It is the world A.G. and Google is everywhere and scratching at the door of your classroom.  There is a community of teachers coming together at Google for Educators, where outstanding teachers post their activities, and focus on Google Tools particularly useful for education. To use these tools, you will need to open a Gmail account or register your current email with Google.

Collaboration and Communication    Publication and Global Connections    Digital Literacy, Life and Technology Skills

graphic from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Google Docs

Google Docs in Plain English by CommonCraft

General Benefits and Key Unique Features

• Online storage for documents created online or uploaded from your computer
• Access from anywhere
• Easily shared and all versions are saved and editors and recorded
• Many of the same features and shortcuts of Microsoft Office
  
• Can download all Documents, Spreadsheets & Presentations to your computer
• Can Edit offline and have your computer sync the documents once you have Internet access again
  
• Multiple people can edit and watch changes at the same time
• Automatic saves every 10 seconds to a minute
• All create a URL and embed code so you can place it or link to it from other documents
• Can insert gadgets (poles, calendar, funny things, games, videos)
• Schools can set up accounts for all students and control access to features
• Sunnyside & Vail are using it with students and are able to monitor student activity including email
  

Drawbacks

• Question of privacy and Google's rights to own and or be able to view your stuff
• Sharing can be difficult - people need to register with Google under their regular email account or create a Google Account
• People need to be Invited to documents in order to access them
  
• Only spreadsheets can be "shared with the world" and edited by anyone without signing in
• Things can go wrong and you always need a backup plan

Word Processing

• Text Editor with easy icon and menus to follow (WYSISYG -What you see is what you get)
• Easy to link to other online documents and include pictures that are hosted on the Web
• Insert function allows you to insert drawings, pictures, documents from your computer and more
• Templates are easily created and duplicated to assign to different groups
• Examples of Classroom Application
• Teacher creates a story starter and students collaborate to flesh it out
• Collaborative study guide (perhaps a teachers could give bonus points for the group with the best one)
• Students take notes together
• Submitting papers to teacher (has a time stamp and teacher can make suggestions that a student can see)
  

Presentations

• Focus on content because you cannot include sounds and transitions (at this point)
• Caution - do not change "Themes," just "Background"
• Speaker notes - allow you to keep the presentation simple while keeping details available with more explanation
  
• Examples of Classroom Application
• Teacher creates a template, duplicates and assigns it to students to complete
• Students review what was covered during class (with speaker notes visible)
  

Spreadsheets

• Can be edited by multiple people and each editor "possesses & locks" their cell so others cannot overwrite
  
• Can sort, use formulas and the standard features of a standard spreadsheet like multiple sheets
  
• Creates graphs 
• Love them!
• Examples of Classroom Application
• Classroom response system - students are giving input during class
• Spreadsheet students can edit at home
  

Forms

Multiple types of questions can be created
Creates a visual of results
Everything is sent to a spreadsheet where you can sort and edit

        http://spreadsheets.google.com/embeddedform?key=p3cW2Y-bfV5wrbeqgX1kleg

 

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p3cW2Y-bfV5wrbeqgX1kleg

 

Examples of Classroom Application

• Gathering basic student information (birthday, contact information, favorites, etc.)
• Surveying, allowing kids to anonymously answer controversial questions
• Lunch count
• Finding preferences, getting a class vote on an activity
• Elementary - teach the components of email and proper netiquette without having them send it
• Fast quizzes
• Submitting assignments
  
• Enrollment and registration
  

Google Earth (links to PimaRSC wiki)

Google LitTrips

SketchUp
SketchUp
Picasa
Google Search
Google Reader
Google Books & Scholar
Labs
Notebook
Gmail for Students & the cheat for creating temporary student accounts that feed you your gmail account.

The Cloud (or "Cloud Computing")
Articles:

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.^[8]The concept incorporates infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) as well as Web 2.0 and other recent (ca. 2007–2009)^[6][7] technology trends that have the common theme of reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. Examples include Salesforce.com, Google Apps or Windows Azure which provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

Tools for your classroom

Since we launched Google for Educators, many teachers have come to us with stories of how Google products are helping them in the classroom. Here, we'd like to share some of what we've heard about the products that comprise Google tools for educators, including three new products, Google News, Google Page Creator and Google Groups. And be sure to check out some examples of teacher work in the new classroom activities section. Lastly, we've added some handy tips posters, which you can print out and hang in your classrooms, computer labs and libraries.

Search			Communicate, show & share
	Book Search			Blogger
	Geo Education			Calendar
	News			Docs
	iGoogle			Groups
	Web Search			Page Creator (Labs)
				Picasa
				SketchUp
Newly featured products				Google Apps Education Edition
	Custom Search Engine
	Google Notebook

Browse all classroom activities »