Incorporating+the+Google+Suite+to+Support+Yourself+and+Your+Teachers

=Overview= toc In this session, you will begin to learn how to leverage the Google Suite of tools (known as Google Apps), to enhance and support your work. While Google Docs is clearly understood as a word processing tool, many people may not be aware of different things that can be done leveraging the simplicity of various Google tools to support student learning and teacher professional development.

=Goals= =Outcomes= =Questions to Consider=
 * Participants in this session will learn to use several Google tools to support student learning.
 * Identify how Google tools can support teaching and learning
 * Construct an activity that will leverage Google tools
 * Demonstrate how Google tools will support your teachers
 * How can you integrate Google tools into your support of teachers?
 * How does your work benefit from the inclusion of Google tools?
 * What are the limitations of Google tools? How might you overcome these limitations?

=__The Google Tools You Probably have__= The use of the word, "Apps," in Google is somewhat confusing. There is a localized Google toolset that you can pay to use. Many school districts have opted to use Google Apps to manage their online presence. This means that that you have a gmail account, but the address is @yourschoo.nc.k12.us instead of @gmail. This also gives the IT staff at your school the ability to restrict access to sharing and different Tools. Google also refers to "Apps" as the individual tools themselves. This tendency has emerged from the abbreviation of "Applications" popular with smart phones and other mobile devices.

Sites
Sites allows you to create a website as a home for all the things you are doing. We'll spend a bit of time looking into how to setup a Site so that you can quickly and easily share your work from other apps. Within a few clicks, you can embed a presentation, calendar or document. There are a few non-trivial tips and techniques that we will look at in depth. There are some great features we will not explore, but you should have a good understanding of dealing with creating and manipulating pages.

Sites is a great place to display information that you want teachers to have easy access to. It's easy to edit, and pages can be quickly changed to reflect upcoming events or important announcements.

Calendar
Google calendar is a fully featured calendaring app. You can share this calendar with stakeholders in a project so people all know what you are planning to do, and when things are due. Students and parents can see upcoming assignments and deadlines. Teachers can see upcoming professional development opportunities. With the appointments feature, individuals can schedule time with you when you know you will be available. You can setup a standard "Tech Hotline" time where teachers and students can come and ask you for help.

Forms
Google forms presents you with a quick and easy way of getting feedback from different people. You can get information from students about their concerns with technology. You can get requests from teachers for specific features or to use various bits of technology. You can even use this to do surveys about support and get feedback for what your teachers and staff want to know.

=__Activity 1: Exploring__=

In this activity you are going to be exploring various Google tools. Please use the following three questions as your guide for this activity.
 * 1) What are some things you like about the examples?
 * 2) What are some things you would to see happen with those examples?
 * 3) Of these examples, which best meet my needs for teaching?

Sites
Google sites can be used in a variety of ways.

First, since it is easy to quickly edit and integrate content from your Google tools into a Google Site, you can use a Google Site as a supplement to any course. Below you will see an example of a site that holds information that remains constant from course to course. There is no need to host this information on a Learning Management System (LMS), it's constant and students will not be interacting with the materials here. It's easy to put a link to the content from an LMS, but any changes you need to make will only need to be made once. Teachers can add resources / fix mistakes and clear up any confusion without needing to go through different courses.

Example site I

Another good use for Google sites is to share content district-wide. Often times, schools will establish a variety of different policies and forms that teachers are required to adhere to and fill out. Since Google Sites can easily be restricted to specific individuals, and individual pages on the sites can be restricted even further, different policies can be housed on the site at different stages of development.

Example site II

Calendar
Google calendars added a new appointments feature, that allows others to schedule appointments with you during your available time, taking some of the confusion out of scheduling meetings during busy times of the year. (Parent meetings and course registration are two good examples.)

One good use of Google Calendars is to display school-wide events. This allows parents, teachers and students to quickly and easily see what is coming up in the life of the school. Since you can collaborate on Calendars, the burden of posting school-wide events can be shared among various individuals. Groups can share their calendars separately, so members can get an idea of what is happening that only affects them (Marching band my not care when the Football team is having practice, for example).

Here is a school-wide example:

Example I

Example II

Forms
Google Forms is an innovative method of data collection within the Google Docs Suite. Google forms can be used to create surveys and assessments. They are easy to use and share. Collected data is then placed into a spreadsheet for storage and analysis.

Example I

Example II

Example III

=__Activity 2: Creating__= During this activity, you are going to create an example for use in the class.
 * 1) Identify the content you want to teach
 * 2) Examine how different Google tools can help you teach that content
 * 3) Create an example to explore the Google tool of your choice
 * 4) Understand any support students / teachers might need to complete the lesson as planned.

Click for GOOGLE TOOL TUTORIALS

Share your Google tools!
media type="custom" key="10801784" media type="custom" key="10758202"

=__Activity 3: Examining__=

During this activity you will be examining your tool. In the previous activity, you will see some examples of work done by your peers. Did they do anything differently that you like better than what you did? Did they do something that you could fit into your content? Evaluate your tool using the following criteria:

1. How does this tool support learning? 2. Does the integration of technology enable you to do something you couldn't do otherwise? 3. What can you do to adapt your lesson using this tool for different lessons?
 * Decreasing the time spent getting students on task counts
 * Easily distributing materials
 * Supporting struggling writers by collaboratively creating documents
 * Writing comments on a document to support writing / learning
 * Allowing students to download / view videos and screen captures.

We all know that an important part of the educational process is reflecting on learning. Please click here to reflect on what you have done today

=__Template__=

=__**Extra Resources**__= Here are some resources we will not be going over. Check them out in your own time!

Documents
Here is an overview of Google Documents. You will see that this tool operates very similarly to other word processing tools you might have experienced. In an educational context, you can use Documents to easily draft important letters, agreements, or even share templates with others to scaffold learning.

Google Documents

Videos and Forms
Finally, here is a brief look at upload a video to Google docs (makes it very easy to share videos with students) and how to create a simple form using Google forms. Don't worry if you're not entirely sure what a form is, you'll have a pretty good idea by the end of the tutorial.

If you've been to Dr. Dove's screen casting session, or you plan to learn about screen casting, Google offers a great way to host your videos so your students can access and download the instructional videos you create.

You can also create forms for teachers and students to use. Some ways that I have used Google forms in the past:
 * Student information sheet
 * Anticipatory Set / Bell Ringer activities to check students' prior knowledge
 * Quick feedback during a lesson / session

Google Videos and Forms