Google in the Classroom

Google Docs

Watch this video to see google docs in action.

This video shows how google docs can quickly be shared and changes in minutes with the use of multiple editors. (Though the content does not relate to school curriculum the concept does.)


In the classroom....
Use google docs to write a collaborative write along story. The teacher or a student can write the first paragraph of a story, then share it with another student who adds on the next paragraph, who shares it with another student- this process can continue through the entire class or just a specific group of students. By the end, the students will have a very interesting story. Another added bonus, when students are adding their own paragraphs they can also go back an edit what has already been written. Google keeps track of all the changes made to the document and who made the changes. This story is never completely finished it is always a working document that can be changed.

Google Forms

Google forms is a part of Google doc. When in Google docs, click on create new and then click on forms.

To the left is an screen shot of all the types of questions you can include in your form. Once you create the form, added participants email addresses and sent it off. Now all you have to do is wait for their response. Once participants complete the survey their responses are automatically summarized in a spreadsheet for easy analysis. You have skipped all the steps to input the data and can quickly see the results.

In the classroom...
In Math or Science students can create a project or experiment that they need to collect data for multiple people. For example as students begin to learn about graph they can collect data to figure out what students like, dislike and want to change about school lunches. With the information collected in Google Forms students can evaluate the spreadsheets and create their own graphs to present the data they gained in the survey.

Google Presentations

No more fusing with flashdrives, email attachments and formatting not showing up. Log onto your Google presentation from any computer with Internet access. Also as with Docs, presentations can have multiple editors for collaboration.


In the classroom...
For a Kindergarten or 1st grade classroom, they could create a collaborative presentation about the four seasons. The teacher divides the students into four groups, one for each season. Then each season is divided into two groups, one group creates a slide about activities that occur during that season and the other creates slides about how people dress during that particular season. To learn about the other seasons, students can present their slides to the class.

Google Sites

Google sites let you make websites that can be viewed by everyone or only the people you invite to the site. The owner of the site is also able to control who can edit the site and who can just view the site.


In the classroom...
Incorporate a daily scribe into your classroom. The scribe will write a summary of what happened during the day on the classroom Google sites page. Each day a different student will be able to post their opinions and observations about what is going on in the classroom. Parents can also be invited to see the page and read about what is happening in the classroom. You can also set it up so other students in the class who are not the scribes can respond to the daily posts. This summary of the day is an active way for students to reflect on the important topics that were discussed and will reinforce what they are learning.

Another idea for Google sites is to keep an ongoing glossary (could be specific to a subject or topic). If you create a science glossary students could add science words they feel are important words to remember. This should be a list of words that the students come up with, not a list of words assigned by the teacher. Let the students become responsible for their own learning. Challenge them to add words but do not give specific words for each student to add. Student can also add on to other students definitions. Within the definitions students can add images or links to help other students gain a deeper understand of the word.

Interview of students who are using Google Apps.