Classrooms Without Walls- Using Google Apps To Connect Inside and Outside of the School Community

Educators need to create a Personal Learning Network, but our students need an authentic audience too. How do you do this? By introducing new concepts and activities to your students using creative measures, such as Google Apps. Google Apps for Education is changing how people, including our students interact with the world. This makes way for changes in the strategies and tools we use for teaching and learning. Follow me on this journey as we explore tools like Google Hangout, Google Drive, and other Apps in the Marketplace we can use to truly transform learning for our students, and at the same time transform how we teach!

Why do we need to transform how we teach? Listen to the Voice of An Active Learner

This is why we do what we do!

Why do we collaborate?

Our Goals are to be able to implement Google Apps in meaningful ways in your classrooms to increase efficiency, collaboration and engagement for your students.

How do you Use Google Apps to Connect with the community? Share your thoughts here, and see how others are using it. 

Google Drive
An ideal place to share and collaborate with students

Google Docs
How can you use it in your classroom?

• Student collaborative assignments
• Lesson plans
• Signups
• Have students work collaboratively from anywhere 
• Give students ongoing and simultaneous feedback
• Use revision history to hold students accountable for their work
• Publish student work

Features

Color-coded Text

Comment

Hyperlink

Research

Revision History

Research

(Web, Images, Scholar, Quotes, Dictionary, Tables)

Collaborate Lesson Planning- Work on the same lesson plan at the same time with a colleague using Google Docs.    

 Store important docs in your school's shared Doc list so that anyone at your school can find and access them.  Create a folder for your grade level to share resources.

Instead of lugging home 30 reading response journals every week to comment on, have students keep their journals in a shared Google Doc.  You can give your comments while students continue to write in their journals! 

Translate letters home to parents by using the translate feature in Google Docs. 

Google Spreadsheets

Use spreadsheets to track student homework.  Give each student a anonymous number and share the sheet with parents.

Use spreadsheets to make scheduling parent-teacher conferences really easy. 

Google Forms

Google Forms is a useful tool to help me plan events, send a survey, 

give students a quiz, or collect information in an easy, streamlined way.

Use Google forms and spreadsheet to:

• Collect data
• Share data
• Analyze data
• Graph data
• Graph data across variables 

Have students complete their reading record online line through a Google Form. 

Tests/Quizzes

Hint: Use Flubaroo to grade your form: 

http://www.flubaroo.com/

• Grade online assignments in a single step!
• Get reporting and analysis on student performance!
• Email students their scores.
• Designed by a teacher, for other teachers!

Create a site for your class.  Embed a class calendar, videos, and presentations. 

Do More With Google Apps

Virtual Field Trips With Google Hangouts

How cool is that?

or You Could Do a Mystery Skype.. but use Google Hangouts

Google Earth is a very powerful tool, and integrating into the reading curriculum makes it even more powerful! Use Google to search KMZ (or KML) to find tours

http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/Home.html

Using Video in The Classroom is a great way to engage students in the learning process

is a very easy to use tool for teachers and students

Are you flipping your classroom? Try using Present.me 

How Educators are Using Present.Me

How are you using Google Apps To Communicate with your school community? share here also see how what other educators are doing.

Bottom line! Let's engage our students, give them choice, a voice, and an authentic audience