Where do I start? I first opened a Gmail account, maybe three years ago, and it has since been email bliss. Google docs is a great tool to use collaboratively. Group 7 used this tool to compile a list of resources for our Tool Kit. After using gchat, we found that google wave was a more effective tool to keep all group members informed on any and all conversations. Google wave keeps conversations open and ongoing so there is never a need to fill someone in. Google calendar is also a great collaborative tool to schedule meetings. The librarian in my school uses this to schedule book talks in our english classes. Another google tool that was new to me was iGoogle. I knew it existed, but had no idea how valuable it would prove to be. I think this was my favorite application because I could have so many of my favorite tools in one place, like twitter and blogger, right at my fingertips. I feel that my iGoogle page is, in a way, my digital signature.
I'm happy to have experimented more with google tools. Next year, I was planning to have all of my students create gmail accounts. I thought it would be great to communicate with them, and it would make the printing and emailing of docs much simpler. After exploring all of these other google tools, I am so excited to know there are so many more uses I could integrate into my classes. I hope for students to use blogger, sidewiki, docs, email, and wave to help them be part of 21st century literacy.
I was also amazed by all of the excellent tools that Google had to offer. I have been using Google for years, however I was unfamiliar with so many of the tools and what they were capable of! I would like to use Google Wave with my group (Group 5) as well in the future in order to communicate and I think the calender would be a great tool to help us schedule our upcoming meetings. I really like your idea of having your students create Gmail accounts. This would be a great 21st century approach to letter/journal writing. Students could reflect on weekly lessons with one another and their teacher in much the same way as we do in our class. So many of the other tools would be great additions to any classroom. I really liked some of the ideas that were described in the tutorial on Google Earth (i.e. showing your students a field trip location before going on the trip). I am excited to get to use these tools in my classroom someday!
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