Rethinking the Way We Use Google Tools for AP Classes

Since the beginning of the second semester, my PTP cohort has been focusing on ways we can better incorporate Google Drive and its tools more effectively into our classrooms. Actually, as an ITF we have been pushing for our teachers to use Google Drive more verses the applications on our students' machines in an attempt to better organize their work and also make it where students can keep their work from year to year. At the beginning of second semester we met as a cohort and brainstormed ways we could use Google Drive and its add ons in our upcoming units.

In order to kick us off, I created a Tackk with various "how-to"s and things to think about regarding Google Drive. This was a good starting point for members of my cohort who didn't have much experience with Google Drive to learn the basics before we started talking about how we could incorporate Google's components and at a higher lever of Bloom's where we ideally want to be in AP.

So far, everyone has set a small, workable goal for incorporating these tools. For example, Lisa, an AP US History teacher in my cohort, has experimented with having students write essays on a Google Document and then use the comments feature to respond to each others work. I have incorporated Google Presentations in my class for Jane Eyre and assigned multiple students to collaborate on one presentation for their assigned chapters. Erika, and AP Language teacher, is trying to use Google Sheets to create a data tracker for her students to track their progress on standards in her class.

At this point, I'm really pleased with the progress we are making so far. I'm excited that we are all experimenting in different areas, so we can share ideas and spread the knowledge between our classes to impact more students.