How might you use Google Maps and Youtube in the classroom

I think using google maps in the classroom will be tons of fun.  I love the way Melissa uses it with Flat Stanley and I would love to use it in a similar way with writing to other schools or pen pals.  I also think it would be a great way to learn about maps and how to use them.  You could also use it to collect information about spring break plans or summer vacation plans.  I also loved the idea of using google maps to help you visualize where people travel throughout a book, especially if you were studying history.

I'm not sure exactly how I would use youtube with students, but I enjoy thinking about being able to share class and school events through video with parents.  As a parent, I love to see what my kids do in school and to have a short video clip of a project, presentation, or activity available to me via Youtube would be awesome.

Reflect on the challenges and successes from yesterday and today

I think the biggest challenge I face is learning all these new tools and becoming comfortable with them.  If I don't spend the time now learning them, I will forget the basic information and I won't use them in the future.  So much information has been presented that I feel very over whelmed.  I fear that I will latch onto only one or two of these new tools and forget the rest.  Some of the apps are too similar to other things that I use so I will probably discard them and not try to learn them at all, specifically google plus and photos.  I am very excited to have learned more about google calendars and being able to sync them with my ipad and iphone calendars.  I am looking forward to discovering more uses for google forms.  Blogger is cool but I'm not going to continue using it for personal use, but when I teach again, I can see how it would be very useful.  I was happy to learn more about the features in gmail.  I do use it regularly and you were able to show me a few things I had not discovered on my own.   I definitely feel more proficient now while using it.  Google voice is somewhat enticing to me just because I have an out of state cell number and I think that it might be kind of nice to have a 'local' number.

First Class Reflection

I am so glad somebody finally explained Google plus to me!  I have been getting email notifications from friends for months about circles and I had no idea what they were talking about :)  I now have some idea of what it is and how I might use it in my personal life.

I very much enjoyed learning about the Google Drive.  I had never heard of it before and the possibilities for using it are endless.  At this given point, I have no idea how I might use any of these things in a classroom with my students but I could see how easy it would be to create lessons plans and smartboard presentations with colleagues without actually having to sit down with them after school.

I definitely could see using Blogger instead of writing a weekly or monthly class newsletter.  It would be so much faster and convenient to just post a quick summary of our week/month with pics on the blog instead of typing and printing out a hard copy each time.  Besides, parents are inundated with paperwork.  How nice would it be to communicate with them the classroom activities without sending home more paper?!

First Day of Class

I learned so many things today!  I can't believe all this technology has already passed me by!