Google Apps

Google Apps In the Classroom
Links	Description	How Schools can Benefit
	Google’s Circles is a live streaming person to person broadcast. It runs similar to Facebook. With Circles it is easy to group contacts into “circles,” and send feeds to certain groups of people.	Schools can send out memos or quick updates to all staff members. Teachers can send reminders to students and parents.
	GMail is a free e-mail domain. It’s easy to sign-up, manage and use.	It is easy for new staff to be quickly added to the system. This email is free and an account can be created very quickly and easily.
	Google’s Blogger can work as a public or private online journal, note keeping, or speaking forum.	Post assignments for students. Students are able to add comments. An online learning community can be created.
	Google Talk allows you to instant message, post status updates, file transfers, voice chats, and audio conferencing.	Contacting people quickly.
	Google calendar allows various users to manage their calendars and then merge them together.   7 Reasons to Use Google Calendar	Teachers can post calendars showing topic titles, due dates, upcoming projects, and tests dates.
	Google’s Picasa allows you upload all or selected photos online. It will provide you with a URL and you can then send that URL to other people who need access to your photos.	The days of emailing pictures back and forth are over!! The school can access users’ folders and use pictures as they need.
	YouTube provides countless videos and slide shows. Users can upload their own videos which they can then designate as private, public, or URL access only.	Using YouTube saves space on schools storage drives, and makes sharing and using videos easy.
	Google Reader tracks selected websites and notifies you when new content is added. Marks items as read as you scroll over them.	Professional Development sites can be flagged and teachers are reminded to view the content periodically.
	Google Docs saves word documents and spreadsheets in the cloud, and makes collaborative easy. Two or more people can work on the same document at the same time.	Collaboration in lesson plan writing, creating monthly school calendars, or designing worksheets to use in the classroom, are just a few possible ways to use this. As students begin using word processors, student collaboration on papers and projects become possible. Peer editing and revising can now be done digitally.
	Google Maps locate places by finding addresses or nearby places of interest. Directions can be provided, printed, or shared.	School field trips can be marked. Teachers can view the map with students. Off-campus staff meetings can be marked and teachers (or visitors) can enter their own location for directions to be generated.
	Google Task keeps track of ‘to-do’ lists. Various lists can be created and managed.	Schools/teachers can sync their to-do lists. This is great for when there are various tasks around the school that need to be accomplished.
	Google Sketch Up allows teachers and students to create and share 3D models. Can be used in various subjects. Finished projects can be exported as an image and used to make a movie or can be printed.	Students can design buildings, cities, towns, cars, interior designs of buildings, K-12 Examples More Examples
	Google News can be personalized to your preferences. Some headline categories include: Top Stories, World, U.S., Business, Technology, Entertainment, Sports, Science, and Health. Google Translates pages into various languages.	News stories can be integrated into reading and writing assignments. News articles can be used as writing prompts.   Even though translating applications do not work perfectly, this may be a good aid for a bi-lingual staff.