Google has a number of Apps that are created for education and are updated regularly. Google's staff is great about listening to suggestions from teachers about how to make their apps better, and for that reason, oversights are few and ease of use is great. Perhaps one of the best features of Google's G Suite for Education Apps- along with them being web-based and easily processed on a Chromebook ( which many schools currently use 1:1) is that they are all capable of real-time collaboration. This makes these apps invaluable in a 21st Century classroom. We LOVE Google Apps for Education.

What's in your Waffle?

Google Drive is your could-based storage for all things Google. The best part about Google Drive? You can access it from anywhere. Another best thing about Google Drive? You can collaborate with shared drives!

Google Docs is a word processing application that is great for collaboration. The platform is similar to most other word processing platforms such as Microsoft's Word or Apple's Pages.Use this app to provide real-time feedback to your students.

Templates:

  • View templates to use and modify for personal and classroom projects

  • Google Templates: Virtual Copy Machine

  • If you are looking for structure with your digital assignments, the Google Template may help. Templates are an easy and efficient way to provide students with a starting point for a project. You can save time and guide the learning by providing students with a consistent page format. If you’re looking for an easy and efficient way to provide students with a starting point for a digital project then a Google Docs template is like a virtual copy machine.

  • There are plenty of user-submitted templates already created and available for public use.

Try This :

  1. Go to the Template Gallery

  2. Search the categories

  3. Click 'Preview' to view the template

  4. Click 'Use this Template' and the document will be added to your Drive.

  5. Here is just one of many articles with popular templates:

The 6 Most Popular Google Docs Templates for Teachers

Making Your Own Template

Why would you want to use a Template instead of sharing the link to a Google Doc?

Let's say you are assigning short answer questions for homework. You have created a Google Doc with the questions... we used to call this a worksheet. To distribute the document to your students you share the link to the doc with your students. Your students are to click on the link and then 'save as' a new document so that they can add their original answers and re-submit to you.

Problem #1: Quite often you will get 'I didn't have permission to make a copy, it was in 'read only' mode. This doesn't happen every day, but when it does it's a bummer.

Problem #2: If the students have access to your document then they could make changes.

Solution: Make Your Own Template

  1. Open your Google Drive and find the Document that you want to turn into a template.

  2. Click on the Document and Go to the top of the page and click 'More'.

  3. Click on "Submit to Template Gallery"

  4. Go to your templates in drive: Google Drive Templates

  • Sites, offers MANY opportunities for teaching and learning.

  • Google sites is one of the easiest ways to publish a working website. It's free and has many features.

  • Teachers can use Sites as a learning hub- adding links and resources for students to access asynchronously.

  • Teachers can also assign students the task of creating a website to replace a journal or portfolio of the past- this extends the opportunity for students to add much more than ever before to their work.

  • Teachers can assign a class website where in students collaborate to create an end product.

  • Check out: Teacher's Guide on the Use of Google Sites in the Classroom for some more tips and tricks.

You can get real-time stock quotes, charts, and financial news with Google Finance.

This could be a great app to incorporate into a math, or business class such as personal finance.


Book Search works just like web search. Try a search on Google Books or on Google.com. When [Google] find[s] a book with content that contains a match for your search terms, [Google will] link to it in your search results.

Google Meet is a video-conferencing app that allows for multiple parties to access the conference through a shareable link. There are options such as sharing a screen and chatting built in to the application.

Google Arts & Culture offers educators a way to open the door to experiences that would never before be possible. Google Arts & Culture is linked to countless museums and historical sites. Many of these can be viewed in 3D. Students can take virtual field trips to places that would normall be out of reach. Easily integrate this platform into many different courses.

  • Google Drawing allows users to create their own digital drawing.

  • This is great for student projects- a plain old poster can now become an interactive hyperlinked, display.

  • Easy to use!

  • Embed pictures, shapes, and text as well as links to other sites.

  • Google Drawing for Graphic Organizers Google Drawing is like having the Smart Notebook software on your Chromebook!

  • Calendar automatically to Google Classroom

  • You can use multiple calendars on the same main Calendar (meetings, assignments, appointments, birthdays) all in one place

  • You can set up reminders for any time before any meeting or due date

  • You can embed Calendar into your own site

  • You can share your Calendar with your students

  • You can use Calendar to set-up appointment slots with your students

  • You can use Calendar to sign up for spaces within your buildings *for instance Back Tables LMC

  • You can send Google Meet Invitations for meetings directly through a created Calendar event

  • You can sent emails to attendees through Calendar

  • There's MORE, that Calendar can offer... you just have to explore

  • Blogger is a great resource and is located right in your waffle!

  • Students can use Blogger as a way to organize a writing journal.

  • You can use Blogger as an educator as an alternative to a newsletter- a more exciting way to get your news out to your parents/guardians and the community.

