Blogger to Website Designer

Before I started my Google Tools class, I would have told you I would never be a blogger.  Well here I am blogging.  As the weeks progressed, blogging did not seem to be as daunting.  I actually enjoy sharing my ideas with others and reflecting on what I have learned in an informal way.  Instead of strictly staying a blogger, this week I have ventured out and created my own website.  In the words of Neil Armstrong, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  By mankind I mean, me, Christine.  Website design is not my forte, but I did it!  

Check out my website:  #running to #math.  

When I created this website, I envisioned it as a place my students or athletes could go and find anything from running to math related resources.  Although I utilize Google Classroom for my math classes, I found it beneficial to organize my online classroom resources in one place, as well as have a place to upload track info.  Aside from deciding what information I wanted to include on my website and how I wanted to display it, creating the website with Google Sites was user friendly.  Like most Google tools, Google Sites is simple to figure out because most editing options are where you think they should be . . . except for embedding code.  Probably the most frustrating part about creating my website was when I tried to embed my custom search engine that I created in Google.  I am not quite sure why two Google resources are so incompatible, but at least I was able to link my search engine.  Watch this short YouTube to learn more about Google Sites.  

Maybe this has inspired you to create your own website.  You can find more info about Google Sites here.  Together we will become better educators in a tech savvy world!  

Around the World in 80 Days . . . or less

With the invention of airplanes, going around the world in 80 days is no longer a challenge.  But with tools such as Google Earth and Google Tour Builder, you can go around the world without leaving your classroom (or my preference, the comfort of my recliner).  Yes, actually being somewhere is wonderful, but don't dismiss these Google tools before you try them.  You may feel like you are transported to places you've always dreamed of visiting.

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Let's check out Google Earth first.  Google Earth is more than just a map of the world.  I have always wanted to go to Russia and visit St Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow and the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia.  Although I cannot practice my Russian virtually, I can visit these places with Google Earth and have a 3D tour.  At each location, hundreds of pictures have been tagged so that I can view these places through others' experience.  

St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, Russia 

Palace Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia

Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia

Google Earth can be used as an educational tool.  As I researched ideas for Google Earth in the classroom, I found that it was most suited for Social Studies and English classrooms, but there are some math ideas.  Real World Math has quite a few lesson ideas.  Although most of the ideas are geared towards middle school math, the ideas for real life application in math can help spark ideas.  This article explores some math lessons using Google Earth.  

If you want to use Google Earth to show multiple locations and compare the distances between them, maybe Google Tour Builder is the tool for you.  Google Tour Builder allows you to go on a virtual tour anywhere in the world.  I'm not quite sure how a Google Earth tour would contribute to my students' understanding of a math concept, but I do believe it is important for my students to consider education after high school.  I created a tour visiting multiple Missouri public universities.  At each stop, I listed the top three popular majors, included a YouTube tour of the campus, and uploaded a picture of the campus map.  

I really liked the customization features to zoom in or out at a location, to incorporate street view, and to use my own image for pinpoints.  Check out my tour here.  In upper level math classes, I think it would be great for students to create their own Google Tour of places they could work after college using a math degree or degree that requires upper level math.  

Go explore yourself and experience places you've never been to before with Google Earth or Google Tour Builder.

Oh, the Places You'll Go...ogle

Google is full of wonderful tools and surprises.  Have you ever tried Google Story Builder, YouTube and Tubesnack, Google Translate, Google Scholar, Google Body, Google's Pubic Data Explorer, or Google's World Wonders Project to name a few?  

“Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!” 

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Today I will take you on a tour of a few of my favorite Google Tools.  

Google Story Builder allows you to make an animated conversation (story).  This would be a great tool to incorporate in my class for students to "teach others."  Sometimes the best way to know if my students understand a math topic is to observe them teaching it to others.  Story Builder would be a fun way to do this.  

Story Builder would also be a great tool for differentiated teaching.  I can give all of my students different topics to write a story/explanation about, or I could have my advanced students work on a story builder assignment while I work individually with struggling students.  

Another idea I had for Story Builder is to add variety in my lessons.  Every couple math lessons there is a skit for students to read.  Students explore different view points on how to solve a math problem.  Although some students enjoy acting out these skits, others do not.  I think that I could add variety to my lessons by creating a Story Builder story for these skits.  

This week I had fun creating my own story with Story Builder.  My running partner frequently laughs at our "meet at the corner" texts, so I decided to create a story of a common conversation.  Check out my Google Story.  

Tubesnack is a tool that allows you to make custom playlists of YouTube videos.  By creating playlists, I am able to organize and save videos for repeated use.  When I find a video that I will use again and again in class, I want a place to save it for next year when I teach that unit.  

I decided to create a playlist of brain break videos.  When you need a brain break in class, you need it NOW.  There is no time to search for a great brain break, or if you find one, you can't be sure that it is school appropriate on the fly.  Check out my playlist.  There are some music videos, trivia, mind exercises and some desk aerobics.  It will be nice to have a playlist of a variety of brain breaks.  

Go check out these Google tools and more for yourself.  

“Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.” 

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

What Can Google Do for You?

Google has many tools to offer you.  This week I investigated two of them:  Google Calendar and Google Photos.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is a necessity to stay organized.  Any meeting I set up with a coworker, I create a Google Calendar event and invite them.  I no longer forget about important dates (like testing windows) or show up to meetings where others forgot to show up.  Within Google Calendar, you can set up multiple different calendars.  This week I created a Google Calendar for the track and field team.  I inputted all of our meets and then shared the calendar with my fellow coaches.  By sharing the calendar and allowing others editing abilities, we are all able to add our work out schedules so that if an event coach is absent one day we know what to have our athletes work on.  

Another feature I started experimenting with is creating my lesson plans in Google Calendar.  The advantage of using Google Calendar for lesson plans is that they are electronic and easy to access next year.  The other math teachers who share my prep can also add contributions to my lessons.  Check out this article for more info.  

Google Photos

Google Photos is awesome!  As I started investigating Google Photos I realized that it would be a good option for backing up pictures I take on my phone.  Currently I use iCloud, but Google Photos seemed more user friendly and I was able to set up an option to automatically back up my pictures whenever I was using wifi.  For the first time I was able to back up my pictures without a headache as well as retrieve my pictures on multiple different devices.  Now all of this sounds awesome, but it gets better.  I realized that I could back up all of the pictures I had downloaded on my laptop (back when digital cameras were "the thing") and not have to worry about my dying laptop taking my pictures to the grave with it.  I now have access to all of pictures I have ever taken on any device.

Another cool feature of Google Photos is the ease of sharing photos with others.  I started thinking about when I would use this feature at school.  I remembered my grad school cohort wanted to share pictures of our classrooms with one another back in the fall.  By creating a shareable photo album, we could have easily shared pictures with another and gotten inspirations for a our classrooms.  (If you want to check out my classroom photo album, click here.)  Other ideas I have seen from teachers who use Google Photos is sharing pictures of student projects and students conducting experiments.  Students also start building a class identity when they have pictures to share with others.