Google Docs & Spreadsheets

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http://docs.google.com

Get the tool:

Google Docs & Spreadsheets

in the

_Classroom

Created by WestEd for Google

What is it?

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is an easy-to-use, online word processor and spreadsheet editor that enables you to create, store, share, and collaborate on documents and spreadsheets. If you know how to use any word processor or spreadsheet program, you can easily use Google Docs & Spreadsheets. You can even import your existing documents and spreadsheets.

Why use it?

Students can use Google Docs & Spreadsheets to: • Work on ﬁles anywhere, anytime

• Get quick feedback from multiple people • Make the full writing process visible • Demonstrate their mastery of editing skills • Quickly analyze and organize data

• Easily share data sets

Instructional Ideas

Elementary: Assign “Buddy Book Reports” where two students read the same book and collaborate on their ﬁ nal book report in an online document.

Middle School: Partner with a class at another school, enter data from the same science experiment in a spreadsheet, and compare the results online.

High School: In Economics, students can monitor and calculate their investment portfolio in spreadsheets when playing the “Stock Market Game.” Students can track speciﬁc stocks at different times of the day and share the data.

Expert Tip

Don’t like the latest changes

in your document? Role

back to earlier versions of

any document by clicking

on “Revisions”, select a

previous version, and click

the “Revert to this one”

button on the far right.

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Google Docs & Spreadsheets in Action

Project: Writing Portfolios

Grade/Subject: 9-12th, Journalism

School: Palo Alto High School, CA

In one high school journalism class, every student

keeps their entire writing portfolio on Google Docs &

Spreadsheets. The teacher checks and veriﬁ es which

assignments have been turned on a daily basis, and

easily monitors student progress over time by having

everything centrally located. More than just a library of

ﬁles, though, students use the online environment to

manage the entire writing process: share ideas, do peer

editing, create revisions, and publish their ﬁnal work. Best

of all, the teacher can easily track the development of each

writing assignment as the students work through multiple

revisions. As students seamlessly work on their writing at

home, school, at the library, and with their friends, there

have been noticeable improvements in the quality of their

writing.

Additional Resources

More Examples

Things to do with Google Docs & Spreadsheets http://www.nycwp.org/kenstein/2006/01/26 Track Reading Achievement

http://tim.lauer.name/2006/10/11/google-spreadsheets-to-track-reading-achievement/#comment-483

Complimentary Tools

Blogger

www.blogger.com

Fathom Dynamic Data Software http://www.keypress.com/x5656.xml

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http://pages.google.com

Get the tool:

Google Page Creator

Classroom

in the

What is it?

Google Page Creator is a free tool that allows anyone to easily create web pages without knowing any programming. There’s no software to download. Everything is done using simple web-based tools. Pages can include images, links, maps, calendars, and more.

Why use it?

Students can use Google Page Creator to:

• Create pages to share what they’ve learned.

• Organize and publish their personal portfolio.

• Create personal pages to share with their family and friends.

Teachers can use Google Page Creator to:

• Publish class handouts online for students and parents.

• Post annotated links as part of a WebQuest.

• Publish student work to share with the community.

• Create a curriculum library for other teachers.

• Publish an entire school website.

Instructional Ideas

Elementary. Create an online photo tour of a ﬁ eld trip Students write (or dictate) captions for each photo and then “re-tell” the adventure by taking their parents and relatives on a tour of the website.

Middle School. Students create websites introducing tourists to a ﬁctional country, detailing the climate & landscape, culture & history, important exports, and the form of government. Each section can be illustrated with pictures from CreativeCommons.org.

High School. Science students publish lab reports online include images from their experiments and links to other relevant scientiﬁc experiments. Parents are asked to view the pages at home and provide feedback.

Expert Tip

With the click of a button,

you can add maps,

calendars, photo albums,

news headlines, and more

to your website. Just click

on the “add gadget” link

in the lower right corner to

add dynamic content to any

page!

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Google Page Creator in Action

Project: Class Website

Grade/Subject: 7th Grade Math

School: James Workman Middle School, CA

URL: http://angiegallacher.googlepages.com/

This middle school math teacher uses Google Page Creator to publish instructional resources for her 7th grade math classes. She posts appropriate web links as well as presentations that map directly to each chapter in the textbook. She even has some brief instructional videos! She also uses the website to post classroom news and images of her students at work. The website serves as an active resource for her students, parents, and her colleagues, proving that you don’t need to be a programmer or designer to produce meaningful content.

