How can the Google suite of tools help you to organize information and how can the Google suite of tools be used for education? What is the “paradigm flip” that the article suggests should occur in classrooms and school libraries?
I have been using gmail for about 6 years now and have not really taken advantage of all that it is worth. Exploring the Google suite of tools have opened up my eyes to all that I can do as a teacher in the classroom. I know Google is on the forefront of innovation online but going through iGoogle has enlightened me completely. I am ready to take my teaching methods to the next level. Reading through the article titled "Flip This Library" http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6610496.html has totally made me want to take my school to the next level of education. As I have stated in my earlier blog, I will be new to the campus but I feel that learning all of this new information about how Google can reinvent the way schools can function, I can bring a new light to the staff and students in the entire school. I pray that I have the boldness to take on this incredible task of changing the way students can learn in this technological world.
Within my classroom I can use iGoogle to organize everything that I use. Instead of having a desk calendar, I use Google Calendar which I can link to other peoples calendars. The whole campus can be linked to the same calendar online using Google Calendar. I think that would be awesome and would save a ton of paper. I think that using iGoogle to connect a campus staff, students, and parents can save a tremendous amount of paper. Also using Google Docs will give me the ability to create different kinds of curriculum geared towards special education students that I can share with others throughout the campus and district. The possibilities are endless in iGoogle and I am very excited to explore and set up my Google home page that works for me. I am in the process of creating a web-page for my classroom using sites.google.com that I will give access to parents and students to see what is going on in my classroom. It will be private, creating safety for my students and give the parents a peace of mind knowing that only the people that I give access to this site are the only ones who can see the content.
Back to the article stated above, the paradigm flip that should occur within our schools is that all of the school's staff should work together to create a unified network of individuals working together for the success of ALL students. It gives the students freedom to control their own electronic environment but at the same time, it is censored controlled allowing the students to be able to roam the internet using clean web-pages. Student book clubs can be created using blogs to discuss books. Books can be downloaded to personal reading devices instead of being checked out in the library allowing multiple students to read the same book simultaneously. Students cam be broken into teams to work on the same project using a blog to discuss their progress when they are not together and a staff team (teachers, librarians, etc.) can coach the teams throughout the project. There is so many options using this learning model, the possibilities are endless and I am excited to see if it catches fire on my campus this coming fall.
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