“Look at that! There I am!” echoed the preservice teachers in the Instructional Technology in the Classroom classes, last Thursday. The words were prompted by a visit from Dr. Michael M. Grant, Associate Professor at The University of Memphis. Dr. Grant’s workshop, ‘Getting Your Money’s Worth Out of Free Google Apps’ created such chattered, as the participates found themselves in the middle of collaborative efforts and Google Docs.
“How many of you have used, Google Maps? iGoogle? Gmail? and Picassa?” he asked. With few- to- none hands going up, the workshop continued. After creating accounts in Google, Dr. Grant led the preservice teachers journey through Google Reader, Google Docs (e.g., documents, spreadsheets, presentation) and Google Forms. As if the onscreen collaborative experience was not enough, creating an online assessment tool, sent the soon to be teachers...over the top!
Bridging the skills of how to use these new tech tools to what could my teacher and student use in the classroom was part of the planned learning. Threaded throughout the presentation and discussion were reminders of copyright issues (e.g., selecting appropriate graphics) and fair use policy guidelines. Excitement filled the air, as preservice teachers scaffold the new tools with prior learning and began to think about how they could use these teaching-learning tools with prospective students.
As for me, I redesigned an assignment in EDU351 over the weekend, integrating Google Docs document) and a more user-friendly collaborative components. The preservice teachers in EDU351 jumped on the Google journey, created an account and collaborated effectively in a time-efficient manner. Success? Yes!
Have you gotten your money’s worth out of free Google Apps ... today?
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September 2015
Oh, the Places I Go!
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