BAKERSFIELD, CA. - Three local school districts are piloting a free Google application that will change the way students learn.
Panama Buena Vista, Beardsley and Greenfield districts have each started using a Google technology this year that is changing the way teachers interact with their students.
Actis Junior High School is one of the schools in the first phase of implementing Google Apps for Education this year. Ms. Taylor's seventh grade language arts class is learning to write a five-paragraph essay without pencil or paper.
"I'd have to take a stack of papers home, grade it, correct it, return it to them another day, hopefully the next day, sometimes two days later, and have them then rewrite it for a final draft or publication," said Ms. Taylor, who has been teaching for 16 years.
Now the revision process can take seconds. Using Google Apps For Education she can edit documents as students are writing. Ms. Taylor can also use Gchat to give students immediate and personal feedback for each draft.
"So then we're able to take that process that could have been one or two weeks even three weeks, we've got it down to a five day period," said Ms. Taylor.
The Panama Buena Vista Union School District decided to implement the new application partly to make classroom time more efficient, and collaborative.
"It's making it so classrooms aren't islands anymore. Classrooms are connected. They can share a document. A 7th grade student can share with an 8th grade student and the 8th grade student can peer edit it, they have an extra year under their belt of writing and everything, and they can get some really great feedback,"said Steve Johnson, Curriculum and Technology Specialist for Panama Buena Vista Union School District.
The best feedback about the app comes from the 7th graders.
"It helps us remember more of what we've learned and then we can go back and see what we've learned because it never shuts you out or anything," said Fayth Garibay.
"When you misspell a word it has a red underlining so you can click on it and it will show how the real word is spelled and you can spell it correctly the next time so you won't have to recorrect it," said Jeremiah Iribarran.
The app helps with better spelling and peer sharing all while keeping students secure.
"The students cannot email outside of the domain of our Panama Buena Vista domain within Google," said Johnson. "And they can't receive emails outside. So the cool thing is its like an internal email for them to collaborate with each other and a teacher and that's it."
Students like that the application is available at anytime, so when they get home they can keep working on a class assignment.
The Panama Buena Vista Union School District has equipped all fourth grade classrooms with the app, along with seventh and eighth grade math and language arts classes. The district says they are hoping to include all 3rd, 5th and 6th grade classrooms by the end of the school year.