Google Communities in the Classroom
As someone who has been using it for close to the entirety of my education, I can assure you that Google provides many helpful services that can be used within the classroom. Between programs such as Drive for file sharing, email service, YouTube, and the oft-used search engine, Google's got it all. One program that hasn't generated much noise is Google+. In fact, the first link a search of the question "What is Google+?" is literally titled "What is Google+ and who actually uses it?" (www.androidcentral.com/what-google-and-who-actually-uses-it). As someone who had not used the service before now, I had but the vaguest of ideas as to what it truly was. After a bit of research, I learned that Google+ is a social networking site in a similar fashion to Facebook (www.androidcentral.com/what-google-and-who-actually-uses-it), although it is considered more professional. There are many sub-applications within Google+, most notably Hangouts, which is used for video chat.
This is not the service I want to focus on, however - that would be Google Communities. To be frank, I had never heard of Google Communities before, so I was skeptical of its practicality in the classroom. Its physical design is similar to YouTube's current look, which is unsurprising considering Google recently acquired the service. The general function of Google+, and by extension Communities, plays out in a similar fashion to Facebook. You have "circles" of friends and acquaintances, can join groups using Google Communities, and can "+1" a post, which is borderline identical to Facebook's like function. I attempted to join quite a few communities, but a good majority of them required permission to join - similar to a closed group on Facebook. I ended up only being accepted into 3 communities out of my initial picks, which I found to be highly annoying. My other issue with Google Communities is that much of the content within the communities could be accessed with greater ease on bigger social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Both social media outlets have far more members than Google+ ever will, and thus have more avenues of sharing information.
One interesting resource I found within one of the communities I joined (plus.google.com/u/0/communities/113018638134660266670) is a website called Lecture Racing (lectureracing.com/). This website functions similarly to Kahoot and the iClicker/Reef Polling family of products in that it is used to conduct quizzes and attendance in class. The process for creating these quizzes is fairly easy - all you need to do is download their app, upload your presentation, create your accompanying quiz, and assess the students. You can even view results and set their display, even making it look like a race for the finish line between groups. It provides the fun, gamey aspect that iClicker does not, but is also different and in my opinion easier to use than Kahoot. And besides, everyone and their dog uses Kahoot, so we should shake it up a bit!
One other useful link that I found was an article from Ask a Tech Teacher (http://askatechteacher.com/2017/08/14/tech-ed-resources-for-your-classroom-organize-your-classroom-2-2-2/) that provided links to webinars on student and teacher utilization of educational technology. There are 18 webinars in total, with topics ranging from how to teach with tech ed to grading technology, and even includes a session on flipped classrooms. I haven't been able to watch most of these, though the few parts that I have seen seem like excellent tools for any prospective or current teacher.
This is not the service I want to focus on, however - that would be Google Communities. To be frank, I had never heard of Google Communities before, so I was skeptical of its practicality in the classroom. Its physical design is similar to YouTube's current look, which is unsurprising considering Google recently acquired the service. The general function of Google+, and by extension Communities, plays out in a similar fashion to Facebook. You have "circles" of friends and acquaintances, can join groups using Google Communities, and can "+1" a post, which is borderline identical to Facebook's like function. I attempted to join quite a few communities, but a good majority of them required permission to join - similar to a closed group on Facebook. I ended up only being accepted into 3 communities out of my initial picks, which I found to be highly annoying. My other issue with Google Communities is that much of the content within the communities could be accessed with greater ease on bigger social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Both social media outlets have far more members than Google+ ever will, and thus have more avenues of sharing information.
One interesting resource I found within one of the communities I joined (plus.google.com/u/0/communities/113018638134660266670) is a website called Lecture Racing (lectureracing.com/). This website functions similarly to Kahoot and the iClicker/Reef Polling family of products in that it is used to conduct quizzes and attendance in class. The process for creating these quizzes is fairly easy - all you need to do is download their app, upload your presentation, create your accompanying quiz, and assess the students. You can even view results and set their display, even making it look like a race for the finish line between groups. It provides the fun, gamey aspect that iClicker does not, but is also different and in my opinion easier to use than Kahoot. And besides, everyone and their dog uses Kahoot, so we should shake it up a bit!
One other useful link that I found was an article from Ask a Tech Teacher (http://askatechteacher.com/2017/08/14/tech-ed-resources-for-your-classroom-organize-your-classroom-2-2-2/) that provided links to webinars on student and teacher utilization of educational technology. There are 18 webinars in total, with topics ranging from how to teach with tech ed to grading technology, and even includes a session on flipped classrooms. I haven't been able to watch most of these, though the few parts that I have seen seem like excellent tools for any prospective or current teacher.
Ultimately, it just doesn't make sense to me to use a program with such striking similarity to other apps when those other apps are objectively better and easier to use. The only way I could really see myself utilizing this service is if I felt the need to have a social network within one or more of my classes. Not everyone (nor their parents) will want to sign up for a Facebook or other social media account, nor do I think it would be the most appropriate for a middle or high school classroom. Google communities provides the same service Facebook does while maintaining a more professional look and atmosphere. It is also nice that Google+ and Communities are also bundled with Hangouts, which could be a nifty tool to use in various classroom projects. However, this could be fulfilled by using the more popular Skype, which some of the students may already use. Google+ in general was an interesting concept - it tried to provide a number of social media and connective services within one extension, but it falls flat on it's face in trying to do so. In a sense, it is an extreme version of the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none trope within the social networking world.