May 22 2009
Working through the Budget Cuts
In these difficult economic times, we are constantly looking for ways to save time and money. This year we are being faced with numerous cuts in staff and resources, yet we are still expected to continue our work and be just as resourceful. We all know how difficult it is going to be to maintain a level of quality instruction with half the resources, so what can you do to continue your work?
In a previous post, I had mentioned the use of Google Tools for Educators. Many of you might have looked in to it and some of you probably didn’t see the benefit of using this tool at that time. I’d like to revisit Google Tools for Educators in this post and invite anyone to share experiences and educational uses of this tool. Below are a few ways in which you can use these tools in education.
Google Calendar
- Students can keep track of upcoming events, assignment due dates, field trips, etc.
- Parents can keep track of due dates for assignments, Back to School Night, Parent Conferences, Open House, school council meetings, and so on.
- Principal’s can post important school events to share with teachers, parents and community members.
- Create school schedules for the Library, Computer lab, conference rooms, etc.
- List professional development dates
Google Docs
- Have access to office tools such as word processing, spreadsheets, forms, and presentation software.
- Access your files on any computer.
- Share and collaborate on documents in real time without having to email documents to each other.
- No need to worry about using a PC or a Mac.
- Create Forms to gather feedback, give quizzes, etc.
- Share the weekly bulletin instead of printing it out every week.
- Teachers can review student work without having a stack of papers to go through.
- Upload existing MS Office documents and continue working on them online.
- Office staff can work on MEMOS or any document without worrying about having the correct version of the file.
Google Groups
- Create online meeting places to share resources.
- Teachers can use Groups to have online discussions with students.
- Teachers can have students submit their assignments electronically to the group.
- Teachers can post assignments and share files with students.
- Grade level teams can share resources with each other.
- Administrators can post newsletters, agendas, bulletins etc. for the staff
- Administrators can have online discussions with staff members and/or parents.
- Work in a secure environment.
These are just a few suggestions to help us become more resourceful and save time along the way. With more possible cuts coming our way, we need to keep our options open and be open to new tools to help us get through the madness. How are you using Google Tools?
