Teaching with Technology Blog- Using Technology to Enhance Your College Teaching

          Google Sites is a quick and easy way to create accessible and shareable information without coding or markup language.  It is as easy as uploading files and attachments and inserting maps, videos, documents, spreadsheets, photo slideshows, and calendars.  Permission settings designate those who are collaborators, viewers, and owners.  Content within the site is searchable (Google Sites, 2011).  Cloud computing enables students and teachers to upload and store information that is reusable and accessible.

Using Google Sites for teaching and learning within science provides learners with a “one-stop-shop” for assignments, announcements, policies, and content specific to the individual courses.  Unlike institutional LMSs, Google Sites are created by instructors.  Just like other online resources, students are comfortable using websites and would not have to navigate new and changing LMSs.  YouTube^TM videos and podcasts of scientific innovations and experiments can be quickly uploaded.  In online science courses, students have a tough time understanding concepts written by instructors, but they could take smaller concepts and discuss them in groups and then attempt to re-teach that to others.  Recorded lectures can also be accessed through the site.  When doing group projects or even hosting office hours, Hangouts is accessible and the site is shareable just by copy/pasting the URL.               

Benefits of using Google Sites for student engagement surround collaboration, the ability to upload projects, media, or portfolios for everyone to see.  Open communication, simultaneous responding, yet allowing the instructor to be a gatekeeper as students converse are aspects of constructivist learning (Denton, 2012). Challenges of Google Sites for engaging science students surrounds Internet access and students checking in on the site for updates.  A challenge can be effectively assessing how students improve academically via Google Sites (Denton, 2012).  Using Google Sites to further engage students is useful in sharing reflections, having students learn computer literacy in creating their own pages to teach other students, and establishing a social media connection, such as Twitter^TM.  Rather than having students read and write papers, groups can collaborate and develop and share wikis, critique them like the well-known Wikipedia, and then edit the project (Laureate Education, 2011).  Learning styles may differ but generally people can “play around with” websites and maneuver them well.

       Blogging can be done with Internet access.  I use the Blogger app on my iPhone and iPad to create and respond to blogs.  With Internet access, email notifications alert me as to new comments.  Blogging is easily linked to social networking sites, other blogs, websites, and online platforms.  It is easy to direct traffic to the blog.  Time consumption is inevitable in building a presence or following.  What is the brand? What is unique? Does the blogger put time into keeping up with the posts and being diligent about the reliability and validity of what is being said?  What is the degree of presence of the blogger to generate interest in the blog?  Content is vulnerable to being taken and reused.  If I am a professor with a novel idea or with content specific to my course, then posting it for the world to see will leave the content open to usage without permission.

References

Denton, D. W. (2012). Enhancing instruction through constructivism, cooperative learning, and cloud computing. TechTrends, 56(4), 34-41. doi: 10.1007/s11528-012-0585-1

Gaille, B. (2015, June 4). 16 pros and cons of blogging. Retrieved from http://brandongaille.com/16-pros-and-cons-of-blogging/

Google Sites. (2011). Google Sites overview. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/sites/overview.html

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). New and emerging technological trends for education [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu