Google Apps

Learning about the many features that Google apps has at a teacher’s disposal was very beneficial. One of the ways we used the features was to develop a Google website for our classroom. This made using the other Google apps very streamlined. The efficiently from which a teacher could take advantage of all of the Google applications was very easy to see. Teachers can use and share the Google docs from any computer, and share them with the class by providing a link. No longer would the teacher have to download a document onto a flash drive to share and grade because teachers and students can assess this in real-time. Online collaboration can also be enhanced suing the Google email and messaging service. Teachers can even provide links to other sites, so students can access the classroom blog from the website to complete homework in a far more efficient way. The uses of a classroom site are endless.

Developing a Google website would also allow the classroom teacher to collaborate more effectively with students and parents. The teacher can upload homework assignments for students who missed. He or she can also upload a calendar to help everyone keep track of important upcoming events. Teachers can also upload documents for parents to fill out and email rather than having to send them with their students and hoping they get to the teacher on time and in one piece.

Not only can a teacher use these features in his or her website, but using them in a classroom blog would help a great deal when dealing with students who need to work from home or another computer. The class can even begin a project in one room, and continue in another room if the need arises. Also, since these documents are stored online, there is no chance of them getting erased or lost if a computer gets a virus or stops working. Teachers and school districts can even use these features to communicate with each other. This training opened my eyes to the possibilities of using all of Googles applications to use in a way that opens up the door to collaborative efforts in a way that teachers have never been able to do before. I really had not ides that all of these tools were available, but I am certainly going to use them in my classroom as well as share them with my coworkers.