Apps

 I gave up Social Media for Lent.  No more scrolling Instagram for knitting ideas until after Easter.  Consequently, I have more time to focus on my classes and write for my blogs.  (Here is my science blog.).  In another life, the school where I taught hosted Tech Week, which I attended several times.  Tech Week allowed me to try Weebly.  What I learned was that I wanted one login and a way to manage loads of apps.  That’s one reason Google products or apps are so popular.  You have one login to access a suite of apps.

One Tech Week was devoted to Google.  The main Google apps I use regularly are Meet, Calendar, Drive, Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Classroom.  (One popular app, Jamboard is being discontinued.  Booo!!!  Jamboard is a virtual whiteboard.  I’m in the process of testing other free whiteboard apps to use when I have kids meet for class remotely.)  Here is a training website to help you learn about different Google apps.

What are some useful apps for English or Composition?  Try Grammarly, an AI writing tool.  One of my prior students is dyslexic.  She wrote all of her papers for British Literature in the Grammarly app.  Another useful app is Prezi for presentations along with  Google Slides.  (Watch that your teen invests time in developing content for her presentation rather than creating a colorful template.).   

I taught at both private and public schools.  Schools use Learning Management Systems or LMS.  Schools frequently change LMS.  I’ve used several.  LMS, like these usually organize grades and allow teacher to post assignments.  Many schools used Google Classroom; now, many districts are switching to Canva.  Because both private and public schools switch LMS systems often, I used to save all my docs on external hard drives.  I made that a practice after the school where I taught switched LMS during the first month of school.

I use Google Classroom because it’s free and easy to navigate.  I can upload documents from Google Drive to Google Classroom.  I can archive classes from prior years into Drive.  Homeschoolers should consider using Classroom to help organize material for a Digital portfolio at the end of the school year. I use several Google apps because they are free, even if some of them are clunky.  I was tired of paying hundreds of dollars for Microsoft products.  Select apps which reduce your workload.   Regardless of the app, back up your documents to use when the system folds.