Google Discussion and Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts, with its screenshare option, proved to be the perfect tool for a conversation with Mrs. Schmidt and Mrs. Olson.  The English teacher, Mrs. Schmidt, and the science teacher, Mrs. Olson, are collaborating on writing reflections pertaining to the annual science egg drop.

Mrs. Olson wanted to share hundreds of photos from the egg drop with students and decided that a Google Group would be a great place to put the link to her Picasa Web Album.  In addition, the Google Group is a great place for students to conduct prewriting comments and suggestions by student for students that Mrs. Schmidt provides.

Since the Google Group has a private setting, below is a screen shot of the number of views and comments.

The collaboration between staff/student and student/student also meets an ITLS Standard 2A, Skill 2B 

Google Groups For Informational Text Discussion

Mr. Anderson, Anatomy Teacher at PHS, wanted a means for online discussions of informational text.  The Google Groups has a number of great features that allows it to not distract learning, but only to enhance it.

• Usable on the iPad in Google Chrome
• Chromebook & Laptop User Friendly
• No need for additional username & password as we are a Google Apps For Education school
• Threaded conversation allows for quick replies to students or teacher
• Able to upload documents (informational text) for analyzing

View Mr. Anderson speaking of the process and see students using Google Groups...

Setting Up Google Groups - Video Tutorial


Video Link

ITLS Standard: 2 and Skill 2B

DEBATE? Google Groups Perfect Tool

As we continue to combine communication arts and social studies this year, a perfect marriage of the two contents comes in the form of debate and the U.S. Constitution.  We are setting up the great debate that is the writing of the Constitution by displaying proper debating techniques and discussing debate topics.

With this comes the opportunity to debate topics that are really not social studies related, but definitely topics that students can proclaim yes or no.

In order to "give every student a voice", I decided to try Google Groups.  I chose Groups because

• it was a closed, invite only forum that would allow our students to state their opinion without the entire world knowing.  
• a thread, reply type flow of conversation exists
• we are a GAFE 
• students didn't need to set up another account with another web service
• worked very smoothly on iPads

The Set Up:

• Create Your Group - keep private
• Invite members of class - used emails from contacts
• Edit my membership - all students should do this because they can read it on the web

View videos of Google Groups in action:

Conclusion:
We did openly talk about the different responses that students had by displaying the threads of responses on the SMARTboard.

Overall, Google Groups was a great tool for debating topics, worked well on the iPad, and engaged all students with a voice!