It has not just revolutionized the way we search on the Internet, but also made education more fun and relevant in today’s technology-dependent world. With Google Apps, teachers and students can set up their own account and use Gmail, Google’s instant messenger GTalk to chat with teachers and fellow students in real time, synchronize their calendars so that they’re able to keep up with educational events, lectures, tests and discussions, and use videos for real-time lessons or conference study sessions when they’re not able to get together in one room.
If teachers are apprehensive about providing students with their own email and chat ids, the administrator has the option of turning these off, as well as any other applications that they feel are not suitable. One particularly useful aspect of Google Apps is the document sharer Google Docs which lets you share documents. This is great for working on shared projects where each student has edit and/or read options depending on their status in the group.
Another good tool is Google Sites that allows you to create your own class site where you can upload all the latest information and news that can be read and accessed by students from within the application. Google Sites is also a great tool for developing your own wikis, mini knowledge databases that are filled with information and data relevant to your learning and education.
Google Apps is a great way to stay in touch even if your students are scattered over the country or across the world, as in a distance education class. They help keep track of assignments, lectures and discussions and encourage collaboration between students and teachers.
The best part of schools and other educational institutions using Google Apps is that there are new and innovative uses being thought of for this technology. Students are getting more and more creative and utilizing this tool to enhance the way they and their friends learn and develop on a personal level and as a group. And so we see how technology becomes a great asset in the hands of the right people who know how to harness its power and derive the maximum benefits from it.
By-line:
This article is written by Kat Sanders, who regularly blogs on the topic of top online engineering degree at her blog The Engineering A Better World Blog. She welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: katsanders25@gmail.com.
Teaching in the information age requires that teachers stay ahead of the curve when it comes to technology, or they risk being left out of the loop. Using the internet and staying informed via the information superhighway should by now be a part of your daily routine. Email has long since replaced the paper memo in your mailbox, and every classroom should have at least one computer, if not many more.
Students in this day and age are more than likely far more technologically advanced than their predecessors, and therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we use a medium than they are familiar with in order to convey information. Rather than utilizing social media as a means to an end, however, creating a class blog allows you to be in control of the flow of information and stay in touch with students without invading their space.
Highlight Major Points of Lessons
In the form of a daily recap, teachers can use blogs to record the day’s events so that students can revisit the lesson or topics covered in class. This is not to say that you must write out the entire lesson by any means. Write out key points and objectives so that students can refresh their memories or see what they missed if they were absent.
Extra Credit Opportunities
Get students involved outside of class by offering extra credit to those who participate in online discussions. Perhaps hidden information or a trivia question of the day is a good way to keep student traffic flowing toward your site. Opening up discussion forums on your blog and monitoring what students are saying is a great way to get feedback on your lessons and subject matter as well.
Provide Presentations and Notes
If you regularly use technology in your lessons, posting these files for download on your blog is an excellent resource for students. Allowing students to access and download notes and Power Point presentations gives them an edge when it comes to studying for your class. Additionally, doing this helps cut down on copies and class time used for arbitrarily copying down notes.
Open Up Communication
In addition to providing a forum where students can communicate with one another regarding your course, you are also opening up valuable lines of communication between them and yourself. It is a great way to keep conversations going regarding assignments, grades, and tutoring opportunities as well.
Connect Students with Resources
You can enrich your students’ experience with your subject matter by providing them with links to other sites that reinforce the information they are receiving in your class. Virtual field trips, interactive games, and informational and instructional videos are among the things you can link your blog to. Let your students take ownership of their education by finding out more about a topic on their own with a little guidance from your blog.
By-line:
This article is contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who regularly writes on Become a teacher in California. She invites your questions at her personal email address: kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com.
A great teaching technique for engaging students, supporting language develop and addressing multiple intelligences is doing a Think Pair Share activity.
It’s easy to take something that you already do and transform it into a Think-Pair-Share. Occasionally I do Think-Pair-Share-Write activities and lately we’ve been playing with it as a Think-Pair-Share-Blog. The students love Think-Pair-Share activities and it engages a wide range of learners in the discussion. It doesn’t take any additional time to make. Here’s how to do it.
