Green Lake 2011: Brian Gannon – Google Tools in the Math Classroom
We’re looking at tools that Google offers and how they can integrate into the math classroom. Google Docs is up first: word processing, spreadsheet, forms, and presentation tools. Useful for graphical organizers like for the properties of quadrilaterals. Students can share and edit in real time with each other. When it is done it is clean and easy to save and/or print. Sharing features allow you to make it completely public or share it only with people who have the link to it.
Using the spreadsheet for collecting data is nice also. There are a lot of ways to display the data and of course it is still dynamic and collaborative. Google forms are a way to collect data by creating questions with possible answers. The answers are then compiled and displayed for you in a spreadsheet. Flubaroo is a tool that works in conjunction with google forms that will check student responses against predefined acceptable responses. This is a video demo of how it works.
Google Earth and Sketchup are also on the list as well. Here in Wisconsin we have access to the Pro version of Sketchup. Using the ruler tool in Google Earth allows students to measure buildings or whatnot and find their actual measurements. Real World Math is a site that is exclusively for use with Google Earth. Sort of a project based learning site with some practical applications.
Google Squared is a tool that helps you quickly build a collection of facts from the Web, for any topic you specify. It can be used to compare similar objects by creating a grid or square which can be customized and shared. Try going to the link and typing in “quadrilaterals”. Here is a square I created by just typing in the word “mathematics”. Seems like there is some potential here but I’ve got to play around with it some more.
Here is Brian’s link to what he put together for his digital handout: bit.ly/bundles/bpgannon/3
