Student Collaboration with Google!

I am choosing to write about google drive/classroom/hangout.  I feel like there is a huge variety of other tools out there but almost everything you would ever need to do with student collaboration can be accomplished with the google apps.  I

Google docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, Blogger, You Tube and Draw (all part of google drive) allow students to create documents, slide show presentations, or posters/drawings, flow charts, diagrams, webquests, videos, questionnaires, etc.  With the “Share” feature, they are able to “send” the document/artifact to another student’s google account so that they can collaborate in real time on a project.  This allows for peer editing in and outside of class time, working on any type of group project, creating visuals, sharing websites, the list is endless.  Everything that each student contributes can be tracked by the classroom feature, so the teacher can see who did what on the project.  When web sources are used, google will automatically cite the webpage to the document, ensuring students are giving credit to sources and allowing other students in the group to see what their partners are using for resources.  When a student is away from class and the rest of the group carried on with a project, he or she can see what was completed and even work on it from home or anywhere, so they do not fall behind.  When students blog about their work, there is a fantastic opportunity for peer and teacher feedback.

If the class is involved with a Google Hangout with another group of students, those who miss the day when the hang-out happens can watch the recording of the event at a later date, or the discussion can be revisited by those who have the link later for any reason.

The other big advantage to Google is that all students can be set up through the board server with a g-drive providing an extra layer of privacy protection for students and staff.  Many of the free apps out there ask for student emails and names in order to set them up, and it is difficult to know which ones are safe in terms of protection of privacy.  Many apps sell user information to third parties who then use it for a variety of purposes.

Some examples of how I have used Google drive with my classes include, whole class editing of an Article Summary Assignment to model the process for the class.  A group of 6 students working on a slide show about the 6 main groups of Nutrients.  Planning sheets for my cooking class, each student signs up for the various tasks to be done in a Google Sheet prior to every cooking day.  Serves to create the groups and ensures everyone knows who is responsible for which tasks.  Peer editing of writing tasks such as essay questions, or journal entries.  Group discussions in a shared google doc, brainstorming in google drawing or blank google doc posted to my google classroom stream. Blogging about journal questions and commenting on each others' posts in Blogger.

I plan to use Google Hang-out later this term with my cooking class so they can communicate with the grade 4-5 class about what recipes they would like to make when they visit us for a cooking lesson at the end of the semester.

There are so many features to explore with each of the google apps, I am really trying to keep my life simple and stick with these for now.  I was intrigued by Bubble.us for mind mapping, and I can see many uses for Padlet as well, but it is really easy to get overwhelmed with educational apps so I have narrowed my focus and plan to stick with Google for the near future at least!