Google Suite

Since we moved to Google Drive I have slowly been moving my material to it. I also use a dropbox account to save many of my things. I really like that I can easily share assignments, notes, and labs with the students. Another thing that I have found helpful with using Google Suite is that they are easy to upload to Google Classroom and any changes that I make will be saved to not just my document but also what I gave to the students.

The assignment below is an example that I will assign next year in Classroom so each student has their own copy that I will have access to view as they work on it.

Critter Paper

The only down side to some of the Google suites is in the conversion from Microsoft word to Google. Some of the things that I have set up in word seem to be difficult to make look good in Google. Especially since they do not offer columns in Google Docs.

I have an example below of a lab I have done in the past for students to test for different macromolecules that make up living things. It is a multi day lab and has a lot of data tables and directions. When I uploaded it to google it got a little messy, many gaps which can be hard to fix.

Who Took Jerells Ipod Lab

• How will you use your Google Drive in your teaching practice?

I will be using drive to make my assignments available on Google Classroom. I also like that I will be able to check on students work as they work on long assignments. I will be able to give them feedback before they are done so that they can make corrections as they go. My biggest challenge will be to get many of my smart board presentations turned into Google slides. This takes a couple of extra steps I am learning and not all of my pictures and links always get transferred.

• How could cloud computing be a useful tool in your classroom?  

Cloud computing will be useful in reducing the amount of paper that I use in the classroom. I also like the idea of students typing up large assignments. I would like to find a way to be able to assign different things to different students in Google Classroom to help with differentiation. I noticed last year that there were some assignments that I had my advanced students doing that I would of liked to assign to a few of the students in my regular class. If I could do this discreetly in Google Classroom that would be awesome!

• What are the pros and cons of using it with students?

I like that it saves their work automatically and that they can share it with me so we can cut down on paper. I think having the students to group or partner projects using Google Suites will be nice because then you can "see" who is adding to the information.

Some of the cons would be how to get access to the students who maybe still do not have a device at home to access the work, and making sure that I am flexible with allowing them other ways to get the work done.