  • You can Purchase a Jamboard for your school! This is an interactive whiteboard that students can collaborate on in real time from their computers. They're a little pricey- but a great tool for any school.

  • Gallery Walks were never so awesome!

  • This is another tool that Google offers- where the sky is the limit- and allows the educator to have the mindset that "if you can think it, you can do it!" Jamboard really is one of the best NEW Tech from Google.

  • Insert images, text, comments, and sticky notes to collaborative frames to add to a Jamboard.

  • Students can see what their peers are doing while working on their own frame.

  • Jamboard offers a great end of unit/ concept share out opportunity that allows peers to learn from each other while educators can assess student understanding.

  • Jamboard is VERY easy to use. Would be great for elementary students, too!

Known as a light weight LMS, Google Classroom is a learning hub with a ton of options for presenting information to students.

  • post assignments

  • has built-in calendar to help students with due dates

  • add questions right from the stream

  • keep track of grades, add rubrics, and add feedback

  • invite guardians and parents to join the classroom and keep them in the loop

  • Post updates and reminders

  • Post assignments

  • Post materials

Join our Google Classroom for some more Google Apps tips and tricks: Introduction to Chromebooks and the Google Suite 101.

Google forms is a great assessment tool. You can make any form into a quiz- add an answer key and viola- Google Forms will grade it for you. Google forms is also great for surveys and check-ins and has different options for seeing results such as pie charts, individual results or total results as well as the ability to export to a spreadsheet (Google Sheet). It's a super versatile tool and you'll find yourself using it over and over again.

Google sheets is a great tool to help analyze data, sort information, and keep track of student growth. There are so many different charts that you can create from the data entered with just the click of a button. Drag and drop information from one cell to another to easily sort through grades and/or students and even rank them. Track different groups of students using named sheets at the bottom of the page. Great for field trips, survey results, ranking, sign up duties, class parties, and more!

Language Arts / English:

  • Have students use google sheets as reading logs and put the page # on the left and the question. Students can leave a space in the third column for answers and share the file with others, etc. Students can keep reading logs, track of books and a list of what they read. Perhaps keep an ongoing book ranking list. Students can recommend books and add a column to rate books using 1-5 stars and more!

  • Google Slides is a slide deck/ presentation application.

  • Google Slides is another one of Google's great collaborative tools.

  • Google Slides offers a way for teachers to present information to students, or their co-workers, & parents/ guardians

  • Google Slides works with extensions like Nearpodize- a way to turn Google Slides into an interactive presentation

  • Google Slides can easily be embedded with YouTube videos and images to make slides interactive and exciting!

  • Google Slides can be used as an assessment tool- where students create a presentation to show what they know and are able to do

  • Google Slides can be used as a hub for student group work projects.

  • Google Earth is AWESOME - and has so many very exciting ways to engage students in geography and culture from all over the planet.

  • Google Earth is a great way to take students on a virtual field trip or scavenger hunt that can circumnavigate the globe, right from their living room.

  • Google Earth has different options for viewing different aspects of the Earth.

  • Google Earth has the capability to create "trips" which can be embedded with information from the various locations/ cultures/ geographical facts

  • YouTube is a tool for learning that has become invaluable.

  • Find lessons on just about any topic.

  • Makes it easy to Flip your Classroom

  • YouTube Channels and playlists can hold all your

  • YouTube YouTube offers so many excellent videos for students. The world is at your fingertips in a YouTube Search.

  • Consider using YouTube videos for differentiated instruction. Your own content can be uploaded to YouTube and edited there as well.

  • YouTube can be found in your Waffle and is compatible with programs like EdPuzzle and PlayPosit- where in you can embed questions right into the video for your students!

  • Students can create videos and upload them to YouTube for later access and to be global collaborators.

  • With Google Keep you can quickly capture what's on your mind and get a reminder later at the right place or time.

  • Speak a voice memo on the go and have it automatically transcribed.

  • This is yet another one of Google's collaboration tools.

    • Collaborate with classes

    • Collaborate with co-teachers

    • Collaborate with grade level teams

Google News is a news platform that has all the latest information- fit for what you're interested in viewing. This application is great for current events and can easily be worked into any class lesson! Think: a cultural event for Spanish studies, a scientific breakthrough for biology, a new anthropological study for social studies, or a new word entered into the Oxford dictionary for English class. The ideas are endless for the way that the real world can be integrated into authentic learning through Google News.

Google Translate is an awesome and easy to use application- great for ELL and world language classes. This can also help educators to communicate with parents and guardians for whom English is a second language.

Google photos keeps all your photos in easy to organize albums. Google photos is collaborative and can be used in a classroom in a few different ways. One thing Haley does with Google Photos: Assign a photo album to each class and have them take pictures of the board when notes or other important things are added. These photos can be accessed by anyone in the class- to review material and is especially useful for students who are absent! They can see the work as it's uploaded from that day.