Guess Who's Here...

Stacy! Stacy's here. All of us Creek Squad "veterans" are here training the new Squad. It's a big group this year, and we're starting off with the bar set pretty high. It feels nice to get back into the groove of our meetings with Stacy, I have a lot of faith in this year's group. (: We'll blog some more after today, tell you guys how things went. :D

No Way!!

So, guess what guys! Creek Squad was invited to a tech conference in the Dells! We're all so excited, the trip can't come fast enough. I'm not quite sure on all the details yet, but I'll be sure to update everyone when I am. I know the group is looking forward to sharing our ideas with educators all over, and we are really hoping that this will be starting something new! 

I'll be keeping things posted!

-Cooper Horning

Google Put Us On the Map!

Iowa schools got a little recognition when a post on the "Official Google Enterprise Blog" was made about what Google has learned from it's users over the previous school year. The documentary they had made about The Creek Squad was a part of the blog post. Check it out!

The Official Google Enterprise Blog
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/06/reflecting-on-school-year-with-google.html?spref=tw

We Broke the Spell

The Creek Squad has finally broken out of the grueling dry spell. We ventured out to North Bend and Oxford Elementary schools. It was nice for a change of pace, especially at the end of the school year. Six of us, Moriah Johnson, Lauren Judge, Gene Schwartzman, Rachel Beckler, Trevor Toy, and Cooper Horning.

Thursday the six of us made a trip over to North Bend Elementary in North Liberty to help prepare the future sixth graders for the use of Google Docs. It was nice to have a group of kids who really had no idea what they were doing, but they were awful talkative. It was nice to get out of school to play teacher.
                         - Cooper Horning

Tuesday, six of us went to Clear Creek Elementary in Oxford to start getting our district’s 5th Graders up to speed on their Clear Creek Amana Google Domain accounts. It was nice to teach people that didn’t already know what we planned on teaching them. It’s always fun to see the reactions people have when they learn something new in technology.

                        - Rachel Beckler

Long Time No See!

Stacy's back! We're sitting here contemplating what our next move is.
I'm thinking we should hit the elementary schools soon, even though we've already been out to Amana.
It's just been a bit of a dry spell for us lately, finally Stacy's here to rescue! We're talking about training our seventh graders who are going to step up next year and fill our oversized shoes. Zimmy has narrowed it down to 18 kids who fit the criteria.

Stacy brought up a good point of having two groups of nine. A Google group who specializes in Google Apps, and an Apple group who specializes in all iLife programs and any extra Apple programs and technology. I'll post some more later, I've got to go tune into this meeting. :D

-Cooper Horning

Google Reflections

WOW. That's just about all I can say. I didn't really know what we were in for when we were first told that Google was coming to see us, but I can say it was really nothing like I expected.  The whole day was really relaxed, I didn't feel like the Creek Squad was trying hard to be something we weren't. Thanks to Mrs. Zimmerman to telling us that we should just go ahead and be ourselves, because that's who Google came to see, not some totally perfect and quiet kids. I mean, even the Google guys were relaxed. I enjoyed the cameraman's shirt that read, "The internet was down, so I decided to come outside today." Man, there are days, especially in the summer, when I can definitely relate to that.

I loved just hanging out and being techy, I mean... it's what we're best at. It's not that we only hung out with Google either, we held a seminar for teachers to come in and learn more about Google Documents and Sites. We held our usual Creek Squad meeting, and discussed new technologic findings and ideas. It was great, and I can't wait to see the finished product. Maybe they'll come back to check up on us again!

~ Cooper Horning

As you probably already know, Google came to our school to interview and learn more about the Creek Squad. While they were here, they interviewed us, recorded one of our meetings, and recorded us training some teachers. This was a great experience for the Creek Squad and I thought it made us realize some things that we had never really realized before.

-Moriah Johnson

On the 10th of March, Google came to CCA Middle School to film the Creek Squad. They interviewed us and then filmed us having somewhat of a normal day... If normal is having a camera crew follow you to the lunch room!!! :) Then they filmed us having a normal meeting, and also they recorded us training a few teachers. It was very exciting!!! I was kind of nervous, but not that bad. It surprised me :)

~Lauren Judge

Good morning, GOOD MORNING!

....It's great to stay up late! Haha, no. Today's the day! Google is coming! We're expecting them around 11:00, they'll snoop about for a while to find the perfect place for the Creek Squad's close-up. We're looking spiffy in our blue polos, and we're all just bouncing off the walls due to excitement. A few of us came in early this morning to tweak some last minute stuff, and to put together some outlines for teacher training today. Off to class! We'll blog ya later (;


-Cooper Horning