My Inquiry
For this project, I was very excited to find out we were allowed to explore and inquire into something we wanted to learn more about. I have always wanted to spend some time really learning and doing a deep dive into how to use the parts of Google Suite. With that in mind, my inquiry became "Everything Google Suite and Beyond."
The Course Essential Question for this project was
B. How might we use technology to enhance real world, collaborative, learner centered education? This project goes with this question because in doing my project I learned many ways that the parts of Google Suite, such as Google Docs, Slides, Classroom, Youtube, Gmail, Gchat, Jamboard, etc. are used to enhance real world, collaborative learner centered education.
The two course outcomes I am demonstrating proficiency with are:
2. Demonstrate fluency with new educational tools, and articulate the affordances and constraints of such tools to support educational practices. By earning my Google Educator Level 1 Certification I was able to show that I am now fluent with the GSuite Educational tools to support educational practices. I will also show my fluency with these tools in my day to day educational practices and what I am now able to accomplish now that I have completed the Google Educator Level 1 Training.
7. Read and synthesize literature and research on educational technology to support personal experiences and deepen conceptual knowledge. For this project I have read a book, Google Apps by Mary Stevens, and read various articles about using Google in the classroom. This has supported my personal experiences and deepened my conceptual knowledge.
My Professional Practices Project Plan
I have been teaching since 1992, so I have a few years of teaching under my belt. In my daily teaching routine, I have always been jealous of my many of my counterparts and how they could seemingly seamlessly use technology in their classrooms. I have been using Google Suite for a few years now, but I always felt there was so much more to it that I wasn't utilizing because I just didn’t know much about it and I was very intimidated by it. This project forced me to really delve into the Google Suite and see what I can do with it in my classroom. This is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time, but have never had the opportunity to do. I wanted to become one of the teachers other teachers in my school come to for help with technology, instead of the teacher always needing help.
So with this goal in mind, I set out on my project. My plan for this project was to read the book, Google Apps, by Mary Stevens, read 3 scholarly articles found in the library, complete the Google Educator Level 1 training, take the Google Educator Level 1 exam and become a Level 1 Google Certified Educator, join a few social media groups on Twitter and Facebook affiliated with Google, and spend some time exploring and trying the Google Add-Ons for Teachers.
Step 1 Readings
The first thing I did for this project was to read the book Google Apps by Mary Stevens.
This book is a good book for new Google Suite users. It provides a general description and how to use each of the following: Google Drive, Google Slides, Google Forms, Google Keep, Google Photos, Google Calendar, and Gmail. It then goes into detail about tips and tricks that can be done within each feature that you may not know about. I found that in reading this book, I actually knew more about Google Suite, than I thought I did. I did know how to use the basic functions of and knew something about each of these apps. I did learn many new tricks and I am glad I have the book to refer back to because there were so many new things I learned and so many tips and instructions that I can now look up easily if I forget how to do something.
The first article I read was Cool Tools for School: Twenty-First-Century Tools for Student Engagement by Johns, Troncale, Trucks, Calhoun, and Alvidrez. This article talks about how teachers of today can incorporate technology into their classrooms to engage their students. It talks about how technology can be used to engage students in active and meaningful learning while taking advantage of the digital platforms students use in their daily interactions. (Johns, Troncale, Trucks, Calhoun, and Alvidrez, 2017) This article states that by using Google Classroom, teachers can empower students to be learners and take ownership of their learning. This platform can help teachers and students create, collaborate, gain and share information, and think critically. The various apps in the suite can maximize student learning in the classroom as well as help students stay engaged in learning throughout the school day. This article helped me to see the value of using the Google Suite for student engagement and ease of collaboration. These were things I already knew from my own but it was reassuring to see my thoughts justified in the article.
The second article I read was the article, Google Docs in Elementary Education Gifted Education by Frances Dendy Mahaffey, Widad Kinard, and LeaAnne Daughrity. (Mahaffey, Kinard, and Daughrity, 2020) Writing is a deliberate process that requires students to display effort, patience, and openness to receiving constructive feedback to improve their craft. The article talks about how gifted students are often perfectionists. They can take just the slightest criticism very hard. Google Docs is a way of teaching writing where the feedback in writing can be done with commenting and sharing documents with the teacher for revision. This can be done in a more positive way then the student getting back a piece of writing covered in red ink for revision. Google Docs also provides a way for students to share and collaborate on their writing with other students, their teacher, or other adult writing coaches in a way that paper pencil does not allow.
I have been using Google Docs for a number of years now, but I had never taken the time to think about how my teaching of writing had changed since my students were no longer writing with paper and pencil. This article really got me thinking about how the teaching of writing has changed and in what I believe is a really good way. It was also interesting to see the perspective of how this has changed the way our gifted students learn to write.
