Sunday, April 24, 2016

Google Tools in the Classroom

My personal experience with Google Tools outweighs the experience I have with the tools in the classroom. However, through personal use I have really started to get a feel for how they can be useful in my classroom, once needed technology is available. I have used Google Drive to share lessons with friends in different schools and also to collaborate with co-workers in one universally editable document. I have set up a Google Classroom, but have not yet had the opportunity to use it with students because of the lack of equipment/wifi/mobile service.

Despite not having much experience with these tools in my classroom, it is easy to see how they can have a huge impact on a classroom. Google Tools allow students to be more productive and go deeper into their work (Dixon, 2016). Additionally, Google Tools are wonderful for collaboration, allowing students to work together on assignments, peer editing, and timely teacher feedback. Google Tools also allow students to have personalized learning, which is essential seeing no two students are exactly alike.

One Google Tool I have had a bit of experience with, and recently started using in my classroom is Google Forms. It allows me to easily create quick surveys that I can give as a homework assignment, a do now/exit ticket, or most recently polling my students on what they thought about completing a performance assessment. Google Forms assists in the timeliness of analyzing the survey because it does it for you. It creates a nice compact analysis immediately, which allows the teacher to quickly change lessons if needed. Below is the results of a sample survey I created on Technology.


https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Tg3ZvUm3T3PSK0zjPiRIvHJHwgq_rflja6bMY7NqrFc/edit#responses



References
 Dixon, N. (2016, April 17). Google changing education in and out of the classroom. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from http://www.tbnewswatch.com/Artsentertainment/385862/Google_changing_education_in_and_out_of_the_classroom_ 

2 comments:

  1. Hi Stephanie.
    I am still learning to use Google apps and have a rather large learning curve. It does seem like it could be very useful in the classroom. I also had trouble with adding a chart to my blog. I used Jing to capture part of the chart. Then I used "save" in Jing. Then I used "insert" in Blogger to add the "photo" from Jing into my blog. At least, I think that is how I did it. Good luck!

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  2. Stephanie,
    Another feature with google apps that can be useful for students is the add ons that can associated with each. For instance, I have use the pdf add ons to combine files and highlight section from articles or studies for both work and class.

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