Over the weekend I received a typical e-mail for me from some internet and/or social media marketer. Usually it’s someone trying to promote a particular website, brand, or a significant blog post that they feel will give them lots of traffic to their site, and thus lots of clicks and a higher Google ranking.
Sounds boring? They are, and I usually delete these types of e-mails….however, this one caught my attention. In the subject line were the words “Google Demo Slam“. The realms of education and technology are being merged into one giant “web-o-sphere” of knowledge (yes, I just made that word up). Since my district just made the huge switch from Novell Groupwise, and Net Storage over to Google Apps for Education, I thought I’d take a look at what’s going on with this whole “slam” business. Turns out, it’s actually pretty darn creative and fun! Here’s an example of one of my favorites below:
The e-mail I received was an invitation for an educator like myself (someone who eats, sleeps, and breaths technology) to submit a few Google Demo Slams myself that involve some creative and fun examples of Google in the classroom. Thus far, my brain has been jumping from one idea to another, and I think I’ve settled on one that will have the kids in the Later Elementary technology class fired up, and show off Google Docs in a playful way.
Am I buying into this whole “let’s get a huge group of people to do our work for us” contest? Yes, but it looks pretty darn fun, AND collaborative to boot. It will definitely get the kids fired up, but also it’s a chance to be creative in an increasingly assessment and benchmark focused educational environment, a trend that has many educators across the U.S. feeling very depressed and uncreative about.
Have an idea for creating your own education-themed Google Demo Slam? Submit it through the site!
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Thanks for posting this, Ben. I’m going to try to think of an idea as well! Looking forward to seeing your submission!
Hi Ben. That was a fun video, I agree! I also agree that we are becoming an assessment crazed society. I do understand that my job is to integrate tech into my curriculum so that it assists my students in becoming better readers and writers (I teach high school English). But I can also completely see how such a contest would spark the minds of some of my more creative students. Now, the trick is how can I blend such a cool idea with my curriculum so that I can have my students work on their English skills while also doing something so neat? My kids are to savvy to not see the difference between an assignment that is purposeful and cool and an assignment that is not purposeful but makes use of new tech. My students need to know that their assignments are not busy work, even if the busy work has wicked neat bells and whistles.