2017 Second Annual DAIS Google Student Summit

Recently, we had the opportunity to attend the Dallastown Area Intermediate School’s Second Annual DELTA Google Summit. Inspired by Kern Kelley’s Tech Sherpas, DELTA is an acronym for Dallastown Emerging Leaders of Technology Association. Each year there is a summit to welcome the newest members to the team. As current sixth grade members of the DELTA Team, we were able to welcome next year’s group since we are moving on to the Middle School.

An excited hush fell over the crowd as Mr. Hartman, one of our teacher advisors, welcomed everyone to the Summit and spoke into the microphone, “It’s a bittersweet day for all of the 200 new and old DELTAs sitting in the auditorium.” We then were greeted by Representative Kristin Phillips-Hill, who came up to the stage and spoke about how technology needs people to make it work. Dr. Dyer, the school’s Superintendent, came up to say that he was very excited to see that Kern Kelley had tweeted that Dallastown Area Intermediate School had won the Google Summit award this time last year. Today, a year later, the old DELTAs will pass down their legacy to the new DELTAs.

After the assembly, the new DELTAs went off to their first class of the Summit. They learned about animation and Google Sites. The student teachers were amazing, and they made the websites so fun and interesting. We could tell that the new DELTAs loved the teachers, and we could see that they were so engaged in learning about the Chromebooks. Walking into another classroom of new DELTAs learning all about Google Earth, I could hear many whispers about where they went or what they were looking at. They seemed so amazed by all of the little things in the app, and I know that they will learn a lot in the 2017-2018 school year. At the next station that I visited, the new DELTAs were learning about Powtoon. I, myself, do not know how to use Powtoon, and I can admit that I learned a few things from the slides. Coming into the library classroom, they were doing Screencastify. I really like the extension for Screencastify and I like to use it for all school-related video projects. In another room, DELTAs were learning to use Pixlr photo editor. I love using Pixlr for all photo editing needs. I think that this team of DELTAs is sure to be an awesome one.

I know that being a DELTA was an amazing opportunity. I loved to be a part of this group, and the leadership opportunity was an amazing way to express myself through technology. As we watched the new DELTAs, we could see that little sprouts were starting to blossom and next year they will bloom into the leaders that they are meant to be. The new DELTAs are coming to help our school, and we know that they will fill our shoes – and maybe, just maybe, they will make the shoes bigger.