4 Free Google Tools For Teachers To Make Lessons Fun And Interactive
Classroom lessons were never so interesting for the students.
Research suggests that students these days cannot focus beyond 15 minutes in the classroom. With schools gone online, this attention span has further reduced. This is why you must have observed lower student achievement post-pandemic in your classrooms. Online and hybrid learning is here to stay as new variants of the virus will keep surprising mankind. You need smarter ways to make your lessons engaging. Let’s explore these 4 free Google tools that you can use to make your lessons fun and interactive.
1. Google Lens
One of the best and lesser-explored features of Google, Google Lens fits perfectly in your classrooms. How? Let’s go through each use separately:-
- Translate Text Into Different Languages
Many times a reading text contains phrases in different languages other than your mother tongue. It becomes difficult during the lecture to look for the meaning. Students can become restless if they are not able to understand what they are reading. Here Google Lens comes in handy. You can place your phone on the text and translate the selected words into any language within a matter of a few seconds. Google Lens can make your language and communication class interesting.
- Listen To The Text
Google Lens can also be used to listen to the selected text. Imagine the ease in a language class as there will be an improvement in your students’ listening skills. They will also learn the correct pronunciation and diction in English.
- Search For Anything On Google
Now Google Lens can tell you the name of the plant during a nature walk; the scientific name of the tree in the garden; and the history behind an archaeological site during a study trip. All the information can be accessed by you and your students at your fingertips. Just put your phone camera lens on the object and dig out information about it.
- Helpful In Doing Homework
You can now send interesting activity-based assignments and worksheets as homework. Students can easily understand the questions and tasks. Text can be copied from the assignment sheets and pasted into the response sheet. Students love such ease and flexibility, don’t they?
2. AutoDraw by Google
Kids love to draw and color. How about mixing learning and drawing? Let’s say you are a Math teacher and you have just taught three-dimensional shapes in your class. You told your students that a cylindrical shape has a curved face and two circular faces. How wonderful it will be if you drew as you taught and your students do the same along with you? You can do this with the help of AutoDraw.
It’s very simple. Just open AutoDraw on your laptop or smart whiteboard. Ask your students to do the same on their digital pads or laptops.
And then simply move your fingers or digital pen as you like and perfect images will appear on your screen. See one example here-
3. Google Jamboard
Note-taking during a lecture can be a tough task for the students. One moment the attention diverts and the text on the board is erased by the teacher. Google Jamboard is an online interactive whiteboard. Yes, there are many interactive boards available online! Zoom, for instance, has its own whiteboard feature. However, once the meeting is over, the notes written on the whiteboard are also lost. Jamboard is one of the best online interactive whiteboards because it is on the cloud!
Everything you write on Jamboard will be saved on the cloud and you can access it anytime and on any device. It also has add-on features like ‘Set Background’ where you can choose your own background for the board. For instance, boxes for Math class and blue lines for English.
You can also present the jamboard during a meeting/class, share the link to the jamboard with students and parents, add frames and save the frames as PDF or images.
4. Google Expeditions and Virtual Tours
This is the best Google tool to generate interest in the students. Google Expeditions is an EdTech tool that contains predesigned virtual tours and expeditions. The subjects range from Arts, Music, Science, Technology, Geography, and History. You can choose your subject and area and select from a wide variety of field trips for your students. These virtual field trips are engaging and informative. Explore countries, lands, oceans with your students; help your students search for answers to their questions, or visit the wonders of the world using this fantastic online tool by Google.
Make famous painters, architects, sites, artworks, and museums live in your classroom using Google Expeditions.
Enjoy this virtual tour of the Seven Wonders of the World-
Google has developed some amazing digital tools and apps for teachers. These tools are not only free but extremely easy to use. It can become challenging for teachers to hold the students’ attention during the 40–50 minutes lecture. You need unique ways to keep them glued throughout. Use these 4 free Google tools in your class and make your lessons fun for your students.
👉 Thanks for making my words part of your day! Leave a comment below or write me an email at manikapant18@gmail.com if you have any questions.
