Thing 4

Using Google Apps In My Classroom

The most innovative thing about Google Apps in my opinion is the ability to collaborate on projects, word processing documents, sheets, forms, etc.  This ability allows all types of people to work together on items from across the world.  This feature connects us in a way that we have never been connected before and opens a lot of doors in efficiency and creativity.

One of the ways I plan to use Google Apps in my classroom is through scriptwriting.  In my Movie Makers course, students work together to modify a short story into a shooting script.  Through Google Docs students can work together not only in class, but at home at any time they feel necessary.  Group projects that were once difficult to organize outside of school, can now be done together from the comfort of your own living room.  My students can modify scripts, add notes, give comments, etc.

Another way I plan to use Google Apps in my classroom, is through Google Drive.  In my classes, students make many great projects and in the past we have made DVD's at the end of the trimester, which was cool, but a technology of the past.  Now everything is digital, so my students are going to make folders and organize their videos inside their Google Drive.  I'm still trying to figure out the most intelligent way to do this so my students will still have these videos after they leave Washburne and their email expires.  Also, I would like to make it more artistic, making a folder in Google Drive is not as pleasing to the eye as a DVD was.

The last way I plan to use Google Apps in my classroom is through Google Forms.  Google Forms are very easy to link through Schoology and a great way to get the pulse of my students through a survey.  In our yearbook class, I can see this being a very valid lesson to teach, so my students can conduct polls for inserts in the yearbook.

Thanks for reading!