Student Summit 2.0
Featuring Google at HAS
Photo HAS
On November 19, over 170 Grade 5 and 6 students and teachers from the Superior North Catholic District School Board gathered at Holy Angels School in Schreiber to participate in a Student Summit featuring Google for Education. As a GAFE (Google Apps for Education) school board, SNCDSB students and teachers have access to Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Maps, and many other useful Google tools. All Grade 5-8 students at SNCDSB were given their very own Chromebook this year to use at school. A Chromebook is similar to a laptop, but it runs on a Google Chrome operating system. The purpose of the Summit was to teach students how to use their Chromebooks to help further their learning.
SNCDSB hosted the first-ever student summit last Fall [click for more] and since then, the idea has spread and other school boards across North America are hosting similar events. The intent behind the summit is to put the tools directly into the hands of the students. Sometimes, teachers are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with technology. At the Summit, the students learn alongside with their teachers so that they can support one another when they use the technologies back in their classrooms.
The day was organized as a conference for students: they gathered in the gym to hear opening remarks and then spent the rest of the day in various breakout sessions. The day ended with a prize draw, where three Chromebooks were given away to three lucky student participants! The EdTech Team, a group of educators who travel the globe providing Google training (usually to teachers), facilitated the event. Since the Summit last year was successful and many students became proficient in using various Google Apps, this year SNCDSB was actually able to have some breakout sessions hosted by a few of our very own Grade 5, 6, 7, and 8 students!
At the heart of the Student Summit is the belief that learning is a partnership between the teacher and the students; it is not just up to the teacher to deliver facts and knowledge to the students. Instead, students and teachers can learn together. The Superior North Catholic DSB would like to thank everyone who helped make this year’s Student Summit a success, especially our very own student presenters: Erik Speziale, Wyatt MacEwen, Devin Costa, Cosimo Figliomeni, Kirsten Andrews, and Julianna Kabatay.
Photo HAS
