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10 Reasons to Love Google’s Applied Digital Skills
Applied Digital Skills is a free online, video-based curriculum created by our friends at Google. The lessons prepare you and Late Elementary
Middle and High School students to take on the digital challenges that we confront in today’s workplace or home.
The lessons are all project-based, authentic and utilize real tools.
They are linked with ISTE and most State standards. Topics include The four C’s, Organization, Budgeting, Research, group decision making and problem-solving from the” practical skills perspective.”
From the tech perspective the skills utilized are: Coding, spreadsheets, website publishing, data visualization and more.
After spending a few days reviewing lessons and materials I’ve decided to compose a list of some of the attributes that stood out to me.
10 reasons why you’re gonna love applied digital skills:
1. Complete and ready-to-go lessons
All lessons are Complete and Ready-to-go with concise lists of skills that are covered in each lesson. You need no additional materials… they’re all here.
2. Videos are pausable and reviewable
Because the content is video-based a student (or you for that matter) can play any sections as many times as is needed to help understand a topic.
3. Small digestible segments
All of the lessons are broken down into shorter segments that make them easy to fit in to even the most limited class periods… so if you teach a 40-minute class that is really 30 minutes due to the fact that… at the beginning of class, the students all need to get a Chromebook from one cart in the back of the room evoking pandemonium reminiscent of the deleted scenes from “Lord of the Flies”… these lessons are for you.
4. Not tech for tech’s sake
With applied Digital skills the technology is taught as a means to an and or a way to solve a problem. It’s not just learning the tech for the sake of learning it. It’s tech the way it will be used in the real world. The way it should be learned.
5. Reflective conclusion segments
Every lesson concludes with a reflective summary that makes the student understand why they just completed the steps they did and this facilitates knowledge they can transfer to other areas
6. Lessons include collaboration
Every lesson that I reviewed (and I did not get to do all of them) appeared to have some collaborative segment that involved sharing some kind of online document that requires a contribution from all participants.
7. Lessons that involve coding explain and encourage real coding practices
Not all lessons involve coding, however … The ones that do … are practical …they Emphasize concepts like ….. It’s ok to make mistakes and fix them… the importance of Commenting your code and Looking for coding solutions online (things that real programmers do)
8. Optional integration with Google Classroom
While Applied digital skills includes it’s own LMS system, teachers using Google classroom CAN post their chosen lessons right to their Classroom Classwork Feeds
9. Most lessons include digital citizenship and safety
While some lessons are obviously centered around Digital Citizenship and safety, many include these concepts in small teachable moments within the lesson segments
10. Designed for today’s job market
The entire platform is built around 21st-century skills for today’s job market. The lessons are based on the types of challenges and problem solving that we potentially encounter every day
Applied Digital skills covers a lot of ground very strategically…. if you want to know more… look for my scheduled workshops.
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