Google/Google Docs/Hypothes.is

 It was really fun to explore Google Docs a little more in-depth this past week. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on them, but had no idea that you could annotate within Google Docs! I have been doing that manually for years so that is nice to know. In terms of using Google/Google Docs in the classroom, I think the opportunities are endless. Docs is great if students are working on assignment/paper together. They do not necessarily need to be together to progress through the assignment. One thing I was thinking about was Google Forms. While this may not contribute to direct student collaboration, it is an important tool for gathering information for a research paper. Students could send out polls/questions to the class and receive immediate feedback. This would come as indirect student collaboration. 

We did some work in Jamboard which was especially great! Much like the rest of Google, Jamboard could be used for various work and student collaboration. It could be used as a discussion board like we did in class. I think a new/different idea would be using it as a functioning worksheet in class. If we did a reading, having various questions posted to have people respond to. Also, along those lines, we could do group work and provide each group with a Jamboard within one to create questions for the class, etc. I think splitting the class into groups and creating Jamboards would really expand the potential. 

In terms of Hypothes.is, I really liked using it, but interestingly enough, felt a little "unsafe" using it. Now, I know all of our data is collected on everything we use and to think otherwise is dumb. When it comes to my online life being public, I try to keep everything locked up as best as possible from the public eye. This was a little outside of my comfort zone, even if it was just annotations. I think it is a great tool for the classroom though! It was incredibly easy to use and straightforward. I was able to access what everyone else wrote and build off of their ideas too. I normally view annotations as in the way and annoying when done online (like comments in Google Doc), but I did not feel that way with Hypothes.is. It would definitely be a tool that I want to use in my classroom in the future! I may just create a group instead so students can post there, rather than have them be public.