Google Communities in the Classroom
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When signing up for Google+ I was already excited for what I was going to be learning.You can access it either on Safari or through the app store! I believe one of the best ways to becoming a great teacher is learning from others! Yes, you can create great lesson plans yourself and spends hours trying to come up with creative ideas, but why when you can join hundreds of teaching communities. After joining some communities I noticed how convenient it was to just keep clicking "follow" and join a whole bunch of them. All these great sources are literally right in front of you, so one click away from a bunch of fun knowledge! As I started looking more into these communities I noticed how broad they were, anything from K-6 science, math, art, technology, etc. uses in the classroom. How could you not want to follow any of these? One thing I learned when exploring the Elementary School Teachers community was how broad it was, like I said above, just because your teaching 1st grade, you don't have to go follow 1st grade communities. In these communities you can learn something from someone posting for a 6th grade lesson and incorporate that fun activity into your 1st grade lesson! So when you start teaching a higher grade there is no need to stress, because you've been looking at different activities for different grade levels all along. I also joined the Teacher Resources Community and was instantly shocked by how many resources were being posted. Make me wonder what would it would be like to never have so many great resources! Many teachers out there care for other teachers even if they don't know you, or you them. Google+ makes it great to see what is inspiring students to learn all over the country.
In the end, I think Google+ would be a great resource to use throughout your classroom. Especially the times you are stuck on a lesson and can't seem to think of anything that would interest your students. One of the main articles I read was about how to help with test anxiety in elementary schools since more and more students seem to be dealing with it. Within this article I was able to read about some ideas I've never heard before and to me that is just the first helpful article I can read out of thousands throughout the cite. That is just one reason why this app/cite needs to be used in every classroom.
In the end, I think Google+ would be a great resource to use throughout your classroom. Especially the times you are stuck on a lesson and can't seem to think of anything that would interest your students. One of the main articles I read was about how to help with test anxiety in elementary schools since more and more students seem to be dealing with it. Within this article I was able to read about some ideas I've never heard before and to me that is just the first helpful article I can read out of thousands throughout the cite. That is just one reason why this app/cite needs to be used in every classroom.