Education
Google Apps for Education Suite or GAFE has all that you need
“If the mythical Alladin was present in the modern era then the genie would have been undoubtedly Google, which has again reinforced the point that world is indeed a small ball and any information just a click away”. In this age of information and technology, education field has also been taken by s
"If the mythical Alladin was present in the modern era then the genie would have been undoubtedly Google, which has again reinforced the point that world is indeed a small ball and any information just a click away". In this age of information and technology, education field has also been taken by storm. Google, for instance, has built hundreds of apps to enhance the effectiveness of classroom instructions and dissemination of information.
Google has grown manifold from its initial days of personal emails to the stage of providing tools for education. It provides tools to find information, and helping students to teach themselves. Now we are in the age where self teaching would be more and more crucial for the success of an individual and Google exactly does that by instilling the necessary skills in students.
The key for successful search in Google lies in using the correct phrase. This highly increases the chance of finding an answer to the question immediately. Google has highly revolutionised the way information can be searched.
There is a wide array of Google apps that allow us to search for anything from images to specific types of files. Google has an advanced search feature which helps to narrow down the search to a specific file type. The advanced search can be availed by clicking on the gear icon on the Google home page.
When Google advanced search is used, the search boxes are more specific and useful than the standard Google search box that narrows down the search and brings in more relevant websites. In fact the language option further helps the students to find articles written in the language of their interest.
Google Translate has really shrunk the world. Students can now avail the information available in languages other than their native language and can consume information from close to 100 languages by using the translate feature. Though the translations may not be completely accurate, it holds pretty good for students to write their assignments. With little imagination Google Translate can be used in 100 effective ways in the classrooms.
Google Earth is one of the coolest applications of Google labs. Google Earth can literally bring the entire world to the students with a click of the mouse. We can search by latitude or by city, country and a slew of keywords. The entry of Google Earth in classrooms has brought in better images than textbooks and has stimulated more conversations.
Google News is a great app that can act as an aid to teach civics or critical thinking. It aggregates all the primary news sources from the planet in one interface. It also incorporates more news sources when compared to the mainstream media and provides news stories even from smaller organizations. This provides a more robust point of view and helps students to consume news information from a vast array of sources and understand it.
Google Goggles is an educational application that is available only for android devices. Goggles allows us to take a picture of anything with an android device and then perform an image search.
Google Books is an app that has amassed millions of full-text books available online. Though some of these books do still have a copyright and are to be purchased, many are available as free to use, especially the older classics.
Google Scholar is a collection of scholarly articles. This is very useful for college goers to search advanced information for scholarly research.
These are just few search tools that allow students to have a deeper understanding of topics required. Apart from these, there is also a wide array of productivity type applications that the students can use to create the assignments. These Google productivity applications are included in the Google classroom suite.
Google apps for productivity in education
Google has a robust set of applications that can be used to improve classroom productivity. The full document management suite allows students to perform tasks that could be accomplished using a Microsoft Office suite at no cost. It only needs a Google Account.
Google Drive can be described as a hub of the Google apps suite. It has 2 gigabytes of free storage with an option of purchasing additional space if required. It allows users to store lots of documents using cloud and enables them to access information from any location with internet connection. It also acts as a desktop application that helps us to create offline documents to be synced to cloud later when connected.
Google Docs is a word processing system and helps to create handouts and facilitates sharing of the documents that would appear in the student’s Google Drive accounts automatically.
Google Sheets offers the same functionality as Microsoft Excel enabling students to create spreadsheets and ledgers. When the sheets are combined with Google Forms it can be used to teach the basic system for managing finances. This application would be very useful in business or finance classrooms.
Google Forms can be used in classrooms as a survey type tool and also as tool to create tests and check assignments submission.
Google Calendar application helps to keep track of assignment due dates or other important dates. Like the other Google Apps, calendars can be shared between multiple people.
Social media applications in the classroom
The entire world is now treading in the path of social media and its role has become critical in education. Unlike other social media, Google attempts to make it more educative.
Google Plus encourages social interactions that can be used in classrooms to promote teamwork. Users can create a profile and share information of interest with their followers. This will, in turn, increase interaction between students. The recently released feature of Google+ Collection acts as a curation tool where students can create collections around particular topics and then share links of those resources. This could also be used as a blogging type platform where students can not only post links to interesting content, but they can also add their own unique perspectives.
Google Blogger is a blog publishing platform that teaches students to publish their own works. This can assist students in improving their writing skills.
Many of the applications listed above are a part of the Google Apps for Education suite or GAFE that can help the school to become a full-fledged learning management system. This Google Classroom application can be used to create free online courses for students. Google classroom uses all of the productivity tools listed above and pulls them all together into a single interface that educators can use to deliver online instruction to their students.
Many educational institutions are using this platform to replace expensive online learning management systems such as Blackboard. Educators can take advantage of this free online training and can become certified Google Apps administrators or Google certified specialists.