Scheduling though Google Calendar and other Fun Tools

I took a relaxing week off and finished packing my classroom, giving finals, and taking a whirlwind trip to Ohio to celebrate a new high school graduate!  Needless to say, I am exhausted from my week off.  Thank goodness I have about six weeks to rest up before I get back to curriculum fun and preparing for school.

I do have great news!  I have been asked to present at my district technology symposium in July.  I feel super nerdy, but I am sooooo excited.  I submitted two proposals for my presentation and I am just waiting to hear back about my ideas.  I think this image says it all!

Onto this weeks fun!  This week I will be giving a short tutorial on how to use Google Calendar and some reviews of google tools that are available to you!

Google Calendar

Google calendar is a great collaborative tool.  It is easy to use and allows for you to share appointments and calendars with others.  I have put together a presentation to help you set up your own appointment. Click HERE for a short tutorial.

I would also highly suggest that check out some of the labs that are available.  Labs are experiments that google is conducting to see how well they work and how useful they are to others.  HERE is a site with a list of labs available and how to add them to your calendar.  

Other Google Tools

Google+ Hangout

This tool is so cool!  You can used it have a traditional or video chat.  You no long need to have a “meeting” to talk and plan with someone else. You can talk with multiple people at once.  The only downside (and I have not used it for about 9 months) was that it seemed a little glitchy when popping up the large image of who was talking.  Although google is always updating the tools and this might have been cleared up!

Here are a few ideas of how to get started using google hangouts:

This could be used for meeting other students across a larger district.  We could have book discussions across the city.  I could also see district meetings being moved online.  No need to travel across this district to meet with the ELA team.  I could just stay at my desk and attend the meeting.  

Here is a website with a guide for teachers on using google hangout.

Google Body

This tool is so neat to use with a touchscreen.  You can move around the manipulate the body to click on all of the systems.  I did find it difficult to maneuver around the tool to begin with but adjusted after about 5 minutes.  Unless you pay for the more advanced tools I found this tool to be somewhat limiting for teachers and that is primarily why I gave it a 5.  

Here are a few ideas to get you started using google body:

This could be used in a science class to have students fill out a study guide before a test.  I could also see students doing group work to understand how the body is layered and try to think of why certain portions of the body are connected to other portions.  

Here is a website with some lesson ideas!

World Wonders Project

I am really excited about this as a first time social studies teacher next year.  We will be studying ancient civilizations and this tool will be very cool to use to build student interest!  It has an easy to use search bar and gives a variety of options to help narrow down your selections.  There are images and museum exhibits for students and teachers to explore.

Here are a few ideas to help you get started using World Wonders Project:

I would love to use this tool to get my students interested in a new unit we are starting.  I would use it along with an anticipation guide.  I could also see using this for some research about the civilization that students are learning about.  I could assign various aspects of the civilization to groups and using the easy search tools students could create a presentation using the World Wonders project.  

Here is another website all about the project.

I hope you can use some of the information when thinking ahead to the next school year. What is your favorite google tool and how to you use it in your classroom. I would love to hear your unique spin on all of the great tools google has to offer.