Google in the Classroom

I'm not gonna lie, I am a huge fan of Google.  I first starting using Google when the overseas school that I was teaching at had an account for each teacher and student.  As teachers we used it to create and share documents.  Agendas for meetings were kept on a Google doc.  Anyone who was invited to edit the doc could post items to the agenda.  Google allows users to see revisions and who has made them so everyone was accountable for the document and it's content.  It seems like a small thing, but it saved us from a lot of confusing emails and paper trails in which information gets lost.

Students are already adept at technology.  It is fascinating and fun to use and I believe there are ways in which it can make life easier.  As teachers we should use technology when it enhances the learning experience. With students we used Google docs to organize projects. Again everyone who was invited to edit a document could participate. In one project my students had to create a newspaper. One student from each group was chosen to be the editor of the newspaper. The editor created a google doc for the group and shared it with all group members and the teacher. The group brainstormed a list of topics to write articles about and each student signed up for their topic on the google doc. Then students were able to write their rough drafts on the google doc. Other group members were able to edit those rough drafts almost immediately. When the final draft was ready the editor was able to do the final proof-reading and the teacher was able to approve the final revisions. The layout artist was able to copy the text from the google doc and paste it into a newspaper template. This is just one example of how a google doc can be used to work collaboratively.

One of the features that can be used to gauge background knowledge or interest is the forms which can be used as student polls.  Teachers can ask students to rate their interest in a topic. An advantage of using Google for this type of activity is that the answers provided, even if they are not posted for other students to see, would be attached to the student’s Google account. When you create a form you can ask students to answer a question. I have also used this feature to pair students into groups for information gap activities. For example, I asked students to answer yes or no if they have every watched the television show Duck Dynasty. During a speaking activity in class I paired students who watch the show with students who have never seen the show. It was a lot of fun for students to use family vocabulary and descriptive adjectives to describe a television family to those who had never seen the show. Me gusta tio Si.

Google can also be used to create graphs and other visuals to show data. Presentations can be created and shared on the drive. This means students don't have to save this information on their own flash drive. They can work on it at school or at home. They can present in class using the teacher's computer or they can share it in smaller groups.

I have obviously embraced Google. If your school allows students and teachers to have google accounts, it can make some of the tasks associated with learning more manageable and organized.