Google - Tools for Education

I love Google. I mean I really love google. I use Gmail, Google Maps, iGoogle, Google Docs, Google Scholar, Google Reader, Chrome, Picasa, Google Shopper, Google+, Google Talk, and Google Sites. And I use all of those on a pretty regular basis. But I use all of these in my personal life, not really my professional life. Through the  past couple of weeks I have really thought about how to translate this resources into the classroom. If I use them, my students probably do, or at least would find them interesting. So I have been trying to think of more ways to include these types of things in my classroom. One really interesting resource I recently found was Google Sketch-Up. This is a free (or cheap if you get pro) resource that you can use to CAD (computer aided design). As an engineering and robotics teacher in a district that doesn't have many resources this was a great find. My lesson plan outlined showed how I could use this resource to have my kids think of ideas, plan them out in a software and then maybe even be able to build them. This is exactly the process real engineers go through to solve problems, so I want to give my kids the same experience. The most important part of using this software, is to first learn how to use it yourself. But even that is pretty easy because they have GREAT tutorials. I think I will be using this software for a long time to come.

Another task I completed this week was watching the following videos:

These videos really remind me of why I got into this career. I want to help students with technology and giving them life skills, not just "school" skills. In one of the videos there was a students who wrote "Teach me how to think." That is my goal in my classroom every day. I want to teach my students the methods to problem solving, not just the knowledge on how to solve a problem. Students have to learn how to think through things, before we can expect them to apply knowledge to anything. And what better way to do this then by using technology they are already using for a significant amount of time out of school. It's a way for us to tie it all together, and we need to be taking advantage of that.