Additional Resources

K-12 Education Websites Produced with Page Creator

Cabot Public School District

http://cabotcia.googlepages.com/

South Salem H.S. Music Boosters

http://dodimcdonald.googlepages.com/

Valerio’s Teacher Page

http://valerio10.googlepages.com/

Sweet Home Band Department

http://sweethomebands.googlepages.com/

Complimentary Tools

Get FREE images from Creative Commons

http://search.creativecommons.org/

Add “wikis” for greater collaboration

http://www.wikispaces.com http://www.jotspot.com

Get an email list with Google Groups

http://groups.google.com

Add a calendar to your page

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http://news.google.com

Get the tool:

Google News

in the Classroom

What is it?

Google News brings together news from thousands of different sources from around the world in one place. With Google News you can quickly browse the top stories or easily search for a speciﬁc topic. “Personalize” your news page to see only the stories that interest you most, or have customized “new alerts” sent directly to your email!

Why use it?

Students can use Google News to:

• Compare and contrast current events from a variety of sources.

• Find primary documents related to historical events over the past 200 years.

• Access the news from their mobile phones – no computer

Expert Tip

Create your own

personalized newspaper!

Click “Personalize this

page”, then “Add a custom

section” with your own

keywords. Once set up,

your new section has its

own RSS feed that can be

seen in any RSS reader

- including your Google

Personalized Homepage.

lab required.

Teachers can use Google News to:

• Customize their front page to stay informed on topics they teach.

• Quickly show students how to examine bias and reliability in the news.

Instructional Ideas

Elementary. Find a top news story from a different country each day of the week and save a photo related to the article. Write brief captions for each photo and assemble them in a poster called, “The World This Week.”

Middle School. Have students compare and contrast articles on a single event from different sources, such as the The New York Times, The Guardian Unlimited in the UK, and The People’s Daily Online in China.

High School. In foreign language classes, start each day reading aloud or translating a top news story from an appropriate foreign news source.

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Google News in Action

Project: Current Events Exchange

Grade/Subject: High School / History & Government

Location: Galileo Academy of Science and Tech, CA

URL: http://www.galileoweb.org/arquillos3/

Students exchange their ideas about recent current events for their high school social studies classes. Students explore a wide variety of Internet news stories from different sources and post summaries and opinions online for other students to view. In the process, students practice research, evaluation of sources, synthesis, formulating opinions, and publishing for an authentic audience.

Additional Resources

More News Sites for Students Information Literacy

NY Times Learning Network The Big Six

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/ http://www.big6.com

Scholastic News Online November Learning

http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/ http://novemberlearning.com/Default.aspx?tabid=160

CNN Student News EduTopia’s Information Literacy Primer

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http://groups.google.com

Get the tool:

Google Groups

in the Classroom

What is it?

Google Groups is a free, online service that helps groups of people easily share information and communicate effectively. Groups are public or private places where members

share ﬁles, post ideas, and conduct discussions via email. All emails sent to the group are archived for future reference and are easily searchable.

Why use it?

Students can use Google Groups to:

• Share ideas, store documents, and organize web resources as they work in project teams.

• Create a private group for school clubs or sports teams to share the latest news and announcements.

Teachers can use Google Groups to:

• Make class handouts, reading materials, assignments, and web links available to students and their parents.

• Send email announcements to parents.

• Centralize resources and communication for professional learning communities.

Instructional Ideas

Elementary. Set up a parent-child book club using Google Groups. Students and parents read the book together at home and then respond to the discussion questions you post to the group.

Middle School. Create an online study group. Each day assign one student to post class notes as a new page in the Group. Then ask students to respond to reﬂection or review questions in the discussion area.

High School. As part of a career-exploration project, have students join a publicly available Group related to their ﬁeld of interest. After reading through the discussion archives, have each student post appropriate career questions to the group.

Expert Tip

By default, new members

do not automatically receive

emails sent to the group.

As soon as you join a Google

Group, manually edit your

“membership preferences”

to make sure you receive

email messages from other

members.

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Google Groups in Action

Project: Digital Debate

Grade/Subject: High School / Language Arts or Social Studies Use Google Groups to help students develop arguments for persuasive essays and speeches. The teacher creates a different discussion thread for each topic being debated in class, such as illegal immigration or the death penalty. Students post their opinions on assigned topics and include at least two links to web resources (news articles, video clips, etc.) that support their arguments. Each student is asked to respond to three other student messages with their own arguments (and links!) for or against the issue. Once completed, students have a wide variety of opinions and resources to draw from before writing a persuasive essay or giving a formal presentation.

Additional Resources

Using online groups to enhance face-to-face classes

http://www.sandiego.edu/soetech/onlinediscussions/

Learn to moderate an online discussion

http://www.edutech.ch/vista/docs/HOWTOs/VIS058E_ForumGuidesProf.php

Build an online professional learning community

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http://earth.google.com

Get the tool:

Google Earth

_{in the Classroom}

What is it?

