Google in Education

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       I have been using Google ever since I first learned how to use the internet. I always knew that Google was the largest search engine in the world and any time I ever needed information I always turned to Google. Unfortunately though until the beginning of this semester I had no clue the extent of what Google had to offer me. Did you know that Google is more than just a search engine? I didn't. But boy do I know now. As a future educator Google has so much to offer me. 

These are the top four resources that I think will benefit me most as a teacher.

1. Gmail- Free email offered through Google that connects to other Google web services. As a       teacher staying connected is important and I will be using email to keep in touch with my colleagues and the parents of my students.
2. Drive- (I don't mean in a car) Google drive offers up to 5GB of free storage space on the internet.  It also allows you to create documents, presentations, forms, drawings, and spreadsheets and store them. As an educator I can use Drive to store and create almost anything I need and it allows me to share whatever I want with others. 
3. Blogger- (Hint: I'm using it right now) blogger is a free weblog publishing tool that is provided by google. I can use Blogger as a way to share my ideas with others or to get ideas from others by following their blogs. I can also use it as a way to keep a personal journal of observations and reflections through out my teaching career.
4. Google+- Google+ is the social networking site that is offered by Google and it makes sharing information even easier. It provides a way for me to stay connected with other teachers and I can post my blog or anything I create with Google Drive on my profile to share it with others.

       Another great thing about google is that all of it's resources are connected. If you sign up for a free Gmail account you don't have to sign up to use Drive or Blogger or any other service. You automatically have those resources at your disposal after you sign up for Gmail. I think that Gmail is the most valuable service provided by Google because it connects me to all the other services.

Google also offers resources such as: Images, Earth, Calendar, YouTube, and Reader. All of these resources can be used in education and I plan on using them as an educator.

       I've already had ideas of how I can use Google to benefit my teaching career. I can create quizzes and presentations using Google forms in Drive, use Reader to keep the educational blogs I follow in one spot, and use YouTube to help differentiate my instruction in the classroom.

Simply put...

I love Google! I can't say enough good things about it! With that being said, I am still learning about all that Google has to offer me and how I can use it in my profession but so far I am very impressed and satisfied with all the services that Google offers me. 

Here is great blog I found that has links to guides for every Google service. So if you ever aren't sure how to work a Google service or what you can use it for just look it up in this guide. http://googleservicesguide.blogspot.com

Or Google it!

-- Life-Long Learner

Presentations.. Keep It Simple

      Presentations are used in almost every field of work. They are a great way to really drive a point home. As an educator I will be using presentations regularly to teach so learning how to build an effective presentation will be an important skill for me to learn.
      I didn't realize how there are different structures for presentations until I read 5 Quick Ways to Structure a Presentation by Nick Morgan. This article gave 5 simple structures that can be used for almost any presentation on any subject. I also greatly benefited from the article Top Ten Slide Tips by Garr Reynolds. I completely agreed with everything he said in his article. I have sat through some very boring presentations in my life but I have also sat through some very interesting presentations and the interesting presentations followed most of Reynolds tips. While I was researching information on presentations I found this article which is similar to Reynolds article but it gives a little bit different perspective on some of the tips and more advice on how to build a great presentation. I also found an article by Meryl K. Evans that had links to several great presentations that I can use as inspiration when I am building presentations. Another website that is great for building presentations is Prezi.com. It gives people a new way to present information and is more interactive than a regular Powerpoint. As a teacher I would like to try and utilize prezi because I think it would be more engaging for children at the elementary level.
      When I prepare presentations for my classroom or other activities I will make sure to keep it simple, make it visually stimulating, limit texts, and make sure it is interesting and applicable to my students and the topic I'm teaching. Children don't always have long attention spans. Actually most adults don't even have long attention spans so keeping these key principles in mind will help keep my students attention and keep them engaged in my lessons.
 
--Life-Long Learner

Images in Education

     Images are a great resource that can be used in classrooms today. One of the great things about using images in the classroom is that it can be used for all ages. It can be used as an introduction to a specific topic or a teacher could show a picture of a historical figure that the student's are learning about or it can illustrate a key concept that the teacher is trying to get across. When I was in Kindergarten our assignment for every letter we learned was to find pictures in magazines at home that started with that specific letter and cut them out and glue them onto a page. This is a great example of how images can be used in the classroom. Now with digital cameras much more can be done because digital images can be taken and be uploaded instantly and used in the classroom. This article, 100 Ways to Use Digital Cameras is a resource that I think will be very useful for me as a future educator. It lists 100 different ways that you can utilize digital cameras in your classroom. I thought that all these ideas are good suggestions and the fact that there are 100 suggestions gives you a variety of choices. I also found this wiki page through Pinterest that gives suggestions for how to use media in the classroom. It has links for images and videos and gives suggestions for how to use them in the classroom for different grades. The image I used for this blog post I found by using the creative commons search engine and I found it on pixabay.com which is a great website for images that are available for use in your classroom under the creative commons license. I plan to use images in my classroom so I feel like these resources will be very useful to me.

--Life-Long Learner