This fall, at Grosse Pointe North High School, the teaching staff embarked on a project to learn about and implement Google Apps in our instruction. Our school district adopted Google Apps for Education this year, and each secondary student has a Google account through the school. We commissioned a group of about a dozen interested teachers to meet weekly during our Professional Learning Community time. Each week, we explore and practice with various Google Apps. During the week, we bring our skills into our classroom practice and integrate Google Apps in our lessons. After ten weeks of learning, practicing, and use in our classrooms, our group has compiled a showcase of our ideas for using Google Apps in teaching and learning. Each teacher in the PLC has created a blog post on Blogger explaining what they have done, are doing, or plan to do with Google Apps in their classrooms. This showcase highlights lessons, use in classrooms, and ideas for development of Google Apps in various disciplines of a high school. Our group is comprised of teachers from science, language arts, social studies, and more. You can read a brief description of each teacher's ideas for using Google Apps in the classroom below, click on the title to visit their full post, and click on their name to send a follow-up email to them with any questions. You will most certainly find a wealth of ideas for Google Apps, and hopefully find some that inspire you to find a use for Google Apps in your own practice.
Project-Based Learning
by Gary Abud
High School Science | Chemistry/Physics | Grades 10-12
Experience how the Google Apps suite can facilitate various aspects of project-based learning in a high school science setting to engage students and stimulate creative and integrated learning experiences. The PBL process will be discussed in the context of an example project on density from a chemistry class.
Google Drive for Team Research
by Andrew Taylor
High School Social Studies | World History | Grade 9
Freshmen World History students (honors and traditional) were assigned a religion to research as the first part of their Silk Road Project. They worked in teams creating a single document in Google Drive to collaboratively record their information.
Collaboration Using Google Documents
by Brian Degnore
High School Social Studies | American Government | Grades 10/11
This American Government post highlights the uses of Google Docs as a way to share information among student groups. In this particular example, it will describe how the program was used to share documents in a simulation of Congress.
Google Apps Instead of Blackboard
by Sue Speirs
High School Science | AP Biology/Applied Medical Research | Grades 10-12
This post examines the transition to Google Sites from Blackboard. Included in the discussion is the incorporation of various Google Apps into the classroom to allow students to work together in project teams and integrate them to create a collaborative learning management system.
Five Reasons to Use Google Drive in Your Classroom
by Shari Adwers
High School Language Arts | Yearbook/Newspaper | Grades 9-12
Ever wanted to have all of your files in one place and accessible from anywhere, even a mobile device? Have you used and enjoyed could-based file storage and sharing utilities such as DropBox before? Well, Google Drive will give you all this and more right alongside the rest of the Google Apps Suite. Not only can you store and share files easily, you can edit them right in Google Drive! Looking for more reasons to switch to Google Drive? Here are five.
A Project to Create a Digital Textbook Using Google Sites & Apps
by Anne Muto
High School Science | Earth Science | Grade 9
Eager to replace the full-functionality of a Blackboard course site with the Google Apps, this post explores plans to construct a digital textbook, or a one-stop digital learning resource for students on Google.
TV Production Using Google Apps
by Brian Stackpoole
High School TV Production | Grades 9-12
This post outlines a plan for creating a Google Site and using it with TV Production students as well as ideas for implementing classroom blogs for teaching and learning.
Art Concepts Using Google Apps
by Michael Lamb
High School Fine Arts | Concepts & Materials | Grades 9-12
This post gives an example of using Blogger as a video instruction tool for flipping a classroom or providing a reference resource to students to use as part of studying or review.
by Nicole WestfallCreating "Evidence Cards" Collaboratively in Google Docs
High School English | Debate | Grade 12
Students in Debate class work with a partner to gather evidence in support of their side of a debate. Using Google Documents, students can collaborate in a common document with a partner to do research and find information to use in their debate. The evidence is organized into cards that are used by the speaker during a debate.
Flipping the Business Classroom With Google Apps
by Brian Levinson
High School Business | Grades 9-12
Using Google Apps to flip the classroom, assignments and presentations can be delivered online or via mobile web to students for students to complete on their own time, because class time is used to run the school store. Using Google Apps allows the students to run the school store for their class in a digital medium. Future explorations include using Google Drive as a collection folder system.
Google Calendar Subscriptions & Mobile Calendar Sync
by Gary Abud
High School Science | Chemistry/Physics | Grades 10-12
Keeping a calendar for your class is easy with Google Calendar, but you can also have students subscribe to your calendar so that events will merge with their own calendar in Google. One step further is making the calendar push happen to a mobile device calendar, such as an iOS or Android device. All of this and more is possible with Google Calendar.
