Web 2.0 and Emerging Learning Technologies/Google Groups
What the resource is – Its features, gadgets Google Groups is a free service from Google where groups of people have discussions about common interests. Internet users can find discussion groups related to their interests and participate in threaded conversations, either through the Google Groups web interface, or by e-mail.
This kind of tools make students learn by doing, think, and generate individual knowledge by increasing the amount of shared information.Also, students learn or find the way of organizing the information they got to avoid chaos.
Students can also upload, open and edit their own files, activities, videos or images to the group.What is more, users may create public profiles which are linked from all of their posts.
Google introduced group pages which can be edited by group members or group managers.
Group members can also discuss pages.
Teaching and learning possibilities. What a teacher/student can do
How this resource can facilitate teaching and learning. Students and teachers may create a meeting point in the web to share comments and files on a specific topic. By including this tool in our syllabuses students profit from searching the web as they have to look for information, files like videos or images and exchanging and uploading information in a collaborative way. It is a good way of learning how to differentiate what information may be useful or not for a specific purpose .It does not mean that the google group helps find this difference, but the students are the ones who profit from it by deciding what information is worth considering.
It lets communication flow between teachers and students. Moreover, it is a negociation of knowledge and information which enriches deeply any learning process. It may serve any kind of pedagogical objective that the teacher can think of depending on the activity designed for that specific purpose.
Example links
Students or ordinary people can collaborate in the finding of information along the web about an specific topic. They make a deep investigation about history, art and geography closely tied to education as the topic is World War.
Google group about pedagogical implications for elementary students.
Parents and citizens interested in an equitable alternative to school scripture classes for students/families who choose non-scripture. Currently schools are not allowed to offer an alternative activity for these students. This group seeks to change this government policy.