Tech Tip Tuesday- Using Google Drive for Common Planning!
Hosted by Techie Turtle Teacher
At my school we have Common Planning time. Each Tuesday afternoon the Kindergarten teachers meet in my classroom and we share ideas, tips, discuss SST, CFA data and plan for the following week (well we are usually two weeks ahead). For my team to use this time efficiently, we come prepared with ideas to share that relates to the standards we are teaching the following week. The absolute best thing I ever did for this was start using Google Drive!
Google Drive has made our lives so much easier! Everyone can type and edit the document at the same time. We can open the document from our home computers or at school and add our ideas for the upcoming planning session.
First know that everyone will need a gmail account. To access your Google Drive you need to sign into gmail and then press the "bingo button" (that's what my husband calls it) at the top right, basically the square with 9 squares within it. You can then select the green, yellow and blue triangle with the word "drive" under it.
I made a folder for Planning Ideas and then shared it with the others on my grade level. I made a table with subjects and standards for the following week. My team can view the table and add ideas before we meet. Here is a screen shot of the set up we use at this time. As you can see, we can add photos and links easily.
I cannot express how much my team loves using Google Drive to share and we don't have to take notes during the meeting because we can always refer back to the document.
Something else we started doing at the meeting was while we discuss each idea from the planning ideas I type these ideas directly into a lesson plan in Google Drive as well.
Each teacher can adjust the lesson plan later to their liking, but you have somewhere to start without having to start from scratch when you work on your lesson plans. All the standards and EQs are already there and all the ideas we shared are on the plan. Teachers just may want to do something on Thursday instead of Tuesday, read an alternative math text as a math opening, or add a movie clip they found later on to a specific part of the plan.
I am telling you, common planning and lesson plans have never been easier to work on and keep everyone on the same page.
Here is a screen shot of the lesson plans we leave with and then as I stated before each teacher can then access these plans on Google Drive and adapt them for their specific classroom need and liking.
I truly hope this was helpful. If not please ask any questions you have, and if you have a better way to use and plan with Google Drive I'd be very interested in hearing about it.
I even use Google Drive for my shopping list also. I have a document that I share with my husband and we can both add items to it. If either of us goes to the store we can check the document and get the items needed without having the "list" from the front of the fridge. We each have the Google Drive and Docs app on our phone. The Doc I made looks like this, but you can make it however you would like.
And just for fun-
