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.

   vs

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.  

Let Google Drive

Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, and Dropbox have all been good, but why stick with good when there is better? Google Drive allows you to keep everything you create in one place and easily share it with others. Not only can you share your files, you can collaborate together on projects in Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, or Google Forms to name a few. I can work in peace and quite at home on a project while my coworkers or classmates add to the same project at a loud coffee shop. We can both view each other's live edits without physically being at the same place.

Another benefit of Google Drive is that you can access your work anywhere at anytime. You are not tied down to one device that may crash and burn and loose all your hard work. I can work on a project at home, save it to my Google Drive and then access it later on my phone or at work. In regards to saving a project, I never have to worry about forgetting to press save. All changes are automatically saved. If I want to revert to a previous version or take note of what a collaborator added, I can view revision history.

Google Drive contains many wonderful apps. The most popular are Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides. You can search for more apps to add to your Google Drive in the Chrome Web Store or by selecting to "Connect more apps" under the "New" button in Google Drive.

Most recently I have been experimenting with Google Forms. Within Google Forms I can create a survey or quiz for my students. Check out this quiz my students are going to take this week over area models for multiplying and determining the number of terms in an expression.

There are so many wonderful features and apps in Google Drive. Go for a test ride and let Google Drive. If you wish to download Google Drive to any of your devices, visit Google Drive's website.

If You Are Cool, You Will Use Gmail

I love Gmail and I'm so glad my school district has seen the light and switched to the brighter side.  There are so many Gmail features that I appreciate more now that it is the platform for my work email.  

Labs

I wasn't quite sure how to describe labs, so here is Google's definition:  "Gmail Labs are experimental, pre-release features that users can enable to add key business functionality to their Inboxes."  If you go to settings, you will see a bar of options.  Near the end of the list is a link for labs.  Go through the list and find which are best for you.  Two of my favorites are including my Google calendar on my home screen and including an unread message count on my web tab.  

Quite a few of my classmates have mentioned that they like having an authentication label on their emails.  This feature can be turned on in the labs.  Another lab feature is having a preview pane.  Since my district recently converted to Gmail from Outlook, some teachers are more comfortable with Outlook and like the ability to set their screen to match Outlook's setup.  Find out more about Gmail labs here.  

Labels

Labels are like folders but better.  I am able to assign my emails labels and then archive them so they do not fill up my inbox.  When I need to find that email again, I can go to the search bar in Gmail and type in the label.  All emails with that label pop up.  One reason I like labels better than folders is because I can assign multiple labels to one email.  Find out more about Gmail labels here.    

Check Gmail out.  It's what all the cool kids use.

Google Search Tips

Well if you thought you liked Google, there is more to love.  I have always used Google as my go to search engine.  Sometimes I would be overwhelmed by the number of findings for my question or topic.  Other times I would be frustrated because I couldn't quite find what I was looking for.  Hopefully this doesn't discourage you from using Google.  Google is very user friendly and can be customized.  Here are few of my favorite tips for the next time you use use Google:

Search by File Type
Limit your search to a particular file type.  For example, I could search for perimeter and area worksheets and include filetype:pdf and narrow my search to pdfs.  I used this feature this week and saved quite a bit of time by not clicking on links only to find out that I have to pay a membership fee to download worksheets.  Here is a website with a list of popular file type extensions.

Search by Image
Have you ever been working on a presentation and needed some graphics?  Do a Google search for your topic and select images.  When you find an image you like, click on it and drag it up.  You will see a box like this where you can drag your image and search for similar pictures or sites that have info pertaining to your image.

And There is More
I could go on and on, but that would be boring.  Watch this cool video to learn more.

Create Your Own Google Search Engine
Another way to narrow your search in Google is to create a custom search engine.  I created this custom search engine to share with my students when they need math help at home.  When I set up the custom search engine, I was able to type in the websites that I trust as good math help.  My students can search for the topic we have been studying in class and not have to decipher which are good websites to use.  Go ahead and give my custom search engine a try.

Get Math Help at Home