Activity 3: Week 8 Blogging about Google Apps

Google Apps is an all-in-one resource center for teachers and students.  It has everything you need – from basic documents to fancy websites and everything in between.  It is an excellent organizational collection and can help me keep all of my documents, sites, presentations and forms in one place. 

I’ve learned in this class that it is easy to share and collaborate with other classmates by using Google Apps.  One person can create a document and others can add to it or edit it as needed.  I can use this idea in my classroom to have students work as teams or review each other’s assignments. 

Collaboration between students and teachers is easy in Google Apps.  We can email, chat or even talk to each other online.  Websites can become centers of discussion or simply a place to post lessons and assignments.  Parents really don’t play much into the higher education classroom, but forms are very easy to create and are available for parents or students.  Updates can be posted on the classroom website or sent through email – or both! 

I didn’t really learn anything new about myself by exploring Google Apps except that the ‘Retropaint’ theme on Google Sites gives me seizures.  I learned that the Google Sites platform is a bit quirky yet very easy to use and provides an excellent introduction to creating your own website.