Google Earth is a free, downloadable application that works as a browser for all sorts of information on Earth. It uses satellite imagery to grab, spin, pan, tilt and zoom down to any place on Earth. Students can explore every corner of the globe, measure distances, create their own virtual tours, and share their tours with others. You can also create and download layers of information and view them in geographic context.

Why use it?

Students can use Google Earth to: • study natural and political maps • learn map reading and navigation

• visually explore historical, news, and census data • annotate locations and share with others

• create their own 3D models to overlay on maps • download geographically-referenced information

created by others

Instructional Ideas

Elementary. Have students explore veriﬁed locations where meteors have hit the Earth (http://www.gearthblog.com/ kmﬁles/impacts.kmz), then create a chart of the number of craters per continent.

Middle School. Have students explore the 19 annotated placemarks mentioned in Jules Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days” (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download. php?Number=156427). Then have them annotate 19 different places they would stop if they were traveling around the world.

High School. Have students pretend they are with Sir Ernest Shackelton during his adventure in Antarctica. Explore the virtual tour in Google Earth (http://bbs.keyhole. com/ubb/download.php?Number=151193) and have students write diary entries to personalize the experience. mapping, the iterative design process, and user feedback.

Expert Tip

To help you know what is

possible with Google Earth,

download and explore lots of

virtual tours (KML and KMZ

ﬁles) before creating your

own tours.

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by

y

th,

Google Earth in Action

Project: San Francisco Seismic Hazards

Grade/Subject: 7th grade

URL:http://www.juicygeography.co.uk/googleearthsanfran.htm

How can we minimize the worst eﬀects of earthquakes

designing safer cities? In small groups, students use a variet

of spatial data to make decisions about seismic hazards and

building locations in San Francisco. Using Google Ear

students locate existing hospitals

and consider the requirements for

a new hospital building, such as

population density, access to roads

and transportation, etc. They then

create a new placemark for the new

hospital somewhere in San Francisco

and describe the rationale for their

location.

Additional Resources

Find and Share Virtual Tours Complimentary Tools

Global Earth Community Google SketchUp

http://bbs.keyhole.com/entrance.php http://earth.google.com United Streaming

More Examples http://www.unitedstreaming.com/

Google Earth Blog _{GE Graph}

http://www.gearthblog.com/ _{http://www.sgrillo.net/googleearth/}

Google Sightseeing _{Earth Plot}

http://www.googlesightseeing.com/ _{http://www.earthplotsoftware.com/} Juicy Geography

http://www.juicygeography.co.uk/googleearth.htm

Geographic Information Systems

Geospatial21

http://www.geospatial21.org/

The History and Application of GIS in Education http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/features/ historygisedu/

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Picasa

in the Classroom

http://picasa.google.com

Get the tool:

What is it?

Picasa is a free application that helps you instantly organize, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. It automatically locates all your pictures and sorts them into visual albums. Picasa also makes advanced photo editing simple. You can easily email photos, print photos, post them to your blog, and make slideshows. The new Web Albums feature allows you to upload your photos to the web with just one click.

Why use it?

Students can use Picasa to:

• organize and manage photos for projects and reports • quickly edit photos

• share photos of special events with friends and family • quickly create movies/slideshows

Instructional Ideas

Elementary. Take pictures of student work, presentations, or ﬁeld trips throughout the year and quickly turn them into a slideshow that you can play at Open House or during parent conferences.

Middle School. Students can create a historical photo album by taking pictures of themselves in historical costumes and settings. Then apply sepia tones or black & white effects to make them look like old photos and print them out.

High School. Journalism students can keep all photos for each edition of their newspaper or magazine in one location on their classroom PC, adding descriptions and captions that make them easy to ﬁnd, re-use, and share.

Expert Tip

You can send your pictures

to a local drugstore and have

professional quality prints

within hours. Just click

Order Prints, select your a

store near you, and Picasa

will upload your photos

directly to the store!

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Additional Resources

More Examples

Picasa in Education

http://picasained.wikispaces.com Adobe Digital Kids Club

http://www.adobe.com/education/digkids/lessons/index.html 10 Tips for Capturing Great Photos

http://education.apple.com/education/ilife/howto/digitalphoto_tips/ Complimentary Tools iPhoto (Mac) http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/ Blogger http://www.blogger.com

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http://sketchup.google.com

Get the tool:

SketchUp

in the Classroom

What is it?

Google SketchUp is modeling software that empowers students to be 3D designers. SketchUp is a great tool for easily teaching kids to construct 3D models of buildings, trees, cars, and the like. You can use it as a stand-alone tool, or in conjunction with Google Earth and the 3D Warehouse.

Why use it?

Students can use SketchUp to: • Visualize geometry and other

mathematical concepts.

