This week our assignment was to write a review of a social media site that could be used to benefit distance learning education. I chose to create a presentation about Google Drive because I have been integrating Google Drive and its products into my curriculum at work so that I can help my students on their projects even when they aren't in school.
One of the greatest challenges in teaching is that there never seems to be enough time to do everything that I want to do. In the past, projects used to take a long time because I would have to find class time to devote, especially if the students were expected to work in groups. However, for the last two years I have taught my students how to use Google Drive and how to share their document with their partners and myself. The document sharing comes in handy when they go home and work on their project at home. Students can log on to their project synchronously or asynchronously, edit their work, and communicate with one another through comments. Furthermore, I can check on the students' work from home or on my phone and leave comments about what they are doing well and what they need to fix. The fact that the projects are saved on Google insure that no one forgets their work at home. Furthermore, I can also view the revision history and see if everyone is doing their fair share of a project.
Google Drive has become a very useful tool in my classroom. I enjoy it for all of the above mentioned benefits but what slightly surprised me was how much my students enjoy it as well. They think it is a wonderful tool and get very excited when I tell them we are going to use Google Drive. This past week, we did a project about the Hawaiian Islands and instead of having each group make a poster of their Hawaiian Island, like every other year, I had each group make a simple presentation. I created a simple template for each group, shared it with them, and told them that all I expected them to do was type in their information and add a few pictures because this was only the second time we used Google Presentation. (The first time was a drag and drop activity.) However, as the presentations took shape I was surprised that the groups figured out on their own how to change the background theme and some even include transitions! Each group worked on some of their presentation in school and the rest at home. I could see comments being left for each other as well. (Although, some of the comments were a bit too playful in nature.) I am excited about this new development and impressed by how quickly my students have picked up and adopted Google Drive.
In the future, I plan to use Google Drive a lot more in my teaching. I hope as time goes on, that the rest of the teachers in my grade level and then in my school will come to adopt Google Drive in their curriculum as well. I've told my students that the main reason why I am teaching them Google Drive is because I predict they will have to use Google Drive or some similar tool to communicate and collaborate with others when they are in college and in the work place.
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