting the cell under a heading cell into two columns. We hope this highly requested feature improves upon your ability to organise information with tables in Docs.
