Friday, July 15, 2011

Flabbergoogled!

After last night’s class, I am stunned at all of the educational things that can be done with Google other than searching. What is most surprising to me is that this stuff has been around for quite some time. I have often heard people talk about Google docs and Google maps, but I never connected how they could be used in class. Google Maps was a little bit frustrating at first, but overall it is amazing that students can see street views or routes to basically anywhere. The second thing I enjoyed was Google Presentation. Not everyone has a PowerPoint program on their home computer, so this could make projects and assignments easier for students to work on at home. I also like that the presentation can be interactive. Instead of using Clickers, you could put some questions on slides throughout the PowerPoint and have students respond. However, they would each need a computer or device to answer (That’s the tricky part). Sadly, I don’t even know if our students would be able to sign in to Google from school being that personal e-mail accounts are blocked. Has anyone used any of these Google tools with classes before? What do you find works well, or not so well? Comments are welcome : ).  


While looking for ideas with Google Apps, I found two useful sites. I'll post the links below in case anyone else in interested.
http://www.ideastoinspire.co.uk/googledocs.htm

http://digitalexplorer.com/2010/01/12/40-ideas-on-using-google-earth-and-maps-in-the-classroom/

7 comments:

  1. I agree that using google docs, google map or even google presentation would be great in a class setting. I think if it was brought to the tech peoples attention or even administrators that we as teachers have to keep up with the evolution of technology and have someone present all of this good information that google has to offer to teacher and students and even for administrators that they too may see the good in it

    ReplyDelete
  2. All of the things we learned on Google were new to me and I love them all. It is truly amazing what we will be able do with in school. Thank you for the goggle links. I think they will be useful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree. love the title of your post. I feel like my mom who has no clue how to email. After learning about google, it was overwhelming yet exciting to learn all the features it has to offer. I love the fact that you can have a slideshow on your google. thanks for the links

    ReplyDelete
  4. Did you notice the RSS Feed on the Inspire website?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I loved the video on the second link that showed how one school was using Google Maps. It was very impressive! The possibilities are endless!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I did see the RSS feed, but I didn't add it. Did you try it, Emily?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Love your blog title. Glad you are happy with what you are learning so far...

    ReplyDelete