Guest Blogger Series: A week in the life of Google in the Ag Ed Classroom

Editor's Notes: This blog is part of a series of guest contributors from the national school-based agricultural education family. Dr. Robin McLean is a National Board Certified Educator in Career and Technical Education and has spent 17 years in agricultural education.  She began in the high school classroom, spent four and a half years as the New Jersey FFA Specialist, and for the past nine years has worked as a middle school agricultural science teacher at Northern Burlington County Regional School District in central New Jersey. She is a CASE Introduction to Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources certified teacher, Nearpod PioNear, and Google Certified Educator. Robin serves her professional organizations through the “Teach Ag” campaign helping to recruit and retain agriculture teachers, facilitating the Middle School Community on NAAE Communities of Practice, contributing to the Association for Career and Technical Education Educators in Action Blog, and being a teacher's association representative for her local union. In her free time, she enjoys Broadway shows and world travel.


As I set fingers to keyboard to prepare this blog post, I reflected on how I had used Google in the educational setting in the last week. Then I realized that the list of how I used Google this week probably provides the best example of how Google can be used in the Agricultural Education classroom.  I tried to provide some links in items that might be useful to you as you incorporate Google. If one of these uses piques your interest, either now, during your student teaching experience, or when you establish a classroom of your own feel free to reach out and ask me more about it.

General School Activity

• Shared my weekly lesson plans with my administrators (This is now a standard procedure for all faculty this school year)
• Prepared my Professional Development Report from a Tech Expo I attended to share with adminstration
• Planned for upcoming "Sunshine Club" November Pie Contest with members of Sunshine Committee using shared Google Doc
• Saw the comments my Director (one of the levels of administration in our district) had provided on a Benchmark exam I had submitted for approval

  

  Screenshot of Google Classroom as it appears on my iPhone

 Agriculture Classes

• Watched as a discussion unfolded between our schools Media Specialist and one of my students on an Animal Breeds project and proper citation and information usage when creating the page
• Displayed daily learning targets as students entered the classroom using Google Slides
• Set up Google Classrooms for my incoming 7th grade quarter classes and prepared Google Classroom scavenger hunt assignments
  
•  Challenged my 8th graders to go beyond the basic Latin phrases identified in class and use Google to explore terms to identify what name they might give themselves if they could create their own scientific name
• Uploaded the CASE AFNR career profile to a GoogleDoc then posted in Google Classroom as an assignment for my yearlong 8th grade class
• Made a few tweaks to my "What Do You Know About Ag" quiz for my incoming 7th graders that will be scored with Flubaroo 
• Uploaded the next unit of CASE AFNR materials to Google Drive and adjusted in preparation for sharing with students in Classroom
• Opened submitted Wildlife Projects for Ag 8 student presentations

FFA 

• Updated Google Calendar for FFA events
•  Created a Google form for Milk Quality CDE Run-off sign in
• Prepped draft December Chapter Meeting Information in Google Slides to shared with officers and have them collaborate on planning
• Received Google Form notification when a Member of the Month application was submitted
• Tried to get Autocrat to merge some popcorn sales summary sheets for my members (I need to work on my Autocrat skills)

I'm sure I left out a way I used Google this week.  I am finding that I am using Google Drive (Docs, Sheets, and Slides) more frequently as a way to conveniently have files accessible no matter where I am (as long as I have an internet connection).  A direct result of using these tools has been exploring the apps such as Flubaroo, Forms Notification, and Autocrat that makes them more effective and useful.

Feel free to explore my Google Tips Board on Pinterest where I have been saving Google related ideas as I encounter them.



Submitted by:
Robin McLean
@rcmclean
mclean.robin.c@gmail.com
Agriscience Teacher
Northern Burlington County Regional Middle School (NJ)