Google Apps

Google has made more improvements and more strides than any other app that I know in the last few years.  I can recall when Google was nothing more than a search engine!  Google has come so far and I can only imagine the what Google has in store for us.

Four years ago, my high school became a 1:1 environment. each student was provided their own Chromebook.  Four years ago, Google Drive was just getting started. We were all exploring and learning.  Now, using Google Drive has become far more common than using paper in our building. Teachers use Google Classroom as well. I used Google Classroom and enjoyed it before I found that Canvas (another Learning Management System) was better suited to my needs.  I believe we are only just beginning with Google Apps and that in a year or two it will be like we have never seen or anticipated.

I am one who enjoys learning how to use technology. I like to set time aside in the morning on the weekends to play with new apps and tools that I learn about or are recommended to me.  That way, it is considered "fun" and it's not required.  Side note - once something becomes required for work, it's no longer fun for me.  I do hear how many teachers just don't have the time to learn about new technology, and I honestly don't blame them.  I mean, who really has the time between grading papers, prepping lessons, making phone calls, doing administrative work, and who knows what else to learn about something that may or may not be useful in the classroom.  I think this is when we need to collaborate with others.  When we collaborate and share tech tools, we no longer have to go looking, we already have a synopsis of the tool or app and we just need to look into it further if we so desire.  My survey results indicated that all that took the survey would like to collaborate with others outside our district when it comes to learning about tech tools and apps.  If we collaborate with others outside our district, and even outside our state using tools such as Google Apps, the education system might get a lot further along with technology integration and 21st century skills.

Here is the survey to fill out.








The results of the survey as of 8:50pm is:
https://goo.gl/8gbkGT
(sorry, could not get images posted here for some reason. If you click the link, 
you should be able to access the results. If not, please let me know in the comments!)