Until this class, I had never explored Google tools. I always just used it as a search engine and nothing more. After experimenting with the tools such as map and docs, I think this will be a great addition to my classroom. I am planning on switching completely to googledocs during the spring semester. This way I do not have to worry about forgotten flash drives and "I did it at home" business. I think this will help tremendously. I also enjoy the map function. I think that when we do Shakespeare this will be a good feature to kind of plot out where he lived during his writing years and where stories are set.
I also enjoy the Reader function. This is a very awesome tool for traveling souls! I can upload books right to that reader and then open it up where ever I am. I think if we could get more books in this function then this could be the sole means for reading class. This would mean that the LA/Reading teachers would need labs for classrooms but who wouldn't want that! I think this could save schools money in the log run however with ordering books especially of the classics nature.
I think the only limitation for the google tools will be the lack of computer access both at school and at home. There are still some families that do not have computers at home or do not have internet access. It is also hard to get into the labs at school on a regular basis unless you plan a month or more out so that you can arrange your lab times. I think that working in a 1 to 1 school would be fantastic with the google tools options.
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I was interested by what you said reguarding the expense of labs versus books. The money issue is always the first thing to come up when technology is mentioned. We don't even have student computer hook-ups in most of our rooms! I think it would be amazing to have all the books, including textbooks, on-line so that students can better interact with their text. Convincing schools to see the long-term savings could be the issue over the short term expense.
ReplyDelete"One-to-one" schools, where each student is issued a school owned laptop, may be the best option to avoid the division of students with or without computers at home. You still run into the internet problem, but there are ways to download specific pages for those students. Google tools could be helpful in managing these concerns in that they are user friendly and you can use varuous formats with a small number of studnets or the entire group.
I was also thrilled by the Google tools allowing us to never again fight the "I forgot it at home" battle! Yeah!
You both bring up a valid point about cost as it has to be considered, but the benefits have to be considered as well.
ReplyDeleteToo often costs plays too big of a role in decision making.
I am not a teacher yet so had not even thought about the whole lack of Internet at home aspect. I guess it is something that I really take for granted. Even if I didn't have it at home, almost all of the buildings on campus are wired.
ReplyDeleteI really hope to get a job in a school that is wired because I think the Google docs is a great way to do collaborative work.
I also have wasted hours messing around with the map feature and the satellite images. I apparently had to look at the satellite picture of every place that I had ever been. Then I tried to find national landmarks.
Early this semester, my 8th grade students did a research paper. They spent many days researching for their paper. They found many useless websites and few helpful ones. If I had known about the Google search feature, they would have found many more interesting and relevant websites. I will definitely keep this in mind for the next research paper. Also, with the same paper, some students "forgot" their paper at home, had computer issues, didn't save properly...Now I know how to get around those problems: use Google Docs.
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