The third article I read was Google Docs As A Tool For Collaborative Writing In The Middle School Classroom by Meagan Woodrich and Yanan Fan. This article discusses whether student participation in writing using Google Docs can lead to more successful writing products in a linguistically diverse classroom. According to Woodrich and Fan (2017) students of varying language fluencies participated more equally when they were able to collaborate anonymously with other students and students enjoyed writing more when working on Google Docs than with paper and pencil. I found this article very interesting as I had never thought of the effect using Google Docs might have on second language learners. Using Google Docs was very helpful for them as they could use the tools of Google Docs to help with their writing. It saved them time and frustrations which motivated them to be more engaged and want to write more in the classroom.
Step 2 Google for Education Training
The next step in my plan was for me to do all of the training units in the Learn the basics of G Suite for Education. This training had 13 units in it and took about 13 hours to complete. I did two or three units each day until I had completed all of them.
Also during this time, I went on Twitter and started following Google for Education.
This took me much longer than I thought it would and was exhausting. I learned a tremendous amount from doing these units and I highly recommend them to anyone else who wants to learn more about G Suite and its use in Education. It is a huge amount of information. Click here to see the 13 units and what they involve.
Also during this time, I went on Twitter and started following Google for Education. I found that they had a chat on the previous Tuesday at 2 PM, but I was not able to find a Google chat going on during the time I was working on this project.
I joined the Google Educators Group in my area, which the closest one was GEG Massachusetts. This has been a really interesting group to be in as people regularly email questions and multiple people email back responses. I have enjoyed reading them and have learned a lot from the responses. It is really an interesting group to be a part of.
I also joined a Facebook group that regularly posts about technology and using Google Suite in the classroom. The group is Teacher’s Using Google Suite for Education. I have found I LOVE this group on Facebook. I have been getting constant ideas from the group since I have joined.
After completing these units and joining these groups on Twitter and Facebook, I registered to take the Google Certified Educator Level 1 Exam. It costs $10 to take this exam and you have 1 week to take the exam after they send you the information. When I first started the exam, I thought I had plenty of time as they give you 3 hours to take the exam. Then about 2 hours into the exam, I realized I was not going to have enough t
Mostly I wasn’t sure what they wanted me to do on certain questions and it just took me a long time to do each question. When the test ended, I felt like I must have failed as I hadn’t finished. I was super excited and relieved when a few days later, I received an email saying that I had passed the exam and I am now a Google Certified Educator, Level 1. This may not be a big achievement for some people, but this was a big achievement for me!! I was super excited to add this to my gmail signature.
The last thing I did to end this inquiry was to take a few hours to just explore some of the Apps for Educators /Google Extensions in the Chrome Web Store. It was very overwhelming. There are so many extensions available and they are constantly being added to. The ones that I was able to use and found most useful were Peardeck, Just Read, Screencastify and Jamboard. I feel like I could do another whole Professional Practice Project just on exploring those alone. If I had had more time, I would have explored them more.
This inquiry definitely supported my professional growth because I learned a tremendous amount. There were times in the past two weeks when I felt like I was definitely on information overload, but I accomplished the goals I set out to do. I am much more knowledgeable about all aspects of the Google Suite. I feel much more confident and I know I will be a resource to the other teachers instead of the one needing help. I know that my work has advanced my learning because I was already able to complete a data spreadsheet for my team at school. I was able to freeze columns, put borders, add colors, etc. I was able to organize my Google Drive with color coded labeled folders. I was able to send out an email with an agenda attached and sent up a task to an email I was sent. I was able to start a YouTube playlist. It has just been a whirlwind of new things I am now able to do that I could not before I completed the Google Trainings
Support From my PLN Group
My small group decided to use Twist as our communicating platform. It has been great to be able to post questions and get their feedback. It has also been really interesting to be a part of their journey and see what they are doing along the way.
The four best resources I have found in this work are:
Google for Education Training Site
The Book Google Apps by Mary Stevens
Google Site for Certifications
Other good resources
Schoology Exchange (For information on Google Extension)
Facebook Group-Teachers Using Google Suite for Education
Next steps
The next steps in my inquiry will be to actually push myself to use all of the new information I have learned on a day to day basis. I have already shared with my teaching team many of the things I have learned. I will continue to teach the other teachers I work with the things I have learned. I am going to add more to my Google Classroom and use more of the extensions I have learned about in my daily teaching.
After this class has finished, my next step will be to do the next set of Google Training Modules that they call Advanced Training for G Suite for Education and then take the Google Educator Level 2 Exam. I am going to set a goal for myself to do this during Christmas break.
Reference List
Johns, K., Troncale, J., Trucks, C., Calhoun C., & Alvidez, M. (2017).
Cool tools for school: Twenty-first-century tools for student
engagement. The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 84 (1), 53.
Mahaffey, F. D., Kinard, W., & Daughrity, L. (2020). Google docs in
elementary gifted education. The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 86(5),
23-29.
Stevens, M., (2020). Google Apps. Amazon.com Services LLC.
Woodrich, M. P., & Fan, Y. (2017). Google docs as a tool for
collaborative writing in the middle school classroom. Journal
of Information Technology Education: Research, 16, 391-410.
doi:10.28945/3870
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