Digital Learning: Integrate Technology in Your Classroom with Google

Celebrate Digital Learning Day with Google

Digital Learning Day is celebrated on Feb. 27, 2020. Think about the day as an opportunity to begin—or expand—the use of technology in your classroom to increase student engagement, comprehension and real-world problem-solving skills.

If this idea resonates with you, we have more good news: Google’s Applied Digital Skills K-12 curriculum is now available for members of AFT’s Share My Lesson. See how you can integrate digital learning in your classroom when you read below!

Integrate Digital Learning Strategies in Class

Applied Digital Skills is a free projeDigitalct-based curriculum that you can customize for your classroom. The curriculum is designed to help students gain the critical life and job skills needed in today’s tech world with digital learning.

The video lessons help guide students in creating tangible projects such as creating interactive stories (a great starting point for all ages!) in Google Slides, researching Technology’s Role in Current Events, creating a presentation All About a Topic and even creating a resume in Google Docs. Whether you have one class or many, you can find an easy-to-start way to bring tech into the classroom with Applied Digital Skills.

To help you get started, we wanted to share with you our top six ways to incorporate digital skills into your classroom to get your students career-ready:

Explore Digital Learning by Grade Level

• If you are an upper elementary school teacher, have your students try the lesson Create Your Own Adventure Story, which takes a familiar project and adds a digital skills spin to it. Students work in groups to create adventure stories in Google Slides via videos that teach them how to collaborate through online tools, create tables to organize information, and do lots of cool formatting in slides. Stories can be about anything. Check out this real student project featuring a rainforest survival story.
• If you teach middle school, have your students get organized with the lesson Organize Files in Drive. Video lessons guide students through an introduction to Google Drive and how to use folders to learn about the importance of organizational systems and hierarchy.
• If you teach high school, have your students try the lesson Create a Resume in Google Docs. Videos teach students advanced formatting and page layout features, and walk them through reviewing and revising draft resumes so they’re ready for their first job hunt.

Engage with Digital Learning Activities

• If you want your students to make a blog, have them try the lesson Create a Responsible Blog in Google Sites. Students learn how to create and customize a website with images, maps, hyperlinks and more. And most important, the kids have to make decisions about what is safe to share online.
• If you want to give your students a head start for college, have them try the lesson Research and Organize Information About Colleges in Google Sheets. This lesson teaches students how to use spreadsheets to record, organize and graph information such as costs of college, distance of the college campus from their home and more.
• If you want your students to think critically about technology, have them try the research project Technology’s Role in Current Events. Videos help guide students in identifying the risks, limits and opportunities that go hand in hand with technological innovations.

All of the lessons, and many more, are part of Google’s Applied Digital Skills partner profile. You may also want to check out the newest curated collection on Digital Literacy and Computer Science. You’ll find content to teach computational thinking, computer practices and programming, digital safety and ethics, and employability skills.

If you use one of Google’s Applied Digital Skills lessons, share your story with us on social media (@GoogleforEdu and @sharemylesson and add #GrowWithGoogle) or by filling out this short form for a chance to be featured by the AFT and Google!

Applied Digital Skills is a Grow with Googleprogram.

If you want to learn more about Google’s Applied Digital Skills resources, be sure to check out their free professional development webinar: Integrate Technology into Your Classroom with Google’s Applied Digital Skills.