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!”
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.”
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