Google Workspace Introduction

Many of us used Microsoft products for our word processing, spreadsheets and presentations when we were growing up, going through school. Although Microsoft is still the biggest name in the field, Google is making a name for itself with its versions, Docs, Sheets and Slides.

As our schools continue to move to or be 1:1 technology environments, most of these devices are Chromebooks or have the Chrome browser available on them.

Although Google has changed the name of it's suite or tools, it is currently going by Google Workspace, the suite of applications has done nothing but improve, become more robust, over the years. Google Workspace for Education is a set of Google tools and services that are tailored for schools and homeschools to collaborate, streamline instruction, and keep learning safe. They are productivity and collaboration tools for all of the ways we work and learn.

Over then next few weeks we will be learning about these Google products and how we can use them to help our students achieve success.  I will be picking a couple of my favorite features and giving you a quick overview of how they work along with some ideas of how you could use them in the classroom.

Presentation Skills Toolkit

Learning presentation skills has been identified as essential for building one’s capacity to plan, facilitate, and share any content in oral presentation form.

The REMC Association of Michigan has great resources teachers can use to help build these skills within their students, during classroom lessons.

PRESENTATION SKILLS TOOLKIT (https://www.remc.org/classroom-resources/presentation-skills-toolkit/)

This REMC toolkit offers students and educators learning resources, reflection points, and exercises to improve presentation techniques, for all grades and ages.  There are lessons available in 5 different categories: collaborator, audience-centric design, establishing credibility & purpose, and presenting with clarity & confidence.  

Digital Citizenship Toolkit

In this ever growing digital world that we live in, as educators we need to teacher students about digital citizenship. REMC offers a wonderful resource for doing just this:

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP TOOLKIT (https://www.remc.org/classroom-resources/digital-citizenship/)

This user-friendly REMC toolkit is a curated portal of resources and tools with ideas for implementation. It will help educators develop both an understanding of digital citizenship and provide ideas for implementing them into classroom curriculum, across all grade levels and content areas.

Promoting STEM Through Literature

REMC has another great resource that I would like to highlight this week:

Promoting STEM Through Literature

Literature can be a great way to get students excited about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  Educators can use literature to get students actively involved in the design thinking process. 

Each of the title shared on the website has a book card/lesson plan that includes a maker-STEM connection; pre, during, and post questions; and a design challenge that incorporates materials you could check out from your local REMC library.  You can also check out each of the books from your local REMC library.  

This year there will be 3 new books announced at the MACUL conference in Detroit, in March.