Google for Educators

After reading through the tools available on Google for Educators, I was most interested in Doodle 4 Google, Google Squared, and Google Earth.

With an interest in art myself, I would love to give my students the chance to enter Doodle 4 Google's contest to get a design on their home page. This year's theme was "What I Wish for the World," which could have been integrated with a language arts/writing lesson or an American or World History lesson. Creatively expressing oneself through art is seldom included in lessons, and I think the students would enjoy it.

Google Earth is an application I have used to plan hiking trips. I would enjoy using it to bring geography lessons to life. Students could give presentations on different regions and create a tour with Google Earth to illustrate their projects. This can also be used as a stationary map for reference when giving a lesson on a certain area.

My favorite new tool is Google Squared. It is a great starting place for any sort of research. Google Squared automatically collects facts from across the internet on any category. Additional categories can be added by choosing from suggestions or typing your own category, and Google Squared will find more information. The source of each entry is provided so that further research can be conducted.

Google Sets is also worth exploring. By entering up to five items, Google Sets will create a large set or a small set of related items. This can be useful to find terms or information that wouldn't normally come to mind right away.

Google Docs is an interesting program for group projects. It enables users to upload or create files and invite others to view or edit the doc. Submitting assignments for the teacher to view and grade would also be easier and more environmentally friendly. It has many useful feature such as creating shared spreadsheets to track missing work and using rubrics to create and grade student tests.