I made the switch to everything Google about a year ago, and have never looked back! I own a Mac but consider myself fairly computer savvy with most devices. I used Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari as my internet browser before switching to Chrome. I don't know about you, but I was constantly going through issues...logging in, logging out, restarting, shutting down, and watching that spinning wheel of death. I didn't think this would ever be solved, it's just the way it is. Wrong! I'm going to try and break everything down in simple terms. I jumped on board with no sort of guidance, that's what I'd like to provide to you with this post!
First, go download Google Chrome. Chrome is simply a type of internet browser. It won't replace Internet Explorer or Safari unless you delete those from your computer (which I recommend). Chrome works very similar to other browsers, but with awesome benefits. You do need a Google account to download and use Chrome. If you have multiple Google accounts, just use the one you use the most. It is very easy to switch to another account once you're in.
One of the most frustrating things that happens while using internet browsers is that random moment when everything freezes, and you're forced to shut down. I have personally never had those moments while using Chrome. There are times when I have way too much open at one time, and have to shut down because my computer sounds like an industrial fan. The difference in Chrome and other internet browsers is that when you do have to shut down, Chrome will save everything you were currently working in. If you have have ten tabs open and quickly have to logout or shut down, the next time you open Chrome, all those tabs will open right up! This is very helpful when I'm at school, and only have time to check email for three minutes. I don't have to wait a million years to open my browser, and then email. Just one click, and it's there!
I have always carried around a planner. Lilly planner. Erin Condren planner. I probably had two-three per year just because I loved having a new, fresh look to put all my plans in. Well...then I started teaching. It became impossible for me to keep up with my personal schedule, my work schedule, and the schedule of 24 other human beings. I tried to use the Calendar on my iPhone but there was something about it I didn't like. When I made the shift to Google I quickly discovered one of the apps, Google Calendar. I started navigating through the app and thought I would give it a try. Once again Google, it's absolutely wonderful! It is easy to place and remove dates. You can create and combine multiple calendars. After downloading the app, you can easily put in dates on your phone. It is sync-able to other online calendars, such as Sunrise. Jennifer Gonzalez at Cult of Pedagogy has a wonderful blog series, and video tutorial on using Google Calendar. I know many people can't give up their beautiful paper planners. I have found that with almost everything being online these days, it's easier to have your planner there too. You can also personalize your online calendar (I know that's very important to some of us)! There are plenty of themes and colors to satisfy all your color-coding needs.
I just recently figured out the difference between Chrome apps and extensions, and I'm still not sure that I'm 100% correct in the terminology. However, from what I do know, apps are more interactive/physical add-ons to your internet browser, whereas extensions are add-ons that are changing the coding or "behind the curtain" parts of your browser. I have become more comfortable downloading and using the apps than I have extensions. The current extensions I have are Google Calendar, New Tab Redirect, and Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. I highly recommend New Tab Redirect; it allows you to edit the homepage whenever you open a new tab. I have each of tab page set to automatically open my Google Apps.
What are Google Apps? They are just like an app you would download for you phone or computer, except for your internet browser (Chrome). There are TONS of Google apps for education. I can't begin to tell you how many I tried out. Downloading the apps make it easier for students to access important websites, and serves as a permanent "save" button for your homepage. This is what my app page looks like.
Each of those icons are direct links to the corresponding site or program. You can customize the app page to look however you'd like. You can also drag these icons into your computers toolbar. When students login to their own accounts on the Chromebooks you can create a toolbar and app page to fir the needs of your students.
Google Drive. I hope everyone has heard of Google Drive before now, it's a wonderful resource for teachers! I'm only going to share how I use it. However, there are hundreds of benefits! What is Google Drive? It's basically an online storage place for documents, files, pictures, movies, etc. Yes, it's similar to Dropbox, but Dropbox has a storage limit and doesn't have editing features. Yes, you could just email yourself or others documents, but that requires wifi, and you often need to send documents that are too large. Yes, you could just use an external hard drive, but that has to be carried around with you, and can require a lot of loading time.
- My team and I used Google Drive this year by creating and sharing lesson plans. I had a wonderful team that worked very well together. We split planning so that we were each only planning one-two subjects at a time. You can do this by creating a Word document and sharing it with your team members. Anyone that you invited can open or view this document. I organized our plans by month and placed weekly plans into each folder. This is what our Drive looks like when opened.
- You can create any document in Word, Excel, or Powerpoint and edit them within Google Drive. What's great about Google docs is that anyone you invite can edit your document and it's instantly saved. Everyone can edit at anytime, and people can edit at the same time. It's a little freaky...you can literally see each other typing! You can also share lesson plans with others to only view. I always invited the ESL and Special Ed teachers to view my lesson plans instead of edit. This made it so much easier for them, and myself. No more remembering to send in plans, or deal with copy machines. Everything is available in one place!
- This is a sample of what our lesson plans looked like!
- If you already have your own lesson plans created in Microsoft you can upload those into Drive. I will warn you...although they can be uploaded, it is often difficult to edit those Microsoft docs in Drive because they don't always transfer with the same settings.
- One of my team members printed weekly lesson plans for us each week, but I often accessed them on my phone or iPad or iPhone. We often placed pictures and examples within our lesson plans. I preferred seeing these pictures, and our plans in color on a device. All you need is the Google Drive app.
I hope this wordy post has been helpful for you! I wanted to share my favorite parts of Google at the moment, but I'm sure I will be adding to this list as the year goes by. Do you use Google in your classroom? What are your favorite parts? Let me know if you have any questions!
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