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| Picture from http://www.gdocsdrive.com/ |
Improving the use of
Technology in the classroom is one of the priorities of our school. That
is why our school sponsored me and my colleague to attend the Technology
Symposium last October. We were also asked to conduct a teacher training
about the information we learned from the symposium. We learned more
about Google Docs Drive and Ipads in
this seminar so we decided to create an interactive Presentation of these
topics. We used Google Docs Drive and created a PowerPoint presentation
using it. We edited it whenever we can. It worked out great for us
because we do not have the same prep period and it would be difficult to
schedule a longer meeting. Being able to edit the presentation and see
what the other person already has added made it a lot easier. It saved us
time in finalizing the report because there is no need to compare notes.
We can see all changes we made to it. Everything we do is saved in
the Google Cloud Platform so there is no need for flash drives!
Google Docs Drive is an
excellent tool to use in the classrooms and at home. The students just
need internet to access their files anytime and anywhere. There are
several options available that the students can use in their classes. For
example, they can create documents, PowerPoint Presentations, Spreadsheets,
drawings and a lot more. There is an option to add more applications to
the Google Docs Drive too. It automatically saves the file in its Cloud
Platform which can be accessed anywhere there is internet. The files
could be shared to the teacher, classmates and parents. All the revisions
can also be seen including who made the revisions. This would be
particularly good for group projects since the teacher will know who are contributing
in the group. The students can no longer say that they do not have their
homework since their computer is broken or they forgot their flash drive or
they forgot to print it because the teacher will see the files in Google Docs
Drive and access it.
There are numerous applications that we can use just in the Google Platform. Which applications would
be the best ones to download? It should be noted that not all the
applications in Google are free. If we are going to implement this is our
classes, we should also involve the parents to make them aware of how to use
these applications. How do we plan our year to incorporate a little
training for teachers, students and parents? This way we can all meet in the
Cloud.
Liwang,
ReplyDeleteThank you for drawing attention to the Google Docs Drive. It solves a lot of issues for teachers and students, alike. As a teacher, I email documents to myself so I can pull them up at whatever computer I am working on. For students, “my computer is broken” or “I forgot my flash drive” or “I forgot to print it” is the 21st equivalent to “the dog ate my homework”. To me, the greatest benefit sounds like the ease of sharing work and collaborating with others.
Directions on how to meet in the Cloud would need to be presented and practiced by teachers first for professional development. Perhaps discuss the idea, applications, and logistics to administration and volunteer to pilot training for colleagues. Parents would need an introduction and demonstration. The beginning of the school year at Back-to-School night a presentation on the Cloud could be included as a part of class requirements. Students could be trained in the classroom or computer lab.
This tool reminds me of the saying about fate “it’s written in the stars”, but in the future we will say “it’s written in the Clouds”.
Jennifer
Good points you bring up using these tools really require a team collaboration and all members of the school site to be on board. It is great you had an opportunity to attend a conference and plan with your colleagues. I think PD that is made by teachers and delivered by teachers is a powerful conductor for change at a school site but it needs to be continual and evidence based that is there should be some accountability for implementation.
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