Using Google Plus Communities in the Classroom

Using
Communities
for Education

One of the key problems teachers
face today is how to increase
student motivation

According to Chickering & Gamson’s ‘Seven
Principles for Good Practice’ (1987), one of the main
principles of good education is to ‘encourage
contact between students and faculty.’

So how can we encourage increased
teacher–student interaction?

Fact: Social Media has
changed the
way we communicate.

Some facts regarding current
social media use patterns*:
(at the mid-point of 2014 – taken from the Globe & Mail)

More than 6 BILLION
hours of video are watched per month
on:

now has more than
1.28
BILLION
active users

More than 500 million
Tweets are sent worldwide each day

The average
mobile phone
user checks
their phone
more than
100 times per
day
(14 of those checks are for
facebook)

So how can we
(as educators)
take advantage
of this?

There are numerous social media
options available for teachers,

for educational purposes,
I believe that
Communities

Using Google Plus Communities in the Classroom

As with other forms of social media, Google+ Communities allow
you to create public or private groups and control who can engage
in the group.

So you don’t
need to see
this…

And your
students don’t
see this…
(and yes, I understand
that everyone in the MET
program is a hard-
working teacher who
spends their weekends
lesson planning, grading
papers, and volunteering
at soup kitchens – when
not fighting world hunger)

In addition, neither of
you needs to see
this:
(Google+ Communities do not use ads)

And YOU choose who sees your
posts, pics, shares, docs and
information.

In addition to allowing for
asynchronous communication,
Google+ Communities allow for the
integration of synchronous mobile
communication between you
and your students through
Google+ Hangouts

On Google+ Hangouts, up to
10 participants can:
• participate in (or archive)
live lessons
• share screens
• collaborate in class
demonstrations
• create live shows
• converse in real-time
from ANYWHERE with
their mobile phone

Google+ Communities
allow for the sharing of
so that students (and teachers) can
collaborate on projects at any time
on their mobile phone

Also, Google+ Communities provide
access to all of the other great
educational features of other social
media options.

ASYNCHRONOUS
COMMUNICATION
Teachers and students
can post status updates,
course information, questions
or problems to the community
with ease

Optimization
Mobile Google+
Communities are
fully optimized to be
used on iOS and
Android mobile
phones, which fits
into school BYOD
policies.

PUSH
NOTIFICATIONS
Allow for
students and
teachers to
constantly be in-
the-loop

VIDEO
Teachers can employ a flipped or
blended classroom model by
posting class videos to the
community, while students can
post video projects

CONTENT
CURATION
Students can curate and
rate online content using
the +1 button,
which allows other
students to see what they
find relevant or useful

STUDENT
CREATED
CONTENT
Since Google+
Communities allow for
the posting of videos,
documents, or other
materials produced by
students, this content
can be generative in
nature and be used by
future students of the
same course.

NOBODY
actually uses
!!!
right???

THIS MAY
ACTUALLY BE A
GOOD THING!
By using separate forms of social media for
school and personal purposes, it is easier
for both teachers and students to
distinguish between the two.

It’s really
easy to set
up!
(provided you have a Google
account – which is free and easy to
set up as long as you’re over the
age of 13)

So…How does using
Communities
fit into appropriate educational
technology frameworks?

According to the
International Society for
Technology in Education
Standards for Teachers (2000)
“Teachers should meet the following standards and performance indicators:”
(ISTE)
1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning & Creativity
2. Design & Develop Digital Age Learning Assessments
3. Model Digital Age Working Tasks
4. Promote & Model Digital Citizenship & Responsibility
5. Engage in Professional Growth & Leadership

#1 Facilitate
and Inspire
Student
Learning &
Creativity
Through Google+
Communities, teachers
can promote student
learning & creativity by
posing open-ended
questions of relevance,
encouraging discussion
to solve problems,
promoting student
reflection and engaging
with learners in
asynchronous & real-time
discussions

#2 Design &
Develop Digital
Age Learning
Assessments
Since Google+ allows
for student-created
content, video &
collaboration on
documents, teachers
can design
assignments that
incorporate formative
assessment

#3 Model Digital
Age Working
Tasks
Through Google+
Communities,
teachers can
model appropriate
social media
usage, increase
their ability to
communicate with
their students, and
help students
improve their
ability to locate
and use relevant
information

#4 Promote &
Model Digital
Citizenship &
Responsibility
Using Google+ allows teachers to model
ethical use of online material, provide
learning material that students can engage
with at their own pace, and promote
responsible social behaviour on
technological platforms

#5 Engage in
Professional
Growth &
Leadership
Teachers can join other professional
development communities that allow them to
improve their pedagogy or usage of technology
in their own educational practices

Using the SECTIONS framework
(Bates & Poole, 2003)
S – Students
E – Ease of Use
C – Cost
T – Teaching & Learning
I – Interactivity
O – Organizational Issues
N - Novelty
S - Speed

Communities
meet the criteria for the SECTIONS model because it can be used
by and provide different levels of support for different groups of
students, it is relatively easy to set up and use, it is free for both
teachers & students, it enables constructivist teaching & learning
materials & assessment, it allows for student-generated content, it
integrates enough of the popular features of social media platforms
to retain its novelty, and it loads relatively quickly.
On the downside, there may be organizational concerns regarding
student privacy.

Finally…
using Google+
Communities sits at the
ABC intersection of Koole’s
FRAME model (2009), as
it:
• “provides enhanced
collaboration and
access to information,”
and
• allows teachers to
“provide a deeper
contextualization of
learning:

Christopher Chapman
Masters student, MET program

References
• Bates A. W., & Poole, G. (2003). A framework for selecting and using technology. In A.W. Bates &
G. Poole, Effective teaching with technology in higher education (pp. 75-108). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass. 4
• Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate
education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39(7), 3-7. Retrieved from
http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm
• National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers. Retrieved from
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teac
hers_2008.htm
• Koole, M. (2009a). Chapter 2: A model for framing mobile learning. In M. Ally (Ed.), Mobile
learning: transforming the delivery of education and training (Vol. 1, pp. 25-47). Edmonton,
Alberta: AU Press.
Images
With the exception of the image on slide 43 (from Deviant Art), the ISTE logo, the UBC logo, and any
images which are the property of Google, all of the images on this presentation were retrieved from:
• Flickr
• Pixabay
• Wikimedia Commons
and are either licensed CC or part of the public domain.
If any of these images are found to have violated copyright, they will be removed immediately.

Using Google Plus Communities in the Classroom

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