How many of us have used or seen Google Slides in the last year? Month? Week? Day? Likely all of us.
Google Slides has undoubtedly become one of the most-used tools for educators around the world. Easy to use, fun to customize, and elegant to present, Google Slides has easily replaced Microsoft’s Powerpoint that was at one point in time so prevalent in the classroom.
Google Slides is used in elementary school and all the way up to college. Students are taught at a young age how to make their own presentations and complete their projects using it. In some classrooms, teachers only teach from Google Slides.
What are the pros of Google Slides?
1.) You can take your presentation with you anywhere. It can travel from your laptop at home, to your smartboard in the classroom, to your hotel room 300 miles away in Texas. There is no need to carry around a flashdrive. You can simply log into your presentation wherever there is a proper internet connection.
2.) You have virtually unlimited space. You are free to create as many presentations your heart desires. You can also include as many, or as few slides as you want.
3.) There are so many templates available on many different websites such as slidescarnival and freegoogleslidestemplates. These can spice up your presentation and give it an entirely different vibe and message.
4.) Above all, it’s FREE! This is a great perk that has made millions of people users of Google Slides. It is accessible to everyone, regardless of how much money they have in their pocket. This was not something that all presentation soft-wares offered.
How is Google Slides used in classrooms?
Google Slides is used as a way to simplify, express, and teach lessons to students. The lessons can be as simple or as complex as the creator intends. It often catches the attention of students, especially when special effects and photos are added throughout the presentation. It is easy to go back to another slide, as opposed to using the whiteboard to teach and having to constantly erase and rewrite information.
Additionally, students can easily create their own presentation as early as 4th or 5th grade. Google Slides makes it easy to do assignments and make informational and effective presentations.
Check out this teacher fitting Google Slides into her classroom routine!
This middle school teacher helps organize herself and her student by including homework and classwork on daily Google Slides. It helps her keep track of all her classes for the week!
Overall, Google Slides is a great way to reach students and to simplify lessons in a way that students can understand.
(pexels.com)
Can you lose your job for using technology? In short – yes.
As technology becomes more prevalent, its misuse also becomes prevalent as well.
We all know the dangers of social media, but how many of us are always able to tell when we are misusing it? Whether it be a raunchy photo posted of last night, or of your controversial opinion on politics. You don’t always think of your job when you post things on your own time on social media, but as the use of the internet grows, it is important to consider it. What would your boss think of what you shared on Instagram? What about your thoughts on Twitter? Would they find them as relatable and humerous?
Check out this paper written about the misuse of technology by educators
Three ways to get fired from your job for your misuse of technology:
1.) Posting inappropriate content on social media such as nudity and foul language. This is self-explanatory.
2.) Posting controversial content regarding other staff at your school or workplace, or negative words about your workplace. Additionally, posting controversial content about politics and social issues in general can be grounds for termination.
3.) Contacting your students through social media or a non educational online forum (specifically for teachers). Contacting any student under 18 outside of school on social media is a big no-no. Contact with your students should remain professional and in the classroom.
All of these examples can happen both in and outside of the workplace. Protect yourself and watch what you do inside the classroom, office, and in your own home.
(everypixel.com)
Educational Post #1
Hello and welcome to the very first post on my blog! In this post, I talk about an article that I found on Twitter about a flipped classroom:
I found it under the hashtag of #educationaltechnology
The article talks about a teacher from Ohio who uses ShowMe, an educational tool to create lessons, to flip her classroom. She has the children watch video lessons that she created, at home, instead of doing homework. Thus, she is able to help the students reinforce the concepts in class instead of spending most of her time teaching.
What exactly is ShowMe? I had the same question. In short, you can create your own videos to upload to your students. Most users choose to manually draw and write out their lessons on the app as shown below, but you can also enter pictures and video clips to talk over.
The website can also be used by students for submitting group assignments and work.
What do I think of ShowMe?
Not knowing anything about its actual effectiveness, it is something I most likely would not try in my classroom. In my opinion, “teacher” is in the name for a reason, and there should be a good majority of teaching done in the classroom while in school, and ShowMe should be used for extra help resources only, or to reinforce the lesson in class. There is something memorable and important about learning face to face, and it is something that technology can’t take away.
That being said, as a preschool teacher myself, I have also seen the value of learning-videos in schools. It can engage children better than regular teaching, especially when it has colorful animations throughout. However, those videos should be used to introduce or reinforce knowledge, not account for the majority of teaching, in my opinion.
However, if it works for this teacher in Ohio, then it must work for others, which is a good thing! It just isn’t for me.