• Create models to learn about architecture. • Design full-scale 3D environments.

• Easily share designs with others via the Web.

Instructional Ideas

Elementary. Draw 3D packages for new food products that students invent. The packaging could include titling and marketing slogans, nutritional information, ingredients, and recipes. Focus on principles such as measurement, perspective, ratio and scale.

Middle School. Create full models of medieval castles. Decorate the rooms with furniture and wall hangings from the period. Focus on historical accuracy, geometric principles, lighting, and basic physics.

High School. Create full, detailed models of real homes, the school, or your town, then place the models in Google Earth. Focus on accuracy, detailed architectural design, mapping, the iterative design process, and user feedback.

Expert Tip

Everything you need to

get started with Google

SketchUp can be accessed

from within the application.

The ﬁrst thing you should

do is watch the Quick Start

videos by clicking on

“View Tutorials” in the

Help menu.

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SketchUp in Action

Project: Build a “Solar Passive Cabin”

Grade/Subject: 11th and 12th Grade, Computer Design

School: Lake Ginninderra College, Australia For this project, students were asked to design a “green cabin” for a real rock star. He wanted ideas for an environmentally friendly house that would sit on Lake Ginninderra. There were strict criteria: it could be no larger than 150 sq meters maximum with one bedroom and a recording studio. The students used SketchUp to design the whole house, including furniture and features right down to the pictures on the wall. One student, inspired by designs in the Caribbean, even built an imaginary extension that could hang over the ocean. One of the keys to the project was having a real “client” to design for.

Additional Resources

More Examples K-12 Case Studies http://www.sketchup.com/?id=21&gcid=12 3D Warehouse http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse

Similar Tools to Consider

DreamCity http://www.proimpact.ro/ Blender 3D http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Home.2.0.html Complimentary Tools Google Earth http://earth.google.com Photoshop http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/ iMovie http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/

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http://www.blogger.com

Get the tool:

Blogger

in the Classroom

What is it?

Blogger is a tool that makes it easy to instantly publish weblogs or “blogs.” Blogs are simple web pages, often made up of short, informal, and frequently updated posts. Blogger makes it easy to create blogs, post text and pictures, and start generating feedback in minutes.

Why use it?

Blogger makes it easy for teachers to:

• Post resources, lessons, and homework assignments. • Keep parents up-to-date on class happenings.

• Reﬂect on their own teaching practices and share their ideas with other educators.

Blogger makes it easy for students to:

• Share schoolwork with their peers, parents, and others. • Collaborate on projects and get feedback from others. • Keep a reﬂective journal throughout the school year.

Instructional Ideas

Elementary: Post a series of images and links to great reading activities that kids can do from home. See http:// techcenters1.blogspot.com/2006/10/reading-theme-3-lets-look-around.html

Middle School: Students can post reviews of their favorite books and invite comments from other classes, their parents, or the general public.

High School: For history class, students conduct original interviews with local senior citizens, placing text, images, and audio clips on their blog as a digital archive of local history.

Expert Tip

You can create private blogs

seen only by your class,

parents or school. From the

Blogger Dashboard, click on

Settings, select Permissions,

and set who can view the

blog.

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Blogger in Action

Project: AP Calculus Blog

Grade/Subject: Grade 12 Mathematics

School: Daniel McIntyre Collegiate Institute, Canada

One high school teacher is using Blogger to support his math classes, including senior AP Calculus. Each day, a different student is the class scribe, responsible for posting the day’s class notes to the blog. With clever formatting and the use of pictures and graphs, sophisticated math lessons are shared each day. Discussion develops in the online comments. The teacher also customized the Blogger template to provide additional resources for his students. See http://apcalc06.blogspot.com/

Additional Resources

More Example Blogs

Computer Centers – A blog for kindergartners, using clickable pictures. http://techcenters.blogspot.com

The Parent/Child Book Club – Sixth graders studied Touching Sprit Bear with their parents. The author, Ben Michealson, responded to their questions.

http://parentchild.blogspot.com

My Year Eight English Experience – A student reﬂects on books being studied in class, and relates them to life outside school.

http://casper.learnerblogs.org/

Woodland Technology – This blog for teachers provides support for the tech team and for the professional learning communities on campus.

http://woodlandtechteam.blogspot.com

More About Educational Blogging

Weblogg-Ed – Will Richardson’s blog about the read/write web in the classroom. http://weblogg-ed.com

Two Cents Worth – David Warlick’s blog about literacy in the 21st century. http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

Edublog Insights – Ann Davis’ blog about educational blogging. http://anne.teachesme.com/

SupportBlogging.com – A site set up to provide an opportunity for students, teachers, administrators, parents, and others to understanding of the beneﬁts of educational blogging.