Think-Pair-Share-Write
1. Show students one question. It can be from a textbook, handout or overhead.
2. Have them think about it quietly, providing adequate “wait time.” (This is often around 7 second, which can feel like eternity sometimes.)
3. Then have them pair up with someone to discuss the idea.
4. Let students share their responses with the class.
5. Students write their responses.
6. Repeat the process with another question.
Think-Pair-Share-Blog
I have one computer in the class.Before class, enter one of the questions on the class blog site. I do the exact same process as above, and have one student enter the response onto the blog.
Choosing who gets to blog:
1. Sometimes I just pick a student. Since they’ve thought about it, discussed it in pairs and heard from the class, the quality of the answer is usually fairly reliable.
2. Several students will “share” with the class and I write down their names and an abbreviated response. The class votes with their fingers on the response they prefer. One finger for the first response, 2 for the second and so on. I usually only have 2-3 students share out.
Check the video I made showing the Think-Pair-Share hand signals that the originator of the Think-Pair-Share method, Dr. Frank Lyman, uses. I actually knew Dr. Lyman when I was a student in high school county student government. He worked at the Howard County Office of Education in Maryland. 20 years later I met him again when he spoke at my master’s program at the University of Maryland at College Park. I didn’t know that he created both “Think-Pair-Share” and “wait time.” How cool is that!
My students love Think-Pair-Share activities. I’m not sure which they like more the activity or the hand signals. I know the hand signals are a big hit with them.
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It’s one thing to set up a class blog, which by the way is quite simple. It’s a completely different thing to get traffic to your blog. (Read my post on “Starting a Class Blog” for more information on getting started.)
Subscriptions
An easy way to keep your students “posted” on important class news is to add a subscription button to your blog and require that your students subscribe. I use a free service called Feedburner. Open an account and and activate it. Click the “Publicize” tab on top, click on “Email Subscriptions” then follow the directions about cutting and pasting the box into your blog.
There are videos and additional tutorials if you click on “Blogs”. I went to “How does it work?” and watched the video about the different Feedburner features and then clicked on the link “get started.”
Subscription Options
When you get to Feedburner’s email subscription page there are two options: “subscription form code” and “subscription link code.” I did a subscription link code, which allowed me to put a button on the sidebar of my blog where people can subscribe. (See the subscription button on this blog for an example.) If you use the subscription form code, people are required to subscribe before they are allowed access to the site.
Wordpress Bloggers
For wordpress.com bloggers, once you open a Feedburner account, email button is added by clicking on “Presentation,” “Sidebar Widgets,” then drag a “Text” box from the bottom into the “Sidebar Widgets” box. Then follow the directions from Feedburner on what to type into the text box.
Email Subscription Advice
You can check your Feedburner account to see who has subscribed to your blog. Once a student subscribes they need to respond to an automatically generated response letter to confirm the subscription. Make sure you let them know that they need to activate the account. I gave them a week to subscribe to accommodate for technology problems or access issues.
Expectations Around Class Blog Posts
Every time you post a blog, your students will receive the post in their in-boxes. Set up the expectation around how to use the blog as an educational tool. I don’t require my students to read every post. I figure that since they love being on the computer and they check their email accounts regularly, that they will read some of the posts. If you need your students to regularly check the email, then state that as a requirement or expectation.
Things to Know About Comments from Blog Subscribers
Since the post is sent as an email, it doesn’t lend itself as much to students commenting. I was wondering why I kept getting emails instead of comments on the blog so I clicked on one of the blog posts and verified that there isn’t a comment button on the emails they receive.
If you want students to comment on the emailed posts, they can click on the title of the post and it’ll take them directly to the blog page where they can comment. If you want comments, let you students know how to post comments. That’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow in class.
I also recommend that you subscribe to your own blog. It’s a good idea to see what’s being sent out and to catch if anything is buggy.
Internet Safety and Blog Comments
If your students are minors, remind them to only use their first name or their first name and the first letter of their last name. You can also have them use their first name and the period or class you teach them so it’s easier for you to keep track of who is commenting.
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