Brandy Milson

INST 6037 Advanced Applications of Technology

Dr. Rice

Title: Using Google Applications to Enhance Classroom Instruction

Educational Purpose: The instructional goal for this unit is to familiarize teachers with the free

Google applications that are available that can enhance classroom instruction such as Google

sites, Google Docs, Google News, Google Maps, Google Videos, Google Images, Google

Trends, Google Scholar, Google Voice, and Google Translator.

Learning Objectives:

1. After listening to this instructional audio podcast, students should be able to describe

the various tools that Google offers that can be used for instructional purposes.

2. After listening to this instructional audio podcast, students should be able to apply at

least two of the Google applications to an instructional unit of their choice.

Intended audience: Pre-service or in-service teachers

Intended Duration of the audio: 5-8 minutes

Departments that training is intended for: Professional development, Faculty Development

Recommendation for how audio should be utilized: It can be part of a webpage welcome or

used in the introduction of the workshop.

Script Approval: Human Resources Director, Training Director, Communications Director,

Curriculum
Learning Methodology: After learners have listened to the podcast they will complete a brief

informal quiz. There will be a short summary tutorial provided to learners that want to review the

content.

Content Outline:

Introduction

Name Brandy Milson

Topic Using Google Applications to Enhance Classroom Instruction

Learning Objectives:

1. After listening to this instructional audio podcast, students should be able to

describe the various tools that Google offers that can be used for instructional

purposes.

2. After listening to this instructional audio podcast, students should be able to

apply at least two of the Google applications to an instructional unit of their

choice.

I Why Google?

1. Accessibility

2. Free to schools because they are non profit

3. Easy to setup student and educator accounts. You can bulk create student

accounts via import from a .csv export of your school's student records; Google

even provides a simple tool to import your Outlook/other email software accounts

into Gmail

4. Google for Educators www.google.com/educators/index.html

5. The Infinite Thinking Machine

 a. Blog which gives suggestions for using Google

b. Highlights Elluminate interviews and workshops with instructional

designers such as George Siemens.

6. Tools for your classroom page which highlights search options, communication

options, and newly featured products which helps educators keep current with

new Google products

7. Google Apps Education Training Center

8. Google Teacher Academy-free professional development experience designed to

help primary and secondary educators from around the globe

Each academy is an intensive one-day event

hands-on experience with Google's free products and other technologies

receive resources to share with colleagues

Upon completion=Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn Google

for Educators Discussion Group- includes Google in your classroom, education

resources, current events, competitions, lesson plans, and more

9. Classroom Activities- divided by grade levels

II. Google Applications

1. Google sites- allows you to create portfolios or collections of information based

on a topic/

2. Google Docs allows you to store, share, edit, or publish documents, spreadsheets,

forms, drawings, and folders.

3. Google News- you can browse headlines from your favorite newspapers and

magazines, all on a single page or you can delve more deeply into the topics that

interest you most, by searching thousands of news sources at once.

You can also search archived news. As well as see real time opinions on articles by

others (which allows students to connect to the community) and provides instant

access to a variety of perspectives.

4. Google Maps/Earth- You and your students to look up and study addresses

anywhere in the U.S. and most other places. You and students can get point-to-

point, drag gable directions plotted on an interactive street map

5. Google Videos You can find videos to complement any lesson you're teaching by

using the Google Video search tool, downloading the videos you find appropriate

and burning DVDs for your students and/or emailing links for them to watch the

videos online in their own time.

You can even create your own videos (or have students create them as class projects)

and upload them to the Google Video site, where anyone from your class to their

family and friends can watch them anytime, from anywhere. 

(There are tutorials for upload and download videos and burn DVDS)

6. Google Images (Some school filter systems prevent) you can use images for a

variety of lesson plans or student projects. Remember to follow copyright

guidelines and fair use guidelines. Students must also be taught fair use

guidelines and appropriateness of use.

7. Blogger (Some school filter systems prevent) Teachers and students can create

blogs where they engage in self reflection assignments, writing assignments; build
 a collection of resources and more. LOTS of WIDGETS AVAILABLE to

increase the visual appeal and use of the blog.

