Google classrooms in Columbia County take learning to new technological heights

Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2019

News 12 This Morning

COLUMBIA COUNTY, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) -- Billions of people are taking advantage of the search engine Google every day. The Columbia County School District is adding to that number by challenging their teachers to level up.​

Hundreds of Columbia County teachers are by adding a personalized touch to their classroom with the help of Google

"We have about 350 level one Google-certified educators in Columbia County," said Director of Digital Learning Nicholas Carroll. "We have right under 100 Google level-two certified educators, and then we have 13 Google trainers."

Teacher Erica Cox is one of those 13 Google-certified trainers in the district, and she says since incorporating Google into her lesson plans she's seen an increase in student engagement.

"A lot of the projects that we post in the google classroom, which is the house for everything they will do that is digital is are accessible 24/7. So the kids can show their parents, explain it to their parents, work collaboratively with their parents, but they also work on it over evenings and weekends," Cox explained.

Cox is clicking through some of the projects her students have been able to create just by using the tools in their Google classroom.

"We have allowed them to use google drawings to make those images. They've actually started with an entirely blank canvas and have used the tools to develop this entire presentation that they have here."

The school system says they will continue to push this initiative, hoping to take their classrooms to new technological heights.

"They also can work together, collaboratively from two different devices on one presentation. So, it really fosters that critical thinking, their creativity, as well as be able to collaborate with each other both face to face but, also via the internet," Cox said.

Carroll is happy with how the project is going as well.

"They are actually collaborating with their peers in a real-time environment which, allows the classroom to extend outside the walls of the building."

There are 50 certified trainers in the state of Georgia, and 4,000 trainers around the world. ​