How to Add Google Apps to Your Classroom!
We all know that adding technology to the classroom is a good idea. Your administration is encouraging it, and your students need to be familiar with ALL.THE.THINGS. We also know technology is a great way to keep students engaged! So today, I’m going to tell you a bit about how you can use Google apps in your classroom, quickly and easily!
If you’re not already a Google Workspace user, you absolutely should be! It’s quick and easy to sign up and is so worthwhile. Google has made it their business to make a teacher’s life easier 
and a student’s life more fun. The Google Workspace is the best way to collaborate, organize, and share information. Here’s a link to check out the basic DEETS.
Today I’ll be talking about just a few great apps and how to use them in the music classroom. If you are using Google apps in a way that I haven’t mentioned here and have great ideas, please, please share them on my Facebook page! Be sure to like and follow me too, because I share LOTS of great tips, as well as a monthly author interview to introduce you to some great authors you may not know about.
The basic Google apps like Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides work much the same as Microsoft options like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. All of the keyboard shortcuts are the same, and the basic operations are the same. The two biggest differences are that you and/or your students can share these items and work on them together in live time, and you can access them through ANY device ONLINE or OFFLINE! Your students can work together, whether they are in person or virtual, and everyone can add to the sheet, doc, or slide show at the same time. This makes project work a breeze and allows you to see student work in real time.
Let’s talk about some other easy-to-use apps that will add student engagement and ease to your busy music teacher life:
- Google Classrooms – This is where teachers come to create a digital version of their classroom. You can use this classroom to share links for games, quizzes, and information you want your students to know. Some teachers create a classroom for each class. I find it just as easy to create on Music Classroom and let my teachers and students know the code by posting it outside my classroom door.
- Google Forms – Google Forms lets you collect information from people via personalized quizzes, surveys, registration forms, or polls. I love to use Google Forms for a Ticket Out the Door where students can tell me one thing they learned or one thing they liked about our lesson that day. It’s also a great way to do a Scavenger Hunt! The coolest thing about Google Forms is once your students have answered your questions, Google will automatically create a graph from the answers, or you can click a button and create a spreadsheet with all of the answers! Talk about an easy way to organize your choir info!
- Google Drive – This method of storing and organizing files and folders is amazing!! Like all the other apps, you can access it from any device and best of all, share your files and folders with students and colleagues.
The Google Workspace is by far the most user-friendly way to engage your students using technology. I will be sharing great ideas about how to use these apps in my private Facebook Group. Be sure to join here.
Ready to get started? Click here to begin!