The Internship – the Hollywood movie starring Vince Vaugh and Owen Wilson, gave us a glimpse into the quirky and colourful world of Google’s headquarters. Although movies tend to exaggerate, Google is known to be a huge corporation with the crème de la crème of creative people on earth. As a result, Google has a vast portfolio of technology and revolutionary apps.
Here in Malaysia, we are most familiar with Google as a search engine, email, and online work applications (Google Sheets etc.). However, there is a world of unknown Google tools we have yet to explore. As online classes commence, it helps to take advantage of a wide range of online tools available for education.
Join us as we explore 4 possibly unheard-of Google apps to assist teachers and educators all over the world.
Google Jamboard is an app made for both mobile and desktop that doubles as an interactive whiteboard. Teachers can effectively plan their lessons beforehand for multiple subjects. Much like other tools, some practise is required to get familiar with the tool, but you’ll get it in no time!
Plus, the benefits far outweigh the effort put in. Another interesting feature is the option for multiple collaborators – including students. Much like Google Meets, all you need is the corresponding link to join the Jamboard and participate.
The best part about Google Jamboard? You don’t have to erase content written. Just keep going with your lesson plan. This feature is great for free-flowing ideas and brainstorming. Thinking concepts can be thrown out and organized easily with Jamboard. Teachers use it as a platform to create and upload their classroom content. It also doubles as a recording tool for daily lessons.
Want to learn more? Head on over to https://jamboard.google.com/
Much like the name suggests, Google Scholar is a tool to access scholarly articles, journals, abstracts, court opinions, and books from academic publishers, court opinions, and online archives. If you are familiar with Google Search, Google Scholar would be a breeze. Thanks to features that are similar to Google Search, you can quickly master the tool.
Both teachers and students can explore related works, citations, authors, and publications. High school teachers can give students a taste of tertiary education and research.
The insight would be valuable to a student’s further education in a bachelor’s degree and beyond. The best part is, you don’t have to download any app.
Simply use the link https://scholar.google.com/ and start searching.
We work hard, we play hard. But one tool combines both learning and play. Enter Google Arts & Culture – a fun option for both individual and group activities revolving around the arts and creative culture. Google Arts & Culture is an obscure facet of Google apps featuring a wide variety of games available, online museum tours, interactive courses, and topics. It has everything from colours to food to fashion and is proven to be the perfect way to bring out the creative side of students (and teachers).
How can teachers utilize this awesome tool? Teachers can use Google Arts & Culture when talking about diversity, personal interests, and career goals.
Computer science may not be an easy topic to teach online. However, Google CS First takes elements of coding and makes it fun. Much like a “Coding for Dummies” course, you get to learn the very basics of computer languages and their uses in website-building and app-creations. The curriculum is divided into 4 modules with incremental difficulty levels that cover a variety of topics.
Thankfully, teachers do not need prior experience in computer science to facilitate the students. Best of all, it’s free!
Try it now at https://csfirst.withgoogle.com/s/en/home.
In a nutshell, you don’t need a lot to become a tech-savvy teacher. All you need is access to Google. Who knew Google had solutions to fun and easy teaching tools? Go ahead and try them out to fully understand these witty Google apps. In the process, you may discover other hidden gems in the multifaceted world of Google.
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