Google Docs & Spreadsheets

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2 Google Docs & Spreadsheets in the Classroom Created by WestEd for Google Get the tool: 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 final 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.

3 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 verifies 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 Track Reading Achievement Complimentary Tools Blogger Fathom Dynamic Data Software

4 in the Google Page Creator Classroom Created by WestEd for Google Get the tool: 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 field 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. 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! 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.

5 Google Page Creator in Action Project: Class Website Grade/Subject: 7th Grade Math School: James Workman Middle School, CA URL: 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 South Salem H.S. Music Boosters Valerio s Teacher Page Sweet Home Band Department Complimentary Tools Get FREE images from Creative Commons Add wikis for greater collaboration Get an list with Google Groups Add a calendar to your page

6 Google News in the Classroom Created by WestEd for Google Get the tool: 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 ! 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 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. 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.

7 Google News in Action Project: Current Events Exchange Grade/Subject: High School / History & Government Location: Galileo Academy of Science and Tech, CA URL: 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 NY Times Learning Network Scholastic News Online CNN Student News Information Literacy The Big Six November Learning EduTopia s Information Literacy Primer

8 Google Groups in the Classroom Created by WestEd for Google Get the tool: 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 . All s 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 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 s sent to the group. As soon as you join a Google Group, manually edit your membership preferences to make sure you receive messages from other members.

9 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 Learn to moderate an online discussion Build an online professional learning community

10 Google Earth in the Classroom Created by WestEd for Google Get the tool: 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 ( 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 ( 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 ( 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.

11 Google Earth in Action Project: San Francisco Seismic Hazards Grade/Subject: 7th grade URL: How can we minimize the worst effects of earthquakes by designing safer cities? In small groups, students use a variet y of spatial data to make decisions about seismic hazards and building locations in San Francisco. Using Google Ear th, 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 Global Earth Community More Examples Google Earth Blog Google Sightseeing Juicy Geography Complimentary Tools Google SketchUp United Streaming GE Graph Earth Plot Geographic Information Systems Geospatial21 The History and Application of GIS in Education historygisedu/

12 Picasa in the Classroom Created by WestEd for Google 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 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!

13 Additional Resources More Examples Picasa in Education Adobe Digital Kids Club 10 Tips for Capturing Great Photos Complimentary Tools iphoto (Mac) Blogger

14 SketchUp in the Classroom Created by WestEd for Google Get the tool: 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.

15 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 3D Warehouse Similar Tools to Consider DreamCity Blender 3D Complimentary Tools Google Earth Photoshop imovie

16 Blogger in the Classroom Created by WestEd for Google Get the tool: 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 techcenters1.blogspot.com/2006/10/reading-theme-3-letslook-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.

17 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 Additional Resources More Example Blogs Computer Centers A blog for kindergartners, using clickable pictures. The Parent/Child Book Club Sixth graders studied Touching Sprit Bear with their parents. The author, Ben Michealson, responded to their questions. My Year Eight English Experience A student reflects on books being studied in class, and relates them to life outside school. Woodland Technology This blog for teachers provides support for the tech team and for the professional learning communities on campus. More About Educational Blogging Weblogg-Ed Will Richardson s blog about the read/write web in the classroom. Two Cents Worth David Warlick s blog about literacy in the 21st century. Edublog Insights Ann Davis blog about educational blogging. 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.