UNIT 4: SAVING TIME COMMUNICATING
Communication is one of the most important parts abut educating, communicating to parents, students, and colleagues. It is also super time consuming. There are many Google Tools that can help with that.
Gmail has a translation feature that helps educators translate emails into other language for better communication with non-English speakers. Emails can be categorized in different ways to keep them organized, they can be grouped by topic or by person. If Priority Inbox in settings is enabled, Gmail will then start paying attention to the actions taken in Gmail and will start to notify when important emails come up. It recognizes the emails that are normally stared or opened and will bring them up firs. For educators this can be helpful to make sure they are addressing those most important emails. Filters take the emails and place them in areas so it's easy to find them. The label feature can be used to better organize the emails in the inbox.
Google Chat can be used to communicate with students easier or to remind them of deadlines they have to complete. Google Chat can instantly message anyone around the world, and set up live video chats. Google Groups acts as a discussion board to reach lots of people. A teacher can create custom group chats to communicate with different groups. Google Groups take everyone's emails in the group and make one big group email. There are four types of groups:
Email list
Web forum
Question and Answer (Q&A) forum
Collaborative inbox
Google Groups helps classes and students to collaborate, answer each others questions and work together. It also allows teachers to stay in better contact with parents. Google Sites can be used by teachers to display their students work and talk about what is going on in the class. While it can also be a creative why for students to display what they know.
