Reflection on the Use of Google Applications in Class

I generally felt comfortable throughout the process of learning these tools. The tutorial videos helped walk me through the steps of utilizing these tools and develop the skills I already had. I found it greatly useful to learn by means of application, working through activities to understand how to use every function. I also felt proud to develop the ability to keep up to date with this technology and its implementation into my classroom. I thought that Google Docs and Google Slides were simple to grasp, which I had expected of these applications. They were very similar to Microsoft Word and Microsoft Powerpoint, which made it easier to adapt to. Google Forms was more challenging to learn due to the wide variety of options available to me. There were so many different types of questions that I needed to understand, which confused me further. On the other hand, Google Sites was much less complicated than I had predicted it to be because of its simple setup and easy “drag and drop” feature. Overall, I felt that this course was an enjoyable and pleasant way to gain an understanding of the use of Google applications in the classroom.

For the most part, I would like to incorporate these tools and skills in my classroom. I would definitely consider using Google Docs and Google Slides to create my own lessons and presentations because it makes it easy to share files. I also plan to use it with my students because it would not take much time to teach them how to operate these applications on their own. They would be amazing to use because they make sharing work easy, and they allow for students to work on the same assignments at home any time. I would also love to adopt Google Sites into my teaching because it would be an easy way to increase communication with parents, and it is an excellent way to share files and news with my students. I plan to use it to share calendars, newsletters, photos, sign-up sheets, and permission slips with parents. I want to use it to share Google Docs and Slides for students to view and have continued access to for studying purposes. Contrarily, I would not consider employing Google Forms because I find it more time-consuming, more difficult, and easier to make mistakes with. Possibly with more help from other teachers and more practice, I could find this a more useful tool to instill in my class. I would possibly use it for quizzes, tests, homework, surveys, and sign-ups. I believe most of these Google applications would be a welcome addition to my classroom. I expect that the other teachers and faculty at my school will want to work with them too, making it easy to share students’ work and faculty agendas, calendars, sign-ups, and more.

After learning about some of the Google tools, I feel that I would now be more open to considering other ways of integrating technology into my classroom. This is because I have now found that learning to implement new technology is not as difficult as I had expected it to be. There are numerous benefits to instilling technology in education, serving teachers, various faculty, parents, and students. I hope to bring this to the attention of the other teachers at my school in order to share suggestions and knowledge of uses for Google applications and tools.