It’s Alive- testing Google Hangout

A response to the It’s Alive! Activity
created by Melanie Doyle (@mdoylerdh)

Number of views: 388

My learner challenge was that they do not feel engaged, they feel they are “teaching themselves” and they really miss the classroom. This is also my challenge, is that I too miss the classroom and notice they aren’t nearly as engaged as I would like them to be. I disagree with the comment they are teaching themselves, I know how much work I put into the lesson plans, the content and the delivery so I can assure them they are not teaching themselves! However I do want to engage them more and I want to make them more accountable for their learning. I do use a lot of technology but decided for this Ontario Extend course I would explore a new technology I have not used, Google Hangouts. Along with this I explored Google Docs as well, many students already use this when doing group work.

I have a couple of assignments this summer (COVID-19 summer) that are usually in class presentations so I will be moving them to online. My goal is to have them do the assignment with a partner and then present it to a small group of peers, live. I feel this makes them more accountable to the content they have written about and they will then hear others research and learn about a topic they did not research. I know we could use WebEx (as our school is using this most often), or Microsoft Teams, but I wanted to see about using Google Hangouts. I Looked at reviews and comparisons of Zoom, Google Hangout, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and WebEx. The short research I did had Google hangouts as the winner. Here is a link to one article I found helpful, although it has Google Meet as the winner I chose Google Hangout because it is free and Meet is part of G Suite which will not be free after Covid is over.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/zoom-vs-microsoft-teams-vs-google-meet-a-videoconferencing-face-off

I attached a picture collage of my “prototype”, I went and found how to set up a Google Hangout and then post that link to my LMS (Blackboard) and invite students. While it is still in the test stage, it works and all I need now is to test with friends and then roll it out when the semester begins in 2 weeks.

I do think Microsoft Teams will be a close second contender as our students have access to this for free and it may end up being my next exploration exercise.

Overall I feel any live gathering (video) during this time of isolation is essential to engage students with the content and it also allows the students who need to see a real person, ask questions real time and just feel less alone to feel they are part of a classroom. Putting our content online should not mean students do not get to see us and it should be a great opportunity for us as educators to show students technology that they can use now with classmates, but also with family and friends. It will also be a great skill to carry into their careers.