8. Google Trends- you can use this application to track issues that are generating

the most search interests and compare results to polls. You can trace hot topics,

hot searches or search by categories. This can be useful in social sciences classes

or social studies courses.

9. Google Scholar-helps guide students to academic or more authoritative

articles. CAUTION: DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK

10. Google Pages-Teachers can even use a Google page creator. You can create

teacher web pages or students can create project web pages. (easy to publish,

free), student portfolios. Since Page Creator allows users to view the HTML code

of the pages they build, students can see how editing HTML code changes the

look and performance of their pages, instantly.

11. Knol –This is Google's answer to Wikipedia. It is structured somewhat

differently. Wikipedia has one page per topic but that limit is relaxed on Google

Knol – multiple authors can write on the same topic at different places. Anyone

can edit (most) pages on Wikipedia but with Knol you have an option to invite

only selected reviewers / experts to change pages that you have create. This gives

it an important advantage for educators.

12. Google Groups Provides learning communities for teachers using Google

applications, also provides learning communities where student can interact from

anywhere.

13. Picassa for Photo editing

14. Googlelittrips-This site is an experiment in teaching great literature in a very

different way. Using Google Earth, students discover where in the world the

greatest road trip stories of all time took place...

15. Google Sketch up- for 3 dimensional designs. Great for teaching kids to

construct 3D modes of buildings, animals, objects. You can use it as a standalone

or with Google Earth and 3Dwarehouse. There are lots of lessons on area and

volume that can be helpful to math teachers or science teachers or for Geography,

social studies, history and industrial technology. Theatre and film students can use

it to design mock sketches for sets.

16.   Google Book Search-like an electronic library. This is a great way to find new

books for learners that can be accessed from anywhere. You can create your own

online library CAUTION: SOME BOOKS ARE LIMITED PREVIEW

17. Google voice-gives you a single phone number that rings all your phones, saves

you voicemail online, and transcribe voice mail to text. This can provide you a

number that you can give out, provide you with visual voicemail, forward a call to

multiple phones, and get sms messages after a missed call. This is great for

teachers and students to collaborate on projects or information. All US calls are

free.

18. Google Translator- this can be especially useful for learning languages and

interpreting text

19. Google Bookmarks-works just like Diigo or other social bookmarking sites

20. Gmail calendars and tasks- excellent for assignments. Teachers can upload

their class calendar for learners as well as other personal calendars.

 21. Google Notebooks- you can browse, clip, and organize information from across

the web in a single online location that's accessible from any computer. This can

be helpful when designing lesson plans, researching topics. You can do this while

still in your browser page (there is a tour that you can take to explore ways to use

Google notebooks and the NEAT thing is that you can export notebook pages into

Google docs or export as HTML for a web page. HOW IS THAT FOR

INTEGRATION?? Like OneNote you can collaborate with others on your

notebook. You can also publish your notebook as a webpage.

III. Potential Projects There are Lesson plans provided on the Google Education center

that use each of the Google Applications for suggestions and they are separated by grade levels.

CONCLUSION

Educators are going GOOO GOOO for GOOGLE.

CLOUD computing,

Flexibility,

Access from anywhere

Authentic problems

Data management,

This is barely the tip of the iceberg for Google applications that help educators and the

exciting part is that there are new ones being developed every day.

Placement of Audio within Moodle: I plan to place this audio podcast on the homepage of the

instructional unit.

Method a user may play the audio file

AUP file size

 Myrecording_one.aup 19KB

Myrecording_two.aup 17KB

WAV file size

Myrecording_one.wav 37.6 MB

Myrecording two.wav 34.9 MB

MP3 file size.

Myrecording_three.mp3 6.34 MB

Prefer form to use as a finished product: In this instance, I would first choose the MP3 and

then chose the wav. MP3 files are the smallest and most usable of multiple applications. MP3's

and Waves are most recognized format. An AUP file is only recognized by the program

audacity. MP3's and wav files are most than enough quality for most web pages and are therefore

the most often used formats.