Google+ Communities in the Classroom
Google+ Communities is an online community available to anyone. The communities I joined as an educator were the following thus far: Education, Educational Apps for Kids, Educational Leadership, Educational Technology, Elementary Teachers, English Language Teaching & Learning, Google Classroom, Mathematics Education (K-12), Teachers Helping Teachers, and Teaching Resources. What I like about Google+ communities is that it gives educators the ability to connect with other educators around the world, and to stay up-to-date on resources and ideas that are available to them. Some discoveries that I have made while using Google+ Communities is that some communities may consist of thousands of members, while some communities may only have a couple hundred followers. The more followers a community has, the more popular that community is. Furthermore, I discovered that inside of communities, several members have made posts that will be useful to the entire community. For example, in my Teaching Resources community, there are a number of YouTube videos and website links that are available for teachers to use as resources. In the Education Apps for Kids community, I learned about a number of free apps available to all educators. When entering the community page, there are several different subsections that one may click on. Scroll to the right and you will see one called, "Free Apps." Once you click on this subsection, all of the posts in this section are about free apps. One app that I found interesting and would love to integrate into my classroom is "Guess Animals-Free." This app would allow students of lower elementary school to learn how to spell the names of different animals and to further use problem-solving skills to place the correct letter in the correct spot of the word. Another aspect that I learned through Google+ Communities is that there are a number of YouTube videos regarding the use of technology for STEM lesson plans and every other subject in elementary school. Students can build robots and watch YouTube videos that could be integrated into lesson plans that would meet the standards of Common Core. Google+ Communities could be used in the classroom by having students create their own google+ profile under "student." Through this, educators can have a home feed directly with their class that allows the teacher to publish test and assignment due dates, publish and clarify learning targets, review complicated topics, and offer extension activities for Gifted Learners. I would only suggest having students create their own Google+ profile if they are upper elementary students or even middle schoolers or high schoolers. The older the students are, the more advanced they will be in using the app sufficiently. Overall, Google+ Communities is a unique resource available to educators that I would highly recommend. Google+ is completely free! To access Google+ Communities, click here.
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