You may be thinking, Okay, I've gone Google, now what? I wanted to share some links with you that may help you decide how Google can be best utilized in your daily learning initiatives. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Powtoon and Simplebooklet are free apps that can be added in Google Drive so your students are safely inside of their own account when accessing these tools. Whether you are using a computer lab or just one computer, Google has features that can foster an optimal learning environment for the teacher and student alike! Take a peek at the first link to find out one way that Google can assist you in scheduling conference times, grading or creating a curriculum standards map. Then the other links are provided to give you more information about Powtoon and Simplebooklet.
The keys to using technology tools is planning and simplicity! Choose your tool, choose the topic, share the task with your students and give them time to write down their responses so that their time at the computer is efficient. I know that using less paper is one of our goals in the classroom; however, from my own experience, most elementary students submit higher quality work when they arrive at the computer with a written response. Simplicity will ensure that you keep using Google as a regular part of your classroom learning!
