Web 2.0 Resources to Promote Cross-Cultural Awareness and Connections
Gafe, or Google Apps for Education, is a free platform that encourages collaboration and the sharing of ideas. The Google Apps focused on here are the once accessible through Google Drive, such as Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, etc. The brilliant component all of these apps have in common is how collaboration can be incorporated into any of them. Since everything created is stored in the cloud, creations can easily be shared with other collaborating parties. Any work created can also be published online, which gives the creator a link that can be shared out, so anyone can view the work. This allows for the sharing of information without needing to email, attach documents, use flash drives, etc. Sharing and collaboration are what separates these productivity tools from an offline office suite alternative.
Google Apps are free and fairly easy to use. If one is accustomed to Microsoft Word and its other products, switching over is a relatively smooth process. In fact, Google Apps use a much simpler menu and interface, and in my experience, students are able to explore and
use these apps with ease. It may take some practice to get use to sharing documents (and the fact that these programs save as you go, no pushing save required!), but overall they are quite user friendly. For more advanced users, there are many different add ons and advanced features one can utilize such as looking back on the revision history of a document to see how different students have contributed to it. Google Apps also allow for a dialog between teacher and student, seeing that teachers can comment on work, and students may comment back and resolve issues. eliminating the need for students to struggle with reading teacher handwriting in regards to correcting work.
I have seen many creative and connecting projects by classrooms using Google Apps for Education. One class wanted to know about the hobbies of teenages worldwise, so they created a Google Form and sent the form out to various classes around the world they had connected with using Edmodo. It was really cool to see how excited the students were when they saw that students listened to the same music, or how confused they were when the survey results mentioned some musical artist they hadn’t even heard of. In a Spanish class, the students all collaborated with a class in Mexico (who was learning English) to create a Slides presentation called, “A Day in the Life”. Each student created a slide that talked about their typical day, hobbies, favorite foods, in Spanish, while the students in Mexico did the same in English. Each had their own slide to work on, but they were all in the same presentation. Students were paired up to proofread each other's work, and give corrective criticisms. Students were learning grammar and language skills while creating a presentation that shared many meaningful cultural